AMERICAN ESTATES AND GARDENS 



precious marbles, superb tapestries, rich furniture, fine paintings, costly carpets — these form 

 the contents of every great house, the individuality depending upon the taste of the owner 

 and the architect, and the particular kind of rich possessions available. All these adjuncts 

 to splendid living are well used in Mr. Berwind's house, which is richly furnished and decorated 

 and contains many notable works of art. 



The chief rooms are the ballroom, the dining-room, the library, the palm-room, the draw- 

 ing-room, the breakfast-room, the gallery hall, and the stair hall. The stairs ascend on either 

 side of the entrance and rise directly from the main hall, which in itself is a spacious apart- 

 ment, richly decorated and furnished. The ballroom is a very beautiful apartment, paneled 

 throughout, and with paintings let into the panels above the great double doors. The dining- 

 room is one of the finest rooms in the house, with a coffered ceiling, monumental mantel- 

 piece, decorative panels, and fine paintings. It is truly a "state" dining-room, ample in size, 

 and admirably adapted to the giving of large dinners and elaborate entertainments. 



The best use has been made of the surrounding grounds by a formal treatment with 

 terraces and stairways, vases, statues, and. shrubbery balustrades, and a free use of shrubbery 

 and plants. The garden is not large, for the comparative smallness of the Newport gardens 

 has been frequently criticized; but it has been very beautifully treated, and forms a very 

 happy setting for the mansion for which it has been created. 



(( 



Belcourt," the House of O. H. P. Belmont, Esq. 



"Belcourt," the house of O. H. P. Belmont, Esq., was also designed by Mr. Hunt, but 

 is much earlier in date than "The Breakers" or "Ochre Court." Built when its owner was 

 a bachelor, it has been somewhat flippantly described as the home of a bachelor with a taste 

 for hospitality and for horses, or, in other words, "a palatial stable with an incidental apart- 

 ment and an incidental ballroom." It is immaterial whether this be literally true or not; it 

 certainly is no longer true, for a verv gracious lady now presides over it. It is more to the point 

 that its plan and arrangement called for unusual treatment, and that these unusual require- 

 ments have been met in a thoroughly happy and delightful way. The house is two stories 

 in height, with a third story in a mansard roof, lighted, save in the corner pavilions, which 

 have larger windows, with oval dormers with curved hoods. It is built of stone and brick, 

 rough cast, the central wall paneled below, with rectangular windows below the large round 

 arched windows, which form a glazed arcade completely filling the center of the front. The 

 interior court has much greater picturesque interest, being finished in rough cast and open 

 timber work, with an open loggia above, which, notwithstanding its lightness of construc- 

 tion, is the dominant feature, and whose drai)ed cvu^tains or awnings give it quite a Southei"n air. 



The hall is finished in oak, modest below, and with a staircase under a carved arch that 

 leads to the upper hall, which is much more elaborately treated with carved doorways, a coved 



[So] 



