Why Don’t Old Homes Have Closets?
If you’ve ever lived in an older home, you might have noticed a rather inconvenient omission: closet space. Modern homes sometimes devote spaces the size of a small room to hanging clothes and storing other personal belongings. But in older American houses, even ones built in the early 20th century, closets were often scarce or missing altogether, making us think twice about where everyone kept their stuff. So why don’t old homes have closets?
Closets Were Something Else
In 18th-century America, closets didn’t exist as we know them today. Instead, some colonial homes had small recessed spaces built beside fireplaces or incorporated into interior walls in other places, such as near a dining area. These spaces, inspired by English building traditions, were often called closets, but at the time the word referred to a small, enclosed space resembling a cupboard rather than a place to hang clothes or store holiday decor. In wealthier households, closets could even be small spaces for quiet activities such as reading or prayer.
Although a popular myth holds that colonial American homes lacked closets because homeowners were taxed for having them, there is no evidence of a closet tax in any of the 13 original colonies.
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Clothes Had Their Own Furniture
So, where did people put their clothes? In many 18th-century American homes, they kept them in dedicated stand-alone pieces of furniture.
Chests of drawers, clothes presses (also called linen presses), and trunks held clothing that wasn’t being worn. People also hung frequently used clothing on wall pegs, where it could air out between uses.
Notably, there wasn’t nearly as much clothing to store as there is today. Garments were expensive to produce, requiring not only fabric but also labor to cut, sew, and finish each garment. People of more modest means might own only two or three changes of clothing, and these garments were expected to be mended, well cared for, and used for years.
According to Colonial Williamsburg historians, a simple four-drawer chest could easily accommodate a working woman’s entire daily wardrobe as well as a few additional seasonal pieces in the 18th century. Clothing and textiles were even valuable enough to be listed individually in colonial-era probate inventories, which recorded a person’s possessions after death.
Built-In Closets Begin To Appear
Around 1840, a new kind of closet began appearing in American homes: a small, recessed storage space built into a bedroom wall. This design did something new: According to architectural historian Henry Urbach, the built-in closet helped homeowners enjoy their possessions while keeping them hidden from view.
After the Civil War, industrialization and improved transportation made a much wider variety of manufactured goods available to U.S. households, and by the late 19th century, mail-order catalogs from companies such as Montgomery Ward and Sears brought everything from clothing to toys within easy reach of people all over the country. Built-in closets became a convenient way to keep household goods tucked out of sight.
The Closet Becomes a Home Essential
By the early 20th century, closets were increasingly being touted as an essential part of a well-planned American home. A 1919 American Builder article recommended closets not only in every bedroom, but also in hallways, kitchens, and even attics, arguing that ample storage was necessary for the “peace of the family.”
The postwar housing boom helped make those ideas a reality. Standardized designs made storage an expected part of the home’s architecture, while closet rods and clothes hangers — increasingly common by the 20th century — made it easier to store garments without folding them away in drawers or hanging them from pegs.
Clothing wasn’t the only thing closets were used for. In 1953, the Small Homes Council recommended using living room closets to store items such as books, magazines, business papers, radios, record players, musical instruments, dinnerware, and folding chairs.
Industrial designer George Nelson’s 1940s Storagewall system featured a built-in record player and speakers along with shelves, drawers, a foldout desk, and hidden storage for games and other household items, all in a single wall unit.
The more belongings people continued to accumulate, the more useful built-in storage became. Unlike older houses which didn’t need and didn’t have closet space, modern homes came to be designed around the expectation that there'd be somewhere to put everything.
