378 
Tenens eel 
in the Japanese manner which faces the corridor leading 
from the hall to the dining-room. Here the walls and ceil- 
ings are covered with Japanese prints and fabrics—the 
ceiling is decorated in Japanese patterns and carving, 
lacquer and metal appear in furnishings, and lattices or thin 
fabrics cover the windows. ‘The use of gold judiciously 
combined with color, which the Japanese understand so 
well makes this beautiful room a place of wonderfully subtle 
harmonies and contrasts. 
The long low wing which adds so greatly to the exterior 
beauty of the house by extending its broad, spreading mass, 
is arranged in the most complete of service quarters. Close 
by the main entrance to the house, is a special doorway for 
trunks, and just within is a baggage lift which makes very 
easy the handling of the belongings of arriving and depart- 
ing guests. The greater part of the space upon the lower 
floor of this part of the house is used for the pantries, sew- 
ing-rooms, kitchen and servants’-hall necessary for a large 
country house and the upper floor is divided into six bed- 
rooms for the use of the servants, and a bathroom for their 
convenience, all of which are completely apart from the por- 
tion of the house designed for the use of the family and guests. 
Upon the upper floor arrangements are made for enter- 
taining upon a large scale. Many small suites are planned 
for guests and most of them include a study or boudoir, a 
bedroom and a bath. There are also a few very large 
single rooms, and over the entrance hallway is an informal 
morning-room with a fireplace and a deep oriel window 
which overlooks the winding driveway, which approaches 
the house through the woods. 
The furnishing of the numerous little studies and bedrooms 
of this very beautiful country home is interesting with the 
beauty of great simplicity. The paint is almost everywhere 
either white or ivory-colored, and where the walls are not 
paneled they are covered with the freshest and simplest of 
fabrics or papers. The color supplied by floor coverings 
and the chintz or taffeta of curtains and furniture covers, 
affords a fitting background and setting for mahogany in 
the form of beds, tables, dressing-stands and chairs, and the 
freshness and fragrance of out-of-doors is brought within 
the house by growing plants and bowls and vases of cut 
flowers. 
‘Sho-chiku-bai,” set as it is within a forest is perpetually 
interesting with a beauty which changes with the passing 
seasons. The materials used and the coloring of the ex- 
terior which is low in tone have the effect of tying it to its 
site, and also of bringing it into harmony with the changing 
setting of nature whether it be the bright green and fresh 
verdure of Spring and Summer, the myriad reds, browns 
and yellows of varied Autumn or the mantle of white which 
makes a Winter in the forests so beautiful and mysterious. 
AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS 
November, 1912 
Much of the beauty of this country home in the woods, is 
due to the skill which has placed in this sylvan setting, a 
house which seems by every rule of good taste to belong 
just here and nowhere else. Someone has said that our 
American country is beautiful only as long as it is left in 
its natural state, but that with its use as a place of homes 
comes the utter spoilation of its beauty and charm. ‘This 
may be due very largely to the disregard for the fitness 
of things both in designing country homes and in the choice 
of materials of which they are built, although such disre- 
gard is becoming rarer as we understand more fully the 
laws which govern the successful planning and building of 
country homes. The charm of a house built of logs or of 
slabs is largely due to the fact that such a building is 
generally placed in the woods or in similar surroundings 
where it seems to be in keeping. In the case of this 
country house at Tuxedo Park, much of the same idea of 
suitability has prevailed and the buildings have been cleverly 
adapted to their site, and use has been made of such ma- 
terials as blend in easily with the rest of the woodland set- 
ting, such as the stone of the lower walls the stained shingles 
and wood of roofs and walls between the panels of rough 
cast stucco or plaster which are stained colors and which 
are repeated in the foliage. Already the walls are being 
covered with ivy and the various clinging vines which do 
so much to harmonize a home with its surroundings. 
Nowhere else in America has the community idea as ap- 
plied to country living been so completely and as success- 
fully developed as at Tuxedo Park. The tract of ground 
within its gates is so vast that control is had of any building 
operations which might be unsuited to the place. Those 
who dwell within the boundaries of the estate are members 
of one large family or colony, and hence interested in 
all the manifold pursuits which engage the attention of old 
and young during the entire year. Placed ‘close enough to 
New York to. be in touch with its daily life, and yet far 
enough away to be far beyond the area of undesirable de- 
velopments, and in the midst of a wonderfully beautiful and 
interesting country, Tuxedo Park presents an unusual solu- 
tion of the problem of country living, the success of which is 
due in a large degree to the beauty of the individual homes 
of which it consists. 
The homes which make up the Tuxedo colony, as has 
already been said, are chiefly estates of some extent. Many 
types of architecture are represented, and there is great 
variety in the treatment of their surroundings. Some of the 
estates such as ‘“‘Sho-chiku-bai” are set within the natural 
growth of the primeval forest and are approached by roads 
winding among the trees, while elsewhere there are homes 
surrounded by formal gardens and broad lawns and upon 
all sides there are wide and extensive views over lake and 
ae 
The Japanese-room 
