Trenton Makes

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More About Trenton Makes

Trent House in an Era of Rapid Change

The Housee's Architecture & Footprint

​The House is an excellent example of an early Georgian house. This architectural style is based on classical forms of the Italian Renaissance period and was the first architect-inspired style built in America, reflecting a period of growth and prosperity and a desire for more formally designed buildings. Construction followed building manuals called “pattern books” that began arriving in the colonies around 1700. Common features of Georgian style buildings include: a symmetrical form and window placement; multi-paned sliding sash windows; five bays with center doors and hall; hipped or side-gabled roof with dentilated or modillioned cornices; brick or stone walls with a water table and/or belt course; and a transom window over a paneled front door. These features are all found on the Trent House.

​The interior has a central floor plan, with a large entry and staircase and four rooms on each floor, and is little altered, retaining its the original stairway and floor boards. The nine fireplaces and cellar kitchen hearth are all in good condition, with one fireplace on the second floor surrounded by its original Delft tiles.

Analysis of building materials used in the Trent House indicates that the exterior walls are made of locally produced brick conforming to 1683 regulations on a foundation of fieldstone. The ventilated roof is crowned by a hexagonal cupola with weather vane. Segmental arches over the main windows are of imported Dutch brick and pointing was sand and lime mortar. Structural and trim woodwork, both interior and exterior, is of oak and pine, with exterior paint in two layers – a reddish brown primer with high oil content on which was a white lead-in-oil finish paint.

The interior walls were plastered over oak plank and lath and then whitewashed. Window sashes and most hardware were imported. Wood paneling and trim were finished with a yellow/white semi-gloss oil, with baseboards and baseboard height accents on trim and doors painted in gloss black made of lamp black and linseed oil.

Window sashes and most hardware were imported. Wood paneling and trim were finished with a yellow/white semi-gloss oil, with baseboards and baseboard height accents on trim and doors painted in gloss black made of lamp black and linseed oil.

The house that William Trent built more than 300 years ago has undergone many changes during that period. By the time the house was donated to the City of Trenton in 1929, the roof had been lowered and the cupola removed, porticos had been built on both entrances, and a large two story wing was added to the east side. In 1934 restoration of the house to its colonial appearance, as stipulated in the gift by the last owner Edward A. Stokes, began with dismantling these additions, raising the roof line, and replacing the cupola, as well as refinishing the interior according to the best information of the day. Click here for a detailed description of the architectural evolution of the house and its initial restoration in 1934-1936, as documented by Kevin Joy.

In 2017 during repairs to the roof of the house an old shoe was found in the cornice. This immediately raised many questions - whose shoe was it? Was it placed there on purpose or lost by a workman? if placed there, why? We consulted with experts about the shoe itself and research about why it might have been found there revealed a long-standing tradition, brought from Europe to America, of placing objects in the fabric of buildings. To learn more, see here

Working in Trenton's Factories & Homes

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Explore our other stories.

First People

Colonial Trenton

Trenton At War

Trent House's Neighbbors

Becoming The Museum We Are Today