AMERICAN ESTATES AND GARDENS 



it is the billiard-room, which is finished in oak. The paneled wainscoting is tinted a very dark 

 green; the walls above are painted in a green-and-white lattice design. There is a brick 

 fireplace, and the sash curtains are of green silk. 



The music-room is beyond, and fills a wing of its own. It is a large room, especially built 

 for the immense pipe organ which is its principal contents. The open beamed roof is in oak, 

 as IS the rest of the woodwork. There is a high paneled wainscot : the upper walls are left 

 in rough plaster of a yellow tint. The fireplace is of Caen stone, and the windows of leaded glass. 



The grounds around the house are well equipped for outdoor sports. There are tennis 

 courts, tracks for hurdle racing, and other provisions for delighting the sportsman and providing 

 for his entertainment. 



"Talbot House," the House of Talbot J. Taylor, Esq., 



Cedarhurst, New York. 



Mr. Taylor's house is a rambling structure, pleasantly environed in the agreeable 

 landscape for which Cedarhurst and the near-by places are famed. It is built partly in 

 brick and partly in half-timber work. The irregular plan lends itself very happily to the 

 tmibered gables, many dormers, and fine chimney stacks, which constitute the external 

 features. The house was not, indeed, built all at one time. The oldest wing, closely 

 covered with ivy, is now apportioned to the service; but the new parts have been so 

 happily harmonized with each other and with the older structure that the house is, in 

 a very complete sense, a thorovighly harmonized composition. This is the more note- 

 worthy since the external architectural expression is decidedly irregular and varied. The 

 larger part of the main building is two stories in height, with a sloping roof. The general plan 

 consists of a main part, containing the entrance hall and the drawing-room, with two forked 

 branches running out at different angles, the larger one of which abuts against a pavilion con- 

 taming the library. The picturesque architecture of the half-timbered upper story, the high 

 pitched roofs, and the gay and ingeniously varied dormers are delightful expressions of this 

 irregular ground plan. 



The house is entered through a glazed and latticed porch, thickly overgrown with ivy. 

 The hall is paneled in oak, very darkly stained, square, plain panels, without ornament and 

 without cornice, rising directly to the plaster ceiling, which is decorated with an elaborate 

 geometrical design, the patterns otitlined in moulded ornament decorated with scrolls and 

 foliage. The staircase rises immediately to the right of the entrance door, and is continued 

 above it, the level here being a few steps below that of the main floor. On one side is the fire- 

 place, the stone facing of which supports a simple shelf. Flanking the fireplace stand two 

 great bronze candelabra. The hall contains some handsomely carved oak chests, and rich 



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