AMERICAN ESTATES AND GARDENS 



with a heavily carved railing; from the ceiling of the uppermost story hangs a great bronze 

 lamp a late Renaissance masterpiece. On the right is the dining-room, with pantries and 

 kitchen beyond the latter in a separate wing and the billiard-room; on the left are the 

 library and the white drawing-room. 



The library walls have a high paneled dado of polished wood below a covering of green 

 stripes. Rare tapestries cover much of the wall space ; above is a coved cornice of polished 

 wood. There is much furniture in the room a piano in one corner, a fine old French table 

 near the fireplace, desks and tables, tables with lamps and tables with bric-a-brac, and 

 a veritable garden of plants and palms. The whole room is surrounded with growing plants; 

 great garden vases filled with fine specimens stand before two of the windows; mammoth 

 Boston ferns, palms in the corners and by the windows; and yet the room is so large 

 that there is no sense of overcrowding, and the plants are arranged in a truly decorative 

 manner and in exquisite taste. 



The white drawing-room is cool and beautiful in color, all in white. Panels of mirrors 

 fill spaces not occupied by doors; and of windows there are none at all, for it opens into an 

 enclosed porch, or conservatory, to which, in a sense, it is an antechamber. The furniture is 

 white, with caned seats and backs, covered with tapestried cushions; two great jardinieres 

 with caned sides stand before the doors to the conservatory. Over a console, filling one of 

 the great panels, is a portrait of the mistress of the mansion, a lovely, speaking figure. 



The conservatory beyond is another bower of flowers. White furniture here also, with 

 red cushions; red carpet in the center; matting at the ends; glazed brick for ceiling. It is 

 really an enclosed porch, looking out on to an open porch, with stone columns and red bricked 

 floor. Beyond is the Italian garden; not as yet, it is true, laid out; but a graceful fountain 

 fills the center, and a row of statues on each side hints what the immediate foreground will 

 be when time and care have brought this portion of the grounds to maturity. 



The dining-room and billiard -room, on the other side of the central hall, are both noble 

 apartments, for there is a splendid sense of space in this great house; the rooms are large, the 

 windows ample, the ceilings lofty. Each room has its individual note and treatment; the 

 dining-room is paneled throughout. 



An electric elevator takes one upstairs. Nearly half of the top floor is given up to 

 nurseries, with separate rooms for the children and their attendants. Very pleasant these 

 rooms are, in cool, quiet colors and fine furnishings, in which the quality of appropriateness 

 has been very happily caught. All these apartments are communicating, and can, at the 

 same time, be completely isolated from the rest of the house. Guest rooms, arranged in pairs, 

 with a common bathroom, fill up much of the remainder of this floor, although some spacv 

 for servants is found here, together with storage closets. Mrs. Mackay's cedar room has 

 special interest. 



The second floor contains the apartments of the master and mistress of the house, 

 together with some additional guest rooms. The latter are slightly more elegant than those 



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