Our collection contains many authentic reproductions of original wallpapers that were first used in this country, circa 1700-1895. During these years, sea captains returning from trading in France, England, and the Orient, brought back with them, as part of their cargo, handmade papers. These were designed by true artists who excelled in the creation and painting of wall hangings. Many of their designs were inspired by the valuable brocades and tapestries which adorned the homes of wealthy nobles and merchants. These imported papers were sold for the most part in New England seaport cities and towns.

Our sister company-Thomas Strahan Company, started selling mostly imported wallpapers in Boston in 1866 and several years later started manufacturing their own wallpaper collection, eventually creating over 12,000 designs. (5600 images from the archives can be found at www.wallpaperaficionado.com.)

The oldest (modern day) wallpaper company in America is Thomas Strahan founded in 1866, A.L. Diament in 1885, Thibaut in 1886, F. Schumacher in 1889, York Wallpaper in 1895, and Nancy McCelland Inc. in 1922.

In 1937 Dorothy and Clifford Waterhouse bought the Captain Jimmy Fish house on Cape Cod, circa 1799. During the renovation Dorothy uncovered seven layers of wallpaper- the early layers were hand blocked prints, some with the royal (English / French) seals and tax stamps intact on the back of the papers. Dorothy was smitten by the many layers of lovely designs with charming colorways, some of the earliest were quite primitive in execution. For many years thereafter, Dorothy Waterhouse visited lovely old New England homesteads, searching beneath layers of wallpaper or paint - or in attics, trunks, and old boxes - for fragments of original wall hangings. The results have been rewarding, for many documentary papers have been found with colors and designs almost as true as the day the papers were made. Since many were created before the machine age, they were often painted completely by hand, stenciled, or printed using hand carved wood blocks. The colors used were of home-mixed pigments and the designs superb examples of grace in composition.

What started out as a passionate hobby, became a business. In the late 1940s, Dorothy had a knock on the door from an artist - Binnie Wilson, who was sent by Warner Wallpaper out of Chicago to search New England for colonial designs that she could re-draw / re-scale / re-color (if necessary) and Warner would introduce. After months of scouring New England looking for documents, someone suggested she visit Dorothy Waterhouse. Dorothy, was initially reluctant about re-producing her documents commercially, but Binnie talked her into it. There were two collection books issued by Warner. The first collection book was introduced in 1950 and was titled-”Waterhouse Documentary Collection of Wallpaper and Matching Fabrics.” The second book, introduced in the mid to late 1950s,- the “Waterhouse Collection by Dorothy Waterhouse for the Warner Company”, like the first one was based on the re-coloring of Dorothy’s documents and printed and distributed by Warner Wallpaper. There was discussion about a third collection book being produced by Binnie Wilson and Warner but it never materialized. In the fall of 1959 Dorothy’s third collection book came out comprised of 13 designs- the wallpaper book was produced by Katzenbach and Warren with coordinating fabric produced by Greeff Fabrics. It is unclear how and when Dorothy was introduced to Katzenbach and Warren, but Bernard Scott, who eventually partnered with Dorothy, was the New England manager for Katzenbach and Warren, so there is a very good chance that there were acquainted with each other, and Bernard, an artist himself, probably convinced Dorothy to do the third collection book with Katzenbach and Warren. It appears Bernard and Dorothy were partners in the 1960s and 1970s while Bernard also maintained his status as a senior manager at Katzenbach and Warren. As Bernard became more enmeshed in Waterhouse he started recoloring the designs and printing the wallpaper stock on their own as a manufacturer. Of the next eight collection books introduced, initially by both Dorothy and Bernard Scott together as partners (and then later by Bernard on his own, when Dorothy retired around 1977 and Bernard took over over a sole owner,) the first 7 books (Volume IV- 1974, Volume V-1978) were printed and assembled by Waterhouse and the primary distribution of the collection books was through Katzenbach and Warren’s channels of distribution (this continued up until the time Katzenbach and Warren was sold to the Imperial Home Decor Group (IHDG). Bernard worked closely with commission surface printers like Vogue Prints and Thomas Strahan (Both Thomas Strahan and Vogue Prints, besides designing and printing their own collection, did commission printing for others) as well as several silk screen hand printers. To expand the Waterhouse collection of documents, Thomas Strahan let Bernard run some of the Thomas Strahan documents under the Waterhouse brand, Katzenbach and Warrnen also gave some designs to Bernard that he could run under the Waterhouse collection brand. (Bernard Scott and Phelps Warren were great friends. Bernard once described Lois and William Katzenbach as “flamboyant,” they did indeed travel the world looking for up and coming artists of the day to design for them, as well as getting prominent artists, such as Miro, Calder and Matisse to do wallpaper panels (what Katzenbach called “Mural-Scrolls”) of their art work. Whereas Phelps was quiet, genteel, introspective and a artist in his own right. So it was probably a good partnership - an outgoing, gregarious “salesy” type and a more subdued and talented artist with a good eye.

Dorothy started doing research and became quite a wallpaper historian / expert giving guest lectures around the North East. She literally “uncovered” some interesting facts - often early American homes glued newspapers to the rough plaster walls to smooth out the rough plaster, act as an insulator, and as a wallpaper liner. These newspapers provided news and local gossip of the time. For example General George Washington was originally a paper hanger, and Samuel Adams the Boston Town Crier, when not delivering the message that the British are coming, was something of a local constable / truant officer and part of his official duties was rounding up stray children.

The poem by John Keats, penned in 1818 comes to mind-" A thing of beauty is a joy forever..."

During the ensuing years we have enhanced the collection with patterns that are more contemporary in nature, as well as Stripes, Strie effects and Textures. Therefore, the Waterhouse Collection has patterns that will complement any decor.

A contemporary of ours- Frederick Galacar, who created Galacar & Co., wrote this as part of the introduction to his first fabric and wallpaper collection, and it bears repeating:

"...We believe that these patterns provide an artistic and historical perspective - that documents are more than just a gift of beauty - they are a living testament from the artists who created them. In their lives, most of these anonymous men and women received no tribute or recognition for the work they did, but if the interior design community can preserve some of them, then perhaps part of them will live again through us. It is a race against time, however. With each passing year, hundreds of important and irreplaceable documents are lost due to aging, neglect, and lack of funds - even with the conservation departments of large museums. Such designs will ultimately survive only if they are found in time, reproduced and made available to the decorative industry."

Waterhouse Wallhangings and Thomas Strahan have been your partner in re-creating historic wallpaper and supplying period appropriate wallpapers since 1908. Click here to view our list of Historic Museum Restorations.

Dorothy Waterhouse

Related Collections & Brands

Thomas Strahan Company

In 1866 Thomas Strahan started distributing European wallhangings in the US. On one of his trips to Europe he convinced an English block printer to emigrate to Boston, and in the early 1880's he launched his own collection and print works. The company contiued block printing up until labor shortages during World War Two made this form of wallpaper printing unfeasible. Most of the over 12,000 designs were printed on either 8 or 12 color surface printing machines imported from England. At the height of production they had 5 surface printers running, the oldest of which was a Waldron machine manufactured in England in 1886. This printing press and some of the others were being used right up to the time the Chelsea Mill closed in 2003. The plant was located in Chelsea Ma., it was a 3 story building, occupying a full block, which was built by Strahan in 1903 and was occupied by the company until 2003 when the old frame building was torn down for urban renewal.

Thomas Strahan, when he opened the manufactory in 1885 took on a partner George A. Smith. Thomas Strahan remained president until his death in 1910. (Thomas Strahan was also the two term mayor of Chelsea, MA and served in the Massachusetts Statehouse). Upon his death in 1909, full ownership passed to George Smith. Mr. Smith remained with the company for 61 years until his retirement in 1947. Several industry veterans were president of the firm between 1910 to 1947. Mr. Smiths’ son-Abbot Smith, who joined the company after graduating from Harvard in 1918 and after rising through the ranks, became president in 1947. (Abott Smith was a friend of President Kennedy and when Jackie Kennedy re-decorated the White House Thomas Strahan donated wallpaper). In 1965, Chris Weld, whose grandfather was President in the early years, and was the 4th generation of Welds working at Thomas Strahan, was elected president. Chris Weld joined the firm in 1956. Also in 1965, Paul Chase, was elected Vice President and Treasurer, he had been with the company since 1954. In 1969, Abott Smith sold the company to Chris Weld and Paul Chase. In 1974, they received a very good offer to purchase the company from National Gypsum. As often happens with large conglomerates they try expanding by diversifying into related industries. They bought several brands in the finished home goods industry. By 1986, National Gypsum was shedding some of the brands they acquired during their diversification, and sold the company to Decorative Wall Coverings. Unfortunately, Decorative Coverings had too much corporate debt, coupled with the recession in the early 1990s, and that wallpaper was falling out of fashion, they filed for bankruptcy in 1991. An employee group led by Ken Bruckner and Pat Troville, with the aid of Steven Patton (whose family owned a large wallpaper distributorship in the mid west) bought the company out of bankruptcy. By the late 1990s Bernard Scott, the owner of Waterhouse Wallhangings (who did most of their wallpaper printing at the Thomas Strahan, Chelsea MA. plant) succeeding in buying out the last of the Thomas Strahan partners and became the sole owner. Mr. Scott put together a new wallpaper book volume entitled the - 115th Anniversary Collection. By 2003 the city block long wood frame structure built by Thomas Strahan in 1903, containing the five large surface printing presses (manufactured between 1880 and 1948) was no longer viable. Most of the wallpaper manufactures in the US and Canada had dropped the surface printing presses/ technique in favor of other technologies. Bernard Scott moved some of the surface type rollers to one of the very few mills left with surface print presses still in operation - Vogue Prints wallpaper mill, which was owned by F. Schumacher at the time. Vogue closed shortly there after.

Many of the Waterhouse and Thomas Strahan designs were converted to the hand printing technique utilizing silk screens, this enabled smaller runs and made custom coloring affordable. By the late 1990s Bernard Scott, sold Waterhouse Wallhangings to the “Two Jims” Jim Burke and Jim Early, so Bernard could concentrate on developing the Thomas Strahan archive and building the commission printing mill business at Thomas Strahan. Waterhouse, with the Two Jims at the helm moved the business into the Thomas Strahan mill and worked with Bernard and the staff on design work for both Waterhouse and Thomas Strahan, after all Thomas Strahan had been printing Waterhouse designs for over 25 years. Around the time the Thomas Strahan mill closed, Bernard bought back the Waterhouse Brand (the Two Jims went on to found Desingers Classic Wallpaper www.designerclassicswallpaper.com) and Bernard continued to develop and market the two brands - Waterhouse Wallhangings and The Thomas Strahan Company until he sold the companies / brands to Lance Houpt in 2008. Lance Houpt to this day continues to develop the large archives of both brands, create new artwork, and produce new collections, under both brand names, on a regular basis. The Thomas Strahan studio is headed up by Lances partner in Thomas Strahan, Katherine Porter.