Caroline Harrison’s 1891 Music Room

In 1880 Yergason formed a partnership with the junior partner of
Talcott & Post, William Post, creating their own firm of William H.
Post & Company. As the lead designer responsible for running the
entire decorating department including the supervision of in-house and
contracted workers, Yergason was soon well-established as New England’s
premier creator of “artistic homes” and provider of “smart furnishings.”
¹¹
William H. Post & Company’s business expanded as ever more
prominent commissions came in for residences, hotels, and private clubs
in New York, Boston, and Washington, D.C.

Yet Mrs. Harrison’s selection of Yergason to assist in a
redecoration of the White House remains intriguing, for he was still
relatively obscure in the decade that had seen Louis Comfort Tiffany’s celebrated work there in 1882. It turns out that Yergason had been
brought to the attention of the first lady by a highly placed individual
in her husband’s administration, Secretary of the Treasury William
Windom. Windom’s elegant Washington residence at 1422 Massachusetts
Avenue had recently been furnished by William H. Post & Company.¹²
Her interest piqued, Mrs. Harrison also visited the apartments of
Captain George E. Lemon in the Shoreham Hotel in December 1889.
Accompanied by four cabinet wives, she toured the apartment and was
delighted by Yergason’s decorations of cream-colored silk portieres
lined in pink, plush gold draperies from the Paris Exposition, and
absinthe green carpet. The press estimated that Lemon spent $10,000
decorating his apartment.¹³ Mrs.
Harrison invited Yergason to meet with her at the White House the next
day for a consultation. Walking through the State Floor of the
residence, the two began to discuss possible schemes. From this initial
meeting was born a collaboration that would last three years and prove
to be Yergason’s most significant commission.

The Green Room Redecoration

From the beginning of their
collaboration, an astute Yergason devoted his talents to satisfying the
first lady. He advised on the selection of new curtains for the East
Room and on the decor of the private quarters of the first family on the
Second Floor. The fullest expression of Mrs. Harrison’s taste and
Yergason’s talents can be seen in the refurbishment of the Blue Room
(1890), Green Room, State Dining Room, and Vestibule, today known as the
Entrance Hall (1891), and the Cross Hall (1892).

It is not clear when Yergason was first approached to refurbish
the Green Room. Mrs. Harrison may have voiced her desire to improve the
parlor while Yergason was redecorating the Blue Room in 1890. In any
case, William H. Post & Company submitted Edgar Yergason’s proposal
for refurbishing the Green Room, the Vestibule, and the State Dining
Room on May 29, 1891.¹⁴ Caroline
Harrison surveyed the estimates closely with Colonel Oswald Ernst,
superintendent of public buildings and grounds. Delighted with the plans
for the refurbishment, Colonel Ernst, in a letter dated June 10, 1891,
to William H. Post & Company, approved the Green Room plans. It was
important that work begin immediately upon the departure of the
Harrisons for Cape May for their summer vacation and be completed by
their return in October. Yergason complied with the request “to make all
preliminary arrangements and be prepared” to start work on July 1.¹⁵

As is customary at the White House, the messy work was conducted
at a brisk pace during the summer while the first family was away. Those
who found themselves entering the White House had to make their way
through a maze of scaffolding, ladders, canvas, and paint cans.
Washingtonians, who enjoyed access to the President’s Park, could hear
the sounds of the workmen echoing from within the White House.
Journeying home to Connecticut with the approved plans finalized and the
work under way, Yergason stopped just long enough in New York City to
give an interview. “It is impossible,” he teased, to go into all the
“tedious details” about his recent commission. “I certainly think it can
be surprisingly artistic and acceptable to the highest aesthetic
taste.” When pressed for more specifics he replied that the new Green
Room “style will be rococo” and will “look like a boudoir.” With
characteristic immodesty Yergason concluded the interview proclaiming
the completed interior “will be a dream of beauty.”¹⁶

For the Green Room, Yergason exaggerated elements of the
Chippendale or rococo style with the amplitude typical of late
nineteenth-century taste. He made no attempt to create a historically
accurate parlor of the mid-eighteenth century. Instead, a playful
selection of design elements associated with the era of feminine grace
and elegant living were picturesquely combined. “Wiser,” wrote Arnold
Brunner and Thomas Tryon in
Interior Decoration (1887), “to follow the spirit of a style as far as we can, but modernizing and adapting it.”¹⁷