WHARTON ESHERICK MUSEUM
The Bedroom

Esherick's bedroom was built when the floor below was still used as his major woodworking shop; hence, the entrance is a large trap door whose counterweight (above, left) is an abstract wooden figure as large as a child swinging from a rope. The heavy trap door was a convenient way to keep sawdust out of the bedroom.

The padauk and mahogany bed (above, right) with its built-in bureau drawers looks directly out a bank of windows onto the panorama of the Great Valley below. Throughout his life, Esherick kept a copy of "Walden" by David Thoreau near his bed. He used the book -- a paean to simple living and the quiet wonders of the natural world -- for inspiration and solace much the same as other people use the Bible.

The stuffed chair at the left is from architect George Howe, who used it as part of the Esherick exhibit he designed for the New York World's Fair that opened in 1939.

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