422 



AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS 



December, 19 13 



The library has green painted walls and a number of panels of its walls are filled with books 



A Remodeled City House 



By Harry Martin Yeomans 

 Photographs by T. C. Turner 



NE frequently reads of the houses which 

 architects have designed for themselves, but 

 it is not so usual to have the opportunity to 

 find a house which has been decorated and 

 furnished in detail by its owner for his or 

 her own occupancy. Since the selection and 

 assembling of furniture, fabrics, rugs and pictures, for the 

 adornment of a house, which will transform it into a home, is, 

 in itself, a fine art, it is interesting to look behind the scenes, 

 as it were, and see just what one who is engaged in the pursuit 

 of creating beautiful interiors for 

 others, would elect to use in his or 

 her own home surroundings. 



In the accompanying photographs 

 can be seen the very beautiful in- 

 teriors which have been evolved by 

 Miss Elsie de Wolf, of New York, 

 for her city home. This house is an 

 especially attractive study to those 

 who are interested in house plan- 

 ning and in problems of interior 

 decoration, as it embodies many un- 

 usual and practical features of im- 

 portance. The house was remodeled 

 from one of the old-fashioned 



The cool and stately entrance-hall paved with blocks 

 of black and white marble 



brownstone city dwellings, having a dark and forbidding 

 aspect, and the story of its transformation is well worth 

 the telling. 



The house was originally one of those high-stooped types 

 of which many thousands were erected in New York, 

 each precisely like its neighbor, about i860, when American 

 domestic architecture was at a low ebb. The, original en- 

 trance was on the second floor at the left-hand side of the 

 house, and led into a hallway from which the stairway 

 ascended to the floors above. In the process of remodel- 

 ing, the entrance has been brought to 

 the street floor instead, and the old 

 halls and stairs were torn out in 

 order to add the space they occupied 

 to the width of the various recon- 

 structed rooms; a decided advantage 

 over the old house with its long, tun- 

 nel-like apartments. A graceful, 

 winding stair was then built up 

 through the centre of the house and 

 this, though not cramped in effect, 

 occupies a very small amount of 

 space. 



From the street one descends by 

 two or three steps into a small en- 



