AMERICAN ESTATES AND GARDENS 



splendid nxim, thirtv-six feet scjuare and two stories in heij^ht. Tt is completely built of 

 Caen stone. The walls are divided into bays, with great pilasters su])porting the cornice at 

 the ceiling; Ijelow arc round arched openings and doors; above are rectangular windows, 

 opening into a gallery that is carried around the hall, with richly chased bronze railings. 

 The stairway rises immediately from the central arch of the farther side, and is continued 

 within to the upper storv. A gigantic Chinese vase supporting a candelabrum stands on each 

 side of the steps. Before the mantelpiece are busts of Cosmo de' Medici and his wife, by 

 Bernini. The hangings are of red velvet embroidered with gold, and in the center of the 

 room is a large carved table supported on gilt figures. The colors, as a whole, as given 

 by the hangings and rugs, are red, white, and gold, and the decorative treatment is very 

 rich and sumptuous. 



The more important rooms open directly from the hall. On the right are the reception- 

 room, billiard -room, and library, the latter a great apartment, fifty feet square. On the left 

 a smaller hall leads to the smoking-room and sitting-room, and to the dining-room and the 

 breakfast-room. All of these rooms are beautifully furnished and decorated. They are truly 

 palatial, hospitable in size, lavish in 

 their appointments, and present ex- 

 cellent examples of present-day tend- 

 encies in costly dwellings. This is 

 particularly true of this house, for 

 Mr. Widener gave up a grand cit}' 

 mansion that he had built for himself, 

 in order to live in this great new 

 house. It is located in a pleasant 

 suburb of Philadelphia, but near 

 enough to the city to be quite suffi- 

 ciently close for business and social 

 affairs. It stands just outside of 

 built-up Philadelphia, in a lovely 

 rural neighborhood, where the pleas- 

 ures of coiintry life, when centered in 

 .such a home, must be almost unlimited. 

 The chief room on the. second 

 floor is the picture gallery, entered 

 through an antechamber. Here is 

 housed one of the richest and finest 

 collections of paintings in the United 

 States. The collection has been 

 formed with tmusual taste and dis- THE HOUSE OF P. A. B. wiDENER, ESQ.— THE HALL. 



I23] 



