As you walk through the front door, you enter the hall which runs down the entire west side of the house.

Looking straight ahead, you see the back door. Just to the left, along the wall is the stairs to the second floor. To the right is the parlor.

A window has been cut into the wall separating the hall from the parlor. This was for ventilation and light.

On a winter day, the parlor door would be closed to retain heat but the window would allow the light from the setting sun to enter the room through the hallway.

When you look at the door to the parlor, the woodwork makes it appear that there was a transom window above the door. This is misleading. There were never any transom windows above the doors of the house; the shelves and brackets were installed to raise the height of the doors to match the windows and balance the rooms

In warm weather especially, the hall could be used as a gathering place. Perhaps the family may haved dined there occasionally, the ladies could sit there and sew or James Latta would conduct business with some of his customers. Since it was unheated, it was probably not used during the coldest days of the year and the doors leading to the parlor and dining room were probably shut.

A corner cupboard containing china currently sits near the rear door. This exmple is one of the finest locally made pieces in our collection however there is no documentation for the Latta's owning a similar piece. When the Lattas were in residence, there was probably a table here instead. The table would have been used to do final preparation on food before it was carried into the dining room.

Underneath the stairs themselves is one of North Carolina's finest built in closets. Closets as a whole were rare but many houses enlosed the space under the stairs for this prupose. They were not really necessary for clothes storage, since even the wealthiest had a very limited wardrobe by our standards and could easily store everything in dressers, trunks, hanging from pegs, or draped over chairs. In addition, since the population was very mobile, furniture such as the corner cupboard was preferred, because it could be taken with you.

The stairs face the front door. There is a false banister on the left side to give balance. The wave and scroll design on the risers is unusual and is an attractive feature of the staircase.

Overall, the hall qualifies as a very pleasant and, at least during the summer, functional room.