Staff Quarters: How Innovation Has Changed Our Lives and Living Space
Our recent visit to Jekyll Island, particularly Indian Mound Cottage, gave us a fascinating glimpse into how luxury living once required a small village of dedicated staff. Indian Mound, a 10,000-square-foot “cottage” owned by William Avery Rockefeller, had eight rooms for staff alone, nearly half of the second floor and all of the third. It was striking to see how much space in these grand homes was dedicated not to the family itself but to those who maintained their comforts. Unlike estates like The Breakers in Newport, built for lavish entertaining, the “cottages” on Jekyll Island focused primarily on sleeping and personal quarters; dining and social gatherings were held at the central clubhouse, underscoring that the homes were more about retreat than display.
The North’s approach to housing staff, with entire floors set aside in these “cottages” and mansions, contrasted with Southern estates a generation earlier, where enslaved laborers lived and worked in entirely separate quarters. It’s difficult to imagine Thomas Jefferson, for instance, sharing a floor with staff in his beloved Monticello, a layout reflecting the deeply ingrained social hierarchy of his time.
Today, much of this hands-on support has shifted to automation. Machines perform many domestic tasks that once required a full staff. Dishwashers, laundry machines, vacuums, and now even grocery delivery reduce the need for household help, making it rare to find a home where staff rooms outnumber guest quarters. The shift from human to machine help has also reshaped our homes. Most modern houses are no longer designed to house live-in staff but focus instead on family space and technology-enabled convenience.
As we move into an era of cognitive automation, where technology can draft letters, brainstorm ideas, and assist with creative tasks, we’re seeing a new transformation in how we work and think. Unlike machines that replaced physical labor, this augmentation may not reshape our homes as dramatically; instead, it influences how we engage with the world from within our personal spaces. Our homes, now centers of both personal and professional life, can support a broader range of intellectual pursuits. Yet, the changes in lifestyle are just as profound, with more people relying on technology not just for tasks but for thought, blurring the lines between human creativity and machine assistance.
Our visit to Jekyll Island, with its vast “cottages” and dedicated staff quarters, underscored the role innovation has played in changing how we live. From the physical transformation of homes as machines took on manual labor to the more subtle shifts as technology supports intellectual work, it’s clear that innovation continues to shape both our lifestyles and our relationship with the spaces we call home.
