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laid with different weatherage, seven coursed shingle roofs lapped in 

 curves to imitate thatch ; tile-hipped and tile-ridged shingle roofs, 

 and a half height shingled veranda rail, topped with low wooden 

 paling; novelty siding on outbuildings or battens with one side nail- 

 ing and slip joint to prevent splitting, as well as blocked cement, 

 hollow brick and terra cotta construction and veneered air-spaced 

 brick, tearing out again where the effect failed in harmony and the 

 result was unsatisfactory. 



During these building years we turned nature topsy-turvy 

 at least, so said the farmer's sons who, after a twenty-year absence, 

 revisited their birthplace. 



The Adirondacks at the City's Threshold. 



Within an hour's drive or a fifteen minutes' motor trip from 

 Hillcrest Manor, a rough, wooded tract edges on one side a small 

 lake, on the other the Sound. Through this tract was built a 

 winding road, fringed by white oak, chestnut, cedar, hemlock, birch 

 and beech, leading to the Sound. It is like a bit of the Adirondacks 

 at the city's threshold and includes two verdure-crowned, rock-edged 

 islands, deep ravines and wooded knolls, through which wind two 

 miles of roadway. Here we built Drachenfels. 



DRACHENFELS. 



The house itself is baronial in appointments and decorations. 

 A steep driveway leads to a porte cochere on the east. The oaken 

 door is six feet wide, with heavy iron hinges and a knocker from an 

 ancient castle on the Rhine. Stepping through the doorway, one 

 stands in a beamed and columned hall of 20 x 40 feet, with a thirteen 

 foot ceiling. The twelve foot wide mahogany staircase flanked by 



