Are formal dining rooms a thing of the past? Depends who you ask.

"Real Estate "What was once about presentation is now about connection," one designer said. "The dining room isn't dead - it's just evolved." The first Thanksgiving in Plymouth in 1621 didn't happen in a dedicated dining room with custom furniture and a chandelier as a focal point. Most meals then happened at a handmade wooden table that sat in the center of a multifunctional room with a hearth that was used for both cooking and staying warm."

""In the early days, dining rooms in New England homes weren't a separate architectural concept," said Dane Austin, owner of Dane Austin Design in Boston, who serves on the Dean's Advisory Board of the Boston Architectural College School of Interior Architecture. "Meals were taken in multi-use rooms that prioritized warmth and function - they were the literal social center of the home.""

"According to Austin, as prosperity grew in the 18th and 19th centuries in neighborhoods like Back Bay and Beacon Hill, dining rooms became status symbols, often furnished with dark paneling and heavy mahogany pieces, and hospitality was formal, with clearly defined roles between hosts and guests. But after World War II, as suburban living expanded, homes got larger and, over time, families started living a more casual lifestyle."

Early New England meals took place at handmade wooden tables in multifunctional rooms centered on a hearth used for cooking and warmth. Rising prosperity in the 18th and 19th centuries transformed dining rooms into status symbols with dark paneling and heavy mahogany, and hospitality remained formal with distinct host-guest roles. Post-World War II suburban expansion produced larger homes and a shift toward casual family living. Today, families use either formal dining rooms or open-concept spaces depending on lifestyle, entertaining preferences, and home size. Contemporary design prioritizes connection; designers sometimes reconfigure rooms and layer neoclassical, bespoke, and mid-century elements to host and dine.

Read at Boston.com