Fireplaces within a Space
by Damon Gorkiewicz
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Photo 01 from Box 8
As you walk through Glensheen, you see the wallpaper, lighting fixtures, woodwork, paintings, and other various antiquities. But as you go through each room... You notice just how many fireplaces there are. In almost every room, there is at least one fireplace, with each having a completely different design and even color. Now, if all of these actually worked, there would probably be far more chimneys on the roof, which tells you that most of them don't work. But, why? Why do all these rooms have fireplaces that don't work? This blog post will explain exactly why.
The First Floor
The First Floor
Starting on the first floor, there are three main fireplaces: the Library, the Dining Room, and the Smoking Room. Each fireplace shows different types of decor on the outside of the fireplace. Using tile, brick, and wood to work around the fireplaces. All varying in color and size to match the opulence of the room, the fireplace is centered.
Starting with the library, it uses tiling around the fireplace with a dark stained wood around the tiles to add more dimension to the fireplace and create a proper mantel piece. Which displays a painting and a couple of candles atop.
The Dining room uses wood molding around the fireplace to create the mantel, displaying a garland, various candles, and two candleabra lamps. Around the main fireplace area are three main sheets of marble slabs in golden yellow and white marble.
And finally, the first floor is the smoking room fireplace. In which is made of brick, almost completely, besides some black trim along the sides. To create the mantel, they made an upside-down brick staircase to create the shelf to hold the candle holder and the horse statue.
The Library
The Library
The Dining Room
The Dining Room
The Smoking Room
The Smoking Room
The Second Floor
The Second Floor
Master Bedroom
Master Bedroom
On the second floor, there are four main fireplaces, all located within the four main bedrooms: the Master Bedroom, Chester's Room, Helen's Room, and Marjorie's Room.
The Master Bedroom has a large mantle piece around the fireplace with side cupboards to hold various books and trinkets. The top of the mantel holds candles, and is able to have a painting hanging above the fireplace. The fireplace itself is made with a brown tile with four main painted tiles along the top, with the main colors being a yellow and green tone.
Chester's Room
Chester's Room
Chester's fireplace has a less grand mantel around his fireplace than the master bedroom does. The mantel is made of dark wood. The fireplace itself has a red-toned tile work surrounding it.
Helen's Room
Helen's Room
Helen's room has a very intricate fireplace with tons of small tiles in variouscolors of light grey, pink, and hunter green. The mantel itself is large and white with small embedded intricate woodwork along the sides and top.
Marjorie's Room
Marjorie's Room
Marjorie's fireplace is jutted out from the wall, creating two side nooks within her room. The fireplace itself has a white and black marbling around it with a white mantel piece with two columns on each side holding up the top.
The Third Floor
The Third Floor
On the third floor, there are six main fireplaces on the floor. In the six main rooms of this floor: The Boys Lounge, Walter's Room, Robert's Room, Edward's Room, The Married Guests' Room, and The Infirmary.
Boys Lounge
Boys Lounge
The boy's lounge fireplace is made with a brick form of tiling in a dark green color with a wooden mantel piece going around the fireplace.
Walter's Room
Walter's Room
Walter's fireplace is made with a painted tile of what looks to be a sort of plant. The mantel piece looks to be made of an oak-colored wood.
Robert's Room
Robert's Room
Robert's fireplace is made of a white tile with a side shelving piece on the side and a plain wood mantel around the tile.
Married Guest's Room
Married Guest's Room
The Married Guest's fireplace is large with white tiling and a green tile going along the top. The mantel is made of a white painted wood with side details and enough space along the top of the wall to hang a painting.
The Infirmary
The Infirmary
The infirmary fireplace has a beige tile with a brick-like format. With a large painted tile in the middle top with a landscape. The mantel is a simple wooden white one that frames the tile work.
Edward's Room
Edward's Room
Edward's fireplace is made with a dark green brick-like tile. The fireplace has a little awning above where the fire would be. The mantel around the fireplace is a light brown wood.
The Basement
The Basement
The Basement has one large fireplace that is almost entirely made out of brick with a small wooden inlaid piece to create a shelf for the mantel to hold various candles and a candlabra.
Why don't they work?
Why don't they work?
The idea for so many rooms to have fireplaces that all work would have involved a lot of chimneys for all of the smoke to go out of would have involved a lot more odd spaces within the floors, so, having most of these fireplaces not actually work but to just act as a centering piece to a room, makes more sense.
The house has actually been built with the idea of central heating. So, having fireplaces to actually heat wouldn't be very effective for the family. But the idea of having an aesthetic fireplace to sit by while working, studying, reading, etc, would be appealing. (especially for those who could afford to build 14 separate, decorative fireplaces)
Each fireplace, as well as just how many fireplaces there are in the house, always grabs my attention each time I walk through the house, and I always end up taking many pictures of all the fireplaces and filling up my iCloud storage over and over again.
credits
credits
Glensheen. 2019. "Explore the third floor." Accessed December 9, 2025. https://glensheen.org/go-beyond-the-ropes-but-please-dont-step-on-the-rugs/.
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