Entrance Hall and Morning Room

Entrance Hall and Morning Room

Entrance Hall

The spacious entrance hallway is ninety feet long with sixteen-foot ceilings. It is visually divided by the fluted Corinthian columns that were added in the mid-1920s, replacing earlier Victorian Romanesque Ionic columns. The handmade crimson and gold carpet commemorates the mansion's 1991 centennial. Woven into the carpet are many of the state's symbols, the city of Raleigh symbol of an oak leaf and acorn, and the names and terms of 25 governors who occupied the mansion during the first hundred years. Portraits of some of the former governors hang in the hallway, and two sixteen-light chandeliers also grace the entrance. The red- and gold-carpeted Grand Staircase, with heart-of-pine balusters and rails, features hand-carved oak leaf decorations and stylized acorn finials on newel posts. The staircase has been used for many grand entrances by many occupants and guests through the years. The staircase leads to the second floor, the private living and dining quarters for the first family.

Morning Room

Originally open, then screened in, this porch on the east side was glassed in during the summer of 1980. The room is often used by the first family for their evening meals. The wicker furniture in this room has been in use since the early 1930s. The long settee has been in the house since the 1890s. The chandelier motifs of oak leaves and acorns were selected to represent Raleigh, the City of Oaks.