The Low Life: When Americans Fell for Sunken Living Rooms

The Mary Tyler Moore Show (1970-1977) is remembered fondly for any number of reasons, including the comedic talents of its signature star and a strong supporting cast. But contemporary viewing of the show may prompt some viewer confusion.

1. The History of Sunken Living Rooms
2. The Problem With Sunken Living Rooms

In the series, Moore’s Mary Richards lives in a New York City apartment. It’s spacious for a Manhattan rental, but that’s not what’s peculiar. Mary has a sunken living room, a large void that dips below the rest of the apartment floor. Mary and guests must descend a few stairs in order to lounge; the overall effect is as though the living room is surrounded by a pool deck.

The Mary Tyler Moore Show was not inventing reality, merely reflecting it: Sunken living rooms were common in 1970s dwellings. But what was their purpose?

The History of Sunken Living Rooms

The sunken living room might be synonymous with the 1960s and 1970s, but its modern origins can actually be traced to the 1920s. That’s when Bruce Goff, an architect and Frank Lloyd Wright protégé, designed a home in Tulsa that featured a living room with a fireplace positioned against a semicircular pit in the floor.

Goff’s flourish was noticed in architectural circles. But according to Architectural Digest, the sunken living room didn’t really gain momentum until the 1950s, when Eero Saarinen and Alexander Girard designed an Indiana home for industrialist J. Irwin Miller. Because Miller often hosted influential guests from business and political circles, Saarinen and Girard had the idea to add a sunken, square seating area. The expectation was that having a dedicated conversation space would befit Miller and his frequent gatherings. In fact, the earlier term for the feature was conversation pit.

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It was the Miller house that caught the attention of architectural magazines, and soon the sunken living room was catching on. Designers and homebuyers were attracted to the idea of having a place that might promote socialization, with fewer distractions than, say, gathering at a dining room table or a game room. It’s also been speculated that such pits came of age at a time when cheese-sharing fondue parties and marijuana usage was on the rise, opening up a need for more intimate gathering places.

Furniture of the era was also becoming more modular, meaning such “pits” could be decorated with ease. A circular pit was ideal for a circular sectional sofa; some ambitious residents custom-built furniture to make the sunken area appear even more seamless.

“The key idea of the conversation pit was to provide an area ideally suited for informal conversation,” the El Paso Times observed in 1967. “Because of furniture arrangements, living rooms and den[s], though larger, usually cannot accommodate a number of persons in a seated, conversational grouping.”

How exactly these spaces measured out varied. That same Times article noted a new model home featuring a pit spanning 10 feet by 10 feet, with a step descending 14 inches. A later 1973 article placed the depth at 18 inches.

Nor were the rooms always looked upon as social facilitation. Some used them as a way to create tiered seating for television viewing, with those on the main floor able to see above the heads of those in the pit.

Sunken living rooms had another benefit: They could make a living space appear larger by lengthening the distance from the (sunken) floor to the ceiling. Compared to raising the literal roof, lowering the floor was decidedly more cost-effective.

But living the high-low life came with some complications.

The Problem With Sunken Living Rooms

It was one thing to admire a sunken living room in the pages of House Beautiful; to actually interact with them was another.

By their very nature, sunken living rooms posed a not-insignificant trip hazard. Anyone on the premises risked inadvertently stepping off the floor and stumbling a few feet into a giant hole. Imagine leaving a baby to crawl around the perimeter of a conversation pit, or a senior family member backing into one. Either would be a conversation starter, but not a particularly desirable one.

Accidents aside, these spaces were also difficult for those with physical challenges. A person in a wheelchair, for example, might find entering and exiting a sunken spot tricky.

It was also difficult for such spaces to remain current with evolving decorating trends. Once one has a circular sofa, it’s burdensome to try and “re-arrange” it. The lack of options led to an increasing sense of boredom.

One alternative emerged: the conversation pit sofa, an immense U-shaped sectional that forced people into a clustered seating arrangement. It was billed as a more reasonable solution to a full-fledged pit, but it was pricey: Equipped with an ottoman, it retailed for $2000 in 1976, or about $11,000 today.

Come the 1980s, the sunken living room was more or less out of fashion. Some homeowners turned to contractors to convert the spaces into home gyms or media rooms. They were still living spaces—just for a more individualistic time.

That's not to say sunken living rooms are totally extinct. They remain in older homes being sold and, for some, may provide a retro kind of charm. Those who consider them a burden can usually modify them so they’re essentially covered and hidden from view. Or, a homeowner may decide to retain it and add a safety feature like a railing. Add some shag carpeting and you have what the pits were always intended to be: a conversation starter.