Ceiling Light Fixtures for Cranbrook House Reception Hall (Pair)

Edward F. Caldwell & Co. was one of America’s most prominent lighting and furnishing firms in the early twentieth century. They played a leading role in the transition from designing lights for gas, oil, or candle flames to electricity. For their clientele, which included many of the wealthiest individuals and institutions in America, they offered an extensive catalog of thousands of designs for chandeliers, wall sconces, table, and floor lamps, in styles ranging from medieval revival to the cutting edge of Art Deco modernism.

George Booth contracted with Caldwell & Co. in 1908 to supply the vast majority of the lighting fixtures and free-standing lamps for his new home, Cranbrook House – wired for electricity during the building process, in anticipation of access to power not then available in Bloomfield Hills. When Cranbrook House was extended between 1917 and 1920, George Booth returned to Caldwell & Co. for the necessary fixtures. In 1908 and later, the Booths also purchased furniture and decorative art items from the firm’s extensive stock of historical revival furnishings.

When Cranbrook House was completed in 1908, the reception hall was the largest room, a spacious central space in which the Booth family could relax or entertain visitors. Two chandeliers from Caldwell & Co., each fitted with seven light bulbs, were installed to light the room. The hanging lamps are an eccentric amalgamation of medievalist decorative motifs. Each lightbulb’s base is surmounted by a gilded crown. The bulbs depend from a circular base decorated with gilded strapwork and suspended from the ceiling by thick metal chains.

The original shades, seen in historic photographs from the 1920s, were not designed by Caldwell & Co. and were probably made in the Detroit area. In his correspondence with Caldwell & Co., George Booth expressed a preference that many of the house’s shades be made locally under Ellen Booth’s supervision. Identical shades were installed on ceiling fixtures in the Cranbrook House library, added in 1919 (see CEC 1012). It is not known where the current shades were made or when they were installed.

Mariam Hale
2023-2025 Collections Fellow
Cranbrook Center for Collections and Research
July 2024