Sounds pre-electric.

Windows,lanterns, gas jets are the source of light.

Ahh! Just got an image of myself setting all the clothes on fire trying to use a candle to find my slippers rofl!

I can't really answer your question other than say most old houses didn't have closets, they used standing cupboards, armoirs, ect.

But, I must say your house is spectacular. What are your plans? Restoration or remodel? The woodwork is amazing and looks to be pretty much intact throughout the house? The doors - wonderful. I do hope you restore, but there is MUCH work there to be done. Please tell me more about your house.
Also, where was the original kitchen?

Schoolhouse: Thank you, yes we are for certain planning to restore!

The sellers left tons of boxes there and we asked that everything remain (it was an estate) and they couldn't understand why, when all of the "nice things" had already been sold at auction, lol! I can't wait to go through the boxes, as I saw what I believe are blueprints and there are tons of books! We plan to remove a bathroom they put into what was probably a study right at the top of the stairs and turn it into a small library with the books that were in the house.

I have always wanted a project like this and I can't wait to get started! As for the kitchen... that's apparently the horribly faux-panelled room with the fake wall. We plan to take out the panelling (hopefully there's plaster beneath) and open it back into a large eat-in kitchen. The place is essentially a blank slate inasmuch as there are no appliances, no countertops, no real bathrooms... but I'm in love!

How large is the closet? It's possible it was actually a sewing room originally. If you plan to use it as a closet and it ever gets direct sunlight, make sure you seal the light out; a friend lost her entire wardrobe due to sunlight through a window bleaching out the clothes.

Chibimimi - Hmm. It seems so narrow to have been a sewing room. I just can't figure why out of 7 bedrooms this is the only closet. I know they were rare then but why one at all? The sunlight issue was definitely on my mind, thanks!

Weren't there things such as airing out closets?

Also if it is 6' wide or so it could be a bedroom for a servant. An antique sized mattress is 72" long, and a 3/4 mattress 75" long and there were mattresses less than twin width at 33" wide. I've seen very narrow bedrooms in some pretty large houses. I've also seen plans with servant's toilets in the basement, so accomodation of servants was often minimal at best.

Terrific house! Can't wait to see what you do with it - & you're so lucky to have all the boxes of 'junk'.

Is the room large enough to have been a trunk room or a small nursery? In my experience, a closet in 1875 woud be unusual.

My 1915 house has original closets in each bedroom, and everyone of them has a window. Likely because they didn't run lights to every closet I assume. The only un-windowed closets are the small coat closets in the great room

Good GOD, your house is amazing! I could look at the photos for hours! Talk about a dream house.

(Sorry I don't have anything more constructive to say!)

civ - that is so cool! I have never heard of anything like that, but I guess that's the real charm of the old places... you never know what you'll get!

jlc - That's plenty constructive! We only found out yesterday that we got it (been waiting for a seller reply for 14 days on pins and needles) and so I am still running around in a half daze that it's going to be mine, lol!

antique - Actually a small nursery seems possible now that you mention it. I think it's too narrow for a servant, I imagine they would be obtrusive just moving around in there and since the place has a separate 'servant's quarters' it didn't seem worth putting someone in there, but a nursery I could see...

OMG I love this forum, lol!

might this one closet have been a trunk / suitcase room?

" I just can't figure why out of 7 bedrooms this is the only closet."

Very unlikely it is a clothes closet then.

Armoires (morphed into chiffoniers) ruled for a long time before closets.

An armoire for hanging clothes and a chest of drawers for smaller items.

My grandparents' house was built about 1850-ish. There was a large linen closet on the second floor that had a window. Partly to have light in there and partly, I think, to keep the number of windows balanced when viewing the house from outside. The closet was large enough that it was eventually turned into a small bathroom.

I recently toured Orchard House, the home of Louisa May Alcott, that has been restored to about the same time period, 1857, and the parents' bedroom had a large, walk-in style closet with a window. The other bedrooms didn't have closets, or at least I didn't notice any.

Just the speculation here is fun! I really hope the giant rolled paper in the attic eaves is as I suspect the blueprint. Maybe it will say for certain.

You have found what I would consider my dream porch and it comes with that bonus sun room (hmm...what I could grow there)! That is a FABULOUS house! And you are right, you sure did take on a big project. Congratulations!!!

I assume there is no moving in until you have working utilities anyway, but do you have plans to do some work, then move and and do more, or do the whole project before living there? I only ask, because that is one very large house, wow.

And oh, the closet.... I have a friend with a large stone house from late 1800's and they have a walk in closet in their main bedroom. 5 bedrooms and it is the only one with a closet. It has a window also. I always assumed it was for a mini-nursery. It is really way too big for a closet back then.

In the addition we just added to make our master bedroom, we had to put a window in my walk in closet also (to balance the outside of the house). I hadn't thought about needing to protect my clothing from light, I am very glad Chibimimi mentioned that.

We are definitely planning to do some of the major updating then move in. Our goal is to have a roof, plumbing run and at least one functional bathroom, radiator heat back online, all electrical updated and replace any rotted places and close the ceilings up by next fall. Then we can probably move in and do a room by room sort of thing to complete.

I had a 1926 colonial. Every bedroom has a walk-in closet (unusual, for the time, I know, but they're original). Every one of them has a lovely casement window--the original wood ones with a larger center pane, small corner squares and longer top, bottom and side rectangles. Each bedroom otherwise has windows facing only one direction, so I've always figured the closet windows (which for the most part face a different direction than the main room ones do) were there for some cross-ventilation back in the days before AC.

Now, if you've ever had casement windows, you know they're a very difficult window to 'curtain' if you want to be able to open them. We solved that problem and cut down a bit on the light in the closets attacking our clothes by putting in stained glass. We have frosted, bubbled glass for the center pane, the corner squares are a lovely straw gold, and the rectangles are a light green. We used the same stained glass in the casement windows in the living and dining rooms--and they were one of the big selling points when we listed our house for sale last winter. Half the houses on the street were the same style--but none had the beautiful original windows, nor stained glass--ours stood out from the flock.

Your home's lovely--have fun with the restoration and enjoying the results of your hard work.

That is one beautiful house you've got there. Just for some encouragement, I'll post this picture, taken a month or so after we moved in to our "fixer upper". You're not alone!

This was taken last week-end. I won't tell you how many years it took, because you might get depressed, but it is more about the journey with these old homes. We do everything ourselves, so it does take us awhile...
Don't be in too much of a hurry, because there is so much to learn and discover about homes such as yours, and sometimes when one moves too fast, mistakes are made and things are lost.

And you will want to learn how to plaster. It's funny because everything you read, and every contractor you talk to, will go on about how it's a lost art, steep learning curve, not for the faint hearted, -et al. Well, we've done a million miles of it, and it's no harder than a cat 5 drywall job. Don't be intimidated, and don't believe what you hear. Any contractor you might find willing to plaster your walls will charge you an enormous amount because no one does it, -and so they can. And the beauty of the internet means all the plasters can be purchased with ease, as well as all the other old house stuff that pre-internet was really tough to track down.

Do it yourself. Read, study, then practice in less significant rooms. You'll be glad you did.

Oh Clarion it is beautiful! Please tell me a little about what you did to arrive at such a difference!

Well said Clarion.

We live in a home that was built in 1911 in Seattle. Just today I removed shutters from the exterior of one of our bedroom closet windows that had been caulked and painted shut. Turns out the shutters weren't original (glad). Our house has two bedrooms and both had closets with windows in them. It's astounding how hard its been to find information on these windows. Both were boarded over from the inside when we bought the house 21 years ago. We were told that the closet windows were for airing out clothes which makes sense to me. Neither window had hardware, but just sits loose within the opening. Been trying to figure out what type of hardware to use so I can remove my daughter's rusted twelve year old bobby pins which were jammed in after a hired power-washer blew the window inward and onto the bathroom floor!

thehistoricdistrict.org is also another great resource/ forum - where we restorationists can really get into the minutiae of how to do something.

BTW drywallers and most contractors push drywall only because that is how they make their living and that is what they know how to do in a cost-effective way. So, they will tend to advise yanking it all out - even for some minor cracking and bowing - simply because FOR THEM to do it, it would indeed be cheaper to drywall vs. them learning/getting up to speed on how to do plastering.

I certainly do NOT begrudge them a living wage and a healthy profit - but they certainly can be the source of much misinformation about plastering, the extent of repair that is possible using old methods, and the necessity of removing it to install plumbing and electrical (not necessary - just get the right plumber and electrician who knows how to do it).

What ev else said about it being a beautiful house - its the right mix of being original and untouched (not remuddled) and yet not TOO far gone.

Just found this thread. I'm surprised no one has mentioned the "Closet Tax". Supposedly, the story goes, was that you were taxed according to how many rooms were in the home, and closets were counted as rooms. This would explain these later additions of walls to create closet space in sometimes odd locations. But it turns out (according to some sources anyway) that that is an urban legend of sorts. Whatever the case may be its still an interesting story. Cheers.

https://historymyths.wordpress.com/tag/closet-tax/

Our house is about the same age, also have a window in the closet downstairs, its there because a wall was made so a closet could be made behind it. I don't like it, but what can you do. other closets upstairs, mostly for storage, we don't heat the upstairs.

I was also going to direct you to http://www.thehistoricdistrict.org/ but kashka_kat beat me to it.

Your home is amazing. I'd love to see what you've done to it since you purchased!

Could it have been a non plumbed bathroom at one time? Maybe where the chamber pot was kept.

If you look at the old house plans on antiquehomestyles.com, a surprising number of them mention a window in a closet as a feature. I still don't understand why, really, except for easier ventilation. I notice that the ads for those retractable closet systems that were very popular in the early 1920s for those odd narrow deep closets make a big deal about the fact that you can pull the entire rack of clothes out at once to air them all.

EDIT The Wardway Newport for instance, talks about the "well-lighted coat closet":

http://antiquehomestyle.com/plans/montgomery-ward/1930/30mw-newport.htm

We had to replace a screen that was torn and had to buy a roll of screen. We stored what we didn't need in the closet and don't know if we should buy new screening since now another screen needs replaced. Thanks.

Re original post, how big is the room in question - one possibility that hasnt been mentioned is nursery. I have a tiny 6x8 room with window that was used as a nursery - Im certain cos when prepping walls for painting I uncovered some old stencils of clowns and puppies and stuff.

I was told that the reason for a window in the clothes closet is because way back in the 1800's people didn't take bathes often ,so to air out their clothes they would open the window in the closet and that idea continued