My understanding is also that this is a historic house myth, of which
there are MANY, and they get repeated and repeated until it seems that
they MUST be true (after all, you've heard it everywhere!). Local laws
and statutes varied greatly; and taxes weren't necessary based on room
counts anyway. Something that might have been true ONCE for ONE township
in ONE state gets generalized to be true everywhere all the time.

So perhaps people just weren't in the habit of having closets
universally, any more than they were in the habit of having indoor
plumbing. There were perfectly adequate wardrobes and chests for clothes
storage, why go to the trouble of adding a tiny extra room to your
building plans?

Incidentally, my site, Historic Locust Grove in Louisville, Kentucky,
was built in 1790 and HAS CLOSETS.

Carol Ely
Executive Director
Historic Locust Grove, Inc

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Museum discussion list [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
> Behalf Of Jennifer Ruffner
> Sent: Monday, August 09, 2004 11:24 AM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: Old Homes/Closets
>
> Interestingly, I was told in a recent visit to an historic home that
the
> closet tax story is a popular and pervasive myth.  I did a Google
search
> to see if there was anything online on it, and only found a single
> article by David Bush that also makes that claim
> (http://www.houseandhomeonline.com/historical0100.html).  There are
also
> numerous examples, including an NPS site, that use the closet tax
> explanation. Does anyone have a documented source for or against this
> story, and an alternative explanation if it is not true??
>
> **************************
> Jennifer Gayman Ruffner
> Heritage Coordinator
> Queen Anne's County, Maryland
> 410-604-2100
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Deb Fuller [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
> Sent: Monday, August 09, 2004 11:55 AM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: Old Homes/Closets
>
> --- Joann Lindstrom <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> > I took a tour of a historic home recently and was told by the guide
> that old
> > homes often do not have closets for a specific reason.
> >
> > Before I relay the reason given to my group, I would like to hear
from
> those
> > of you who may know--what do you tell the public about the lack of
> closet
> > space at your historic sites?
>
> How old is the house? I thought that originally it was because of the
> "room
> tax" and closets were considered rooms. Thus houses were built without
a
> lot of
> closets to avoid the tax and people used wardrobes. Plus, it's easier
to
> build
> a room without a closet, especially if people don't have a lot of
> clothes to
> begin with and wardrobes to boot. Old habits die hard, especially in
> architecture. Even today in the UK, you have to specify closets in
> rooms. The
> houses/flats aren't automatically built with them. (Or at least was
the
> case
> with my friend's new flat that was built recently. She even had to
> finish the
> molding and the trim and install the appliances. Egads.)
>
> Deb
>
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