Belmont Mansion is a historic house located in Nashville, Tennessee. Built in 1849 by Joseph and Adelicia Acklenit it is one of the most elaborate antebellum homes in the South. Today the mansion is owned by the Belmont Mansion Association and Belmont University.
Belmont Mansion undertook a project to preserve the monumental, cantilevered staircase. As part of a larger plan involving the Upper Gallery and Grand Salon, the stair was the primary focus of what became a four-year endeavour.
Having supplied other carpets in the mansion, Belmont turned to Grosvenor Wilton to recommend colours for the staircase carpet based on historic carpet patterns and an 1890 photograph Belmont had of the staircase. The photograph was scanned and enhanced, allowing for enough detail to determine the basis of the carpet’s design. As was typical of the mid-19th century, the pattern consisted of two borders and a central floral design.
In autumn 2020, the carpet was shipped from the Grosvenor Wilton factory in Kidderminster to a family-owned company in Cincinnati, which installed the historically inspired carpet in the summer 2021. For the first time in 130 plus years, Belmont Mansion has patterned carpet on the stairs again.
The historic carpet pattern used for the mansion staircase was chosen based on a surviving college era photo taken of the stairs in 1890.