Government House gets a makeover
The first lady offers the first look at the renovation of the Victorian Room, to the immediate right as one enters the house, which boasts 54 rooms, including seven public ones on the main floor. The work began last August and wrapped up in April.
The project was funded, at no cost to taxpayers, by the nonprofit organization The Foundation for the Preservation of the Government House of Maryland Inc.
“The Victorian Room is where the first ladies used to host their guests with tea,” Hogan says. “I worked with specialists, experts in the Victorian era. We pored through the archives and checked every detail for accuracy — color, fabric, patterns.”
“The sun comes in very bright through these ‘wedding dress’ curtains,” she says.
The room and its furnishings have a soft, pinkish hue. High on the walls are the portraits of 10 other Maryland first Ladies, from Priscilla Dorsey Ridgely (1762-1814) to Barbara Oberfeld Mandel (born 1920).
Sheltered by a gilded curlicue frame, first lady Georgine Urquhart McLane (1815-1899) holds a bouquet of flowers in her lap that echo the colors of the room.
“The portraits were up on the third floor,” Hogan says. “Now tourists can see them.”
The new wallpaper is an all-over French block print pattern in several subtle hues of pink. It is a reproduction of a print used on the walls of the Greek Revival IngeStoneham House built in Chappell Hill, Texas, in 1850, and torn down in 1978.
In the quest for the perfect wall covering, Hogan and her team looked through more than 700 books of wallpaper samples. Many modern wallpapers were rejected outright, since most are now laminated for ease of care.
The Washington-based fabrics firm Scalamandre found a copy of the IngeStoneham House wallpaper and produced a black-and-white copy for the team to examine.
Hogan says she spent hours with the historians and the Government House butler, Barbara Harward-Troska, agonizing over color choices for the custom-made wallpaper, which they wanted to coordinate with the room’s planned upholstery and the patterned La Salle carpet, reproduced by the Langhorne Carpet Company of Penndel, Pa.
Set on the patterned carpet, and against the backdrop of the wallpaper, two of the room’s vintage parlor side chairs are upholstered in a soft green fabric. Two parlor armchairs and a settee have been refurbished with a dark pink patterned Scalamandre fabric.
The carved walnut chairs are examples of the Eastlake Movement. Though ornately detailed, they are intended to be easier to clean and maintain.
The chairs sporting green upholstery were trimmed with colored silk tassels that coordinate with the room’s color scheme. They also match with the tassels rimming the elegant geranium “Tikka” drapes from Calico Corners and the tasseled cords holding the drapes in place.
At the center of the room is a low marbletopped coffee — or tea — table.
The room’s primary color, pink, was chosen by Hogan because it is feminine. It honors the first ladies, she says, who were women leaders of their time. Besides, pink was a color favored in the Victorian period. Additionally, in examining the portraits, she found five had strong pink undertones.
Displayed on small marble-topped tables or walnut sideboards are Victorian artworks: a romantic porcelain couple, “Maid and Suitor,” from Meissen, Germany; a pair of delicate painted enamel and cut-crystal glass vases set on the white marble mantel of the wood-burning fireplace; and an elegant, French gilt bronze clock. Even the chandelier — originally a gas lamp — and the ornamental ceiling medallion are from the era of Queen Victoria.
“It is my favorite room,” says Hogan, pulling a lacy white sheer curtain panel back to look into the front garden. “It is very dear to me because I feel most close with the history of our first ladies.
“With this renovation,” she adds, “it feels like I have all the first ladies with me. It’s uplifting.”
Hogan brings her guests into another room, a sitting room almost as formal as the Victorian Room but with a more modern look.
The walls are painted cream and the room’s upholstered pieces feature solid cream fabrics or fabrics with cream backgrounds. The chairs and the couch were all recently re-upholstered.
Hanging on a far wall are two framed photos of the first couple. One shows Hogan and her husband entering the governor’s inaugural ball last year; the other shows them enjoying their wedding reception in the gardens at historic Paca House.
She opens another door, leading down a short set of steps into the private room the Hogan family uses to watch TV and movies. Though vintage china is on display in a large floor-to-ceiling built-in cabinet, the overall mood of the room is of comfort and ease. Three chocolate leather couches form a “C” — the better to socialize or view the screen.
On the walls are three of the first lady’s paintings. One, which appears to be a living room scene, is from the period in her artistic life when she was painting with oils in a realistic style.
Two other paintings showcase her evolving style. One is a colorful, dappled scene, the other an abstract vision of two crossed branches.
“Why did my style change? I went to American University and changed my medium — from oil to watercolor-based Sumi ink,” says Hogan, who continues working in ink as a part-time instructor at the Maryland Institute College of Art.
Hogan retraces her steps, heading back to the public rooms on the opposite side of Early in the new administration, Yumi Hogan moved this portrait of Frederick Douglass from the bottom of the main staircase to a prominent spot in the Drawing Room. the foyer.
Early in the Hogan administration, the first lady decided to move a portrait of Frederick Douglass from the bottom of the main staircase to a prominent spot in the Drawing Room.
“It has more space here,” she says. “Out in the foyer, people walked right by it and didn’t really stop to look at it. People mingle, here, in this room. They have time to look at it.”
The Drawing Room features scarlet walls, dark cream wainscoting and ceiling dentil molding, accented with white trim.
Across from the Douglass portrait is a landscape showing Baltimore and its harbor circa 1839, painted by the British artist William Henry Bartlett.
The adjacent room, the Blue Parlor, has seen a slight change, too. A settee that had been used in the upstairs private quarters was brought downstairs and reupholstered in wide gold-toned stripes.
The Reception Room has been papered with green fabric, now sporting a refreshing lime-green color Hogan calls “Sounds of Nature Green.”
On the far end of the main floor is The Conservatory. It, too, has been freshened up with a brighter shade of yellow paint and reupholstered chairs and couches.
Looking around at the work she and her team accomplished, the first lady smiles.
“Before I am the first lady,” she says, “I am an artist.”