174 HOW TO MAKE A COUNTRY PLACE 



THE UPPER STAIR AND THE R. AND J. BALCONY. 



halls. Instead of the city scheme of an upright funnel from front 

 door to roof, incidentally causing a large loss of heat, the stair- 

 case from second to third story is at one side and behind a double 

 arch, allowing of beamed ceiling treatment in the main stairway hall, 

 and giving a twenty-five foot height in the clear over the stairs. One 

 really enters the principal rooms of the house after passing through 

 the entrance hall under a broad arch supported by rabid-mouthed, 

 grotesquely-molded gargoyles, by a short flight of five six and one- 

 half inch riser steps, twenty feet wide, which lead to the staircase 

 hall twenty-five feet square lighted by leaded casements in the boudoir 

 on the mezzanine floor. On the pedestals flanking these wide stairs 

 are grouped masses of the unkillable Ficus Pandurata. 



Fireplace Opening 10'S''. 



The hobbed fireplace opening in the staircase hall is ten feet eight 

 inches wide. It has crane and trammels and from its iron header 



