For a replica old house (replicating the late Victorian to early 1900s era), would you want an "open" floor plan. or one with a more 'closed' kitchen / butler pantry / back hall area?

I’ve been designing a neo-Victorian house since my early teens, primarily because my great grandmother had a real one, built in 1904, and ran a pretty decent boarding house out of one.

It is not very likely I will ever build such a house. I might have one way to, but I am not really sure I will ever go through with it. My sister and I are joint owners of 80 acres. So I have these plans on paper for an authentic Queen Anne / Carpenter Gothic / Stick Style house.

With my current girlfriend, came my introduction to a love of ‘open’ floor plans where kitchens flow freely into the dining and family rooms. They can still be made to look traditional and vintage, but most real old houses I am familiar with have dark back halls and stairways, maybe a bedroom or back hall off the kitchen, and the (formal) dining room separated from the kitchen by a butler’s pantry or passageway.

For a while, I was desiring the more open plan where rooms are more adjoined with wide open passages. The more traditional Victorian plan, which was closed, seemed a little boxy.

But with the Christmas season, I guess I find myself longing for what my great grandparents had: dining room separated from a Victorian kitchen with a Butler’s pantry; dark back hall and stairs, back bedroom.

Again, even the more open and wide-passageway plan can be made to look Victorian, but is more contemporary, and more suitable to the way people live nowadays.

I am nowhere near building, but I am about to start drawing plans again, which will be a fairly major project as I decide whether I want to go through with it. My main satisfaction is merely drawing and designing it.

So, for a new Victorian, should I go with an open floor plan or a traditional ?