What is a Pony Wall? Here’s Why You Might Want One

In home design, it seems that everything old becomes new again, and it’s time for pony walls to have their comeback. Pony walls never truly went away, but they have fallen out of popularity in the last couple of decades. A feature of McMansion layouts and new-build architecture, many modern buyers tear down pony walls in their renovations rather than embrace them. But half-walls have a much longer history and half-height bookcase colonnades are actually a coveted design feature in early 20th century homes, including Sears kit houses. Now, some designers are starting to see pony walls with new eyes, and the half-wall is creeping its way back into home design. ,Pony walls became popular in the 1990s, thanks to the boom in open-plan layouts, and were especially utilized in the kitchen (many houses last remodeled in the ‘90s have squat half-walls separating the kitchen from the eating nook). “A partial wall can be used as a snack counter and a serving surface. It can do decorative duty, too, with dried herbs, baskets or other knickknacks suspended from an attached pole,” wrote
The South Bend Tribune in 1990. Sometimes they were peninsula counters, and other times they were a simple drywall wall. They would be decorated a certain way on the kitchen side, and a different way on the dining side, sometimes even using different wallpaper patterns or paint colors.,