I've got a 1930 Dutch Colonial with the original bathroom. Except... that I have a skylight in the bathroom. Exactly like what you describe. It's on the back of the house, so it's not really visible from outside. It really doesn't affect the overall design of the bathroom at all. And I love the light that it provides. The window opens with the type of crank in the link below.

Here is a link that might be useful: Crank

Hi, I lived in a 100 yr old house with a bathroom skylight for 10 yrs, and still miss it 10 yrs after moving out. The skylight was fixed (didn't open) but had been well done - flashing and all, so there was never any question of leakage, and the light was wonderful (it was up in a sort of tallish box in the ceiling so didn't blind us) and I would kill to have it again.

My bathroom skylight is like Lucy's old one. My house was built in 1890 and the light and its stained glass are original. Because the bathroom is an interior room and very tall, it's nice to get some natural light in there. You can see it in this picture:

{{!gwi}}

"in a way that would require a tube of sorts (though I'm thinking square/size of the skylight) that went through the kneewall space above"

I don't know what you are trying to describe. Would it be a solar tube or a conventional skylight? What is the roof slope? Why would a conventional skylight look out of place?

We are in an 1890 home with 7 skylights. We have not had any problem with any of them. We have added the ones on the 2 nd floor when we had the attic converted to living space and added 1 in the kitchen reno we just did on the 1 st floor. They are all like the ones Lucy describes,,,up in a sheetrocked box . The main one on the 2nd floor has an electric opener and we use that all the time in summer to help with the heat gain in the deep South. Would you like pictures? c

We added "between the beam" skylights in both of our top floor bathrooms. Im so glad we did this. It adds great natural light and was relatively inexpensive since we were doing a total gut job.

We have a 100 year old limestone. Having natural light in a bathroom is really a luxury you shouldn't pass up.