But what if you’re walking through a neighborhood full of centuries-old rowhouses. In Charleston, Philadelphia, New York or Boston… And you come across something odd beneath the front steps of one of those old homes… A bricked-in archway or a sunken, chamber-like space? These out-of-the-way spots have a name and a purpose, though it’s easy to lose sight of them. They are stoop vaults, also known as areaways or under-stoop vaults. And they were once an essential part of everyday life.
Let’s step back into the past to learn what these unusual spaces were used for.
What Are Stoop Vaults?
A stoop vault is a tiny room tucked under the raised front steps (or “stoop”) of older urban homes. Raised entrances were typical of homes built to guard against floods. Especially in gridded cities with substandard drainage in the 18th and 19th centuries.
The hollow open space between the steps — which was surrounded by stone, brick or concrete — often was converted into a useful vault. And often, it was used to house coal. Coal was once a staple fuel source for urban homes. Powering everything from heating to World War I-era coal-fired steam delivery carts. Deliveries were received through the sidewalk hatch, and owners would fetch their stock from the stoop vault underneath.
A Feature Born from Necessity
City dwellings in cities such as Boston and Philadelphia were small in square footage and yard space was almost nonexistent. Every last scrap of function over form counted. Stoop vaults were a smart use of space, kept the main part of the house cleaner by keeping the dirty coal out.
In some houses, the vaults doubled as general-purpose storage areas for logs, tools, or seasonal items, stashed securely out of the way but within easy reach.
Hidden in Plain Sight
The image included in the Reddit post features archetypical cases. A pair of near-identical brick townhouses, each of which has obvious vault space beneath its stoop. Some of these vaults were later bricked over, filled in or forgotten. But they linger as part of the city’s architectural weave.
In one example shared by a Bremerton, Washington, user, a 1939 home boasted a stoop with a vault that saw many changes over the decades. (It was bricked over in the ’70s and ’80s, re-exposed in the ’90s, and eventually repurposed in the 2020s for firewood storage — this time around, water drains properly away.) It’s a small room, but its history says a lot about how these homes and their idiosyncrasies have evolved over time.
More Than Just Storage
Today, stoop vaults are mostly defunct, but they are still a cherished, if idiosyncratic, element of historic charm. They allude to when, to heat your home, you had to deal with an actual stack of fuel, and when every inch of your property had to have a purpose.
There are some renovations where homeowners choose to also keep these spaces generating for their looks. In some, they’ve been repurposed into modern storage nooks, utility access or even mini garden beds.
A Niche Relic With a Big Story to Tell
These may be small, but they are a portal into urban existence before central heating and Home Depot deliveries. They represent what it was like for architecture to accommodate everyday life, and for a family to balance fuel, weather and storage in a densely built city.
So, the next time you’re strolling by some weathered front steps sporting an odd little arch below them, well — stop and take a second look. That modest vault used to heat a house all winter long. And now, it holds a piece of history in silence.
