September, 1905 



AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS 



163 



and pig house, an artificial spring house or dairy, chicken 

 houses and chicken runs, and finally a pheasant yard in the 

 near-by woods. All beautifully clean, if you will please to 

 note, the stalls thoroughly washed out every morning, and 

 the passages and stalls covered with thin shavings, which are 

 renewed daily. 



One emerges from the farm buildings in a somewhat 

 dazed frame of mind, so numerous are they, so perfectly 

 kept, so manifestly convenient, so entirely equipped with 

 everything that could possibly be needed. Yet there is the 

 house stable yet to see, the largest single building on the 

 estate save the dwelling house, and so near to it that it 

 might well have been visited first as last. 



It is a beautiful, half-timbered structure, stone and stucco 

 below, half-timber above. It surrounds three sides of a 

 great open paved courtyard, apparently large enough to drill 

 a regiment in. On the entrance side the courtyard is inclosed 



all its parts. Its size alone would entitle it to consideration; 

 the variety of its departments would excite interest, the care 

 with which every part of it is kept up win admiration; while 

 the beauty and extent of its buildings would arouse en- 

 thusiasm. Ably developed as every aspect of it is, the final 

 result, the estate as a whole, is a place of absorbing interest. 



And everything here is well managed and well done. A 

 large body of men are needed to keep the estate in order, 

 to make the repairs, to keep each department going, to man 

 the permanent works. Of the necessities of life light alone 

 is obtained from without. The extensive private pumping 

 plant and reservoir have already been described; that the 

 great house is heated from its own boilers in its cellar has 

 been noted; but electricity is not generated on the property, 

 and for that alone it is dependent upon external supplies. 



Still one further characteristic may be referred to, and 

 that is the broad differentiation that exists between the build- 



" Woodcrest " — The House Stable 



within a wall, with a gateway in the center. On each end 

 of the wings, and opening directly onto the grounds of the 

 estate, is a dwelling house; the coachman lives in one, the 

 superintendent in the other. Although structurally part of 

 the stable buildings, they are charming bits of architectural 

 composition, with gabled roofs. 



The long wings behind them are put to various uses and 

 are variously treated. The upper story completely over- 

 hangs in some parts ; in others the lower story is put into 

 practical service. At one place is a billiard-room for the 

 men, at another a tool house; there is ample and sufficient 

 storeroom for every possible purpose; and at the back, 

 stretching full across the court and bounding it, is the house 

 stable, with its carriage house and horse stable, and again 

 everything that appertains to the intelligent care of horses. 



Unduly extended as this description of this estate must 

 seem, it quite fails to do complete justice either to its great 

 beauty or to the very ample way in which it is developed in 



ings of the house — the house and house stable — and those 

 concerned with the farming end of the estate. The farm- 

 house is indeed a dwelling of much interest, but the farm 

 buildings and the other minor buildings on the property, 

 while all especially designed and built for their present pur- 

 pose, are modest in design and quite without architectural 

 pretense. They are work buildings, not show buildings, and 

 best serve their ends in the simple forms given to them. 



As a matter of record it should be added that Mr. Horace 

 Trumbauer, of Philadelphia, was the architect of the house 

 and stable; that the flower gardens near the conservatories 

 owe their design to Mr. Ogelsby Paul, landscape architect; 

 and that the whole place has been brought to its present state 

 of fine maturity largely through the painstaking care of Mr. 

 Hurley, its superintendent, almost from the beginning, four 

 years ago. It is an estate so full of interest and so finely 

 matured that it might well have been many more years in 

 the making. 



