156 
vided, a setting adequate in size and in style, adequate in 
form and in expression. So splendid house after splendid 
house has been built at Newport, until to-day the ‘‘cottage”’ 
section of the city contains one of the most splendid collcc- 
tions of splendid houses in America. 
One uses the word “splendid” deliberately and of choice, 
for whether the architecture of these buildings be good or 
bad, appropriate or inappropriate, they are dominated by 
the supreme idea of splendor. And fortunate it is that the 
social distinction that has made the city what it is should 
have found visible expression in houses of genuine distinction 
—fortunate that the great building activity of Newport has 
arisen in an epoch of considerable architectural culture. 
Never were our architects so well equipped to design splendid 
houses as in the last ten or fifteen years, during which pericd 
the larger number of Newport’s costliest dwellings were 
erected. Not every great house is an architectural master- 
piece, but many of them are fine in a true architectural sense. 
And this is an architectural distinction of no mean sort. 
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AMERICAN HOMES “AND “GARDEWs 
March, 1906 
ing of the European palace, moreover, has been spread over 
a great period of time—centuries, in not a few instances. 
We haven’t yet begun to have the time to carry on such 
building operations in our swift and rapid land. 
The American palace must be quickly built, that its 
splendor be enjoyed by the person commissioning it. And 
even if a capacious structure, as it often is, its size is in no 
sense comparable to the great palaces, castles, chateaux of 
Furope. No one in this country has any use for such colossal 
dwellings, and the conditions under which our great houses 
are built are so different from those that brought forth the 
great house of Europe that a comparison between them is 
unfair. 
“Rosecliff,” Mrs. Hermann Oelrichs’s superb house at 
Newport, is a fine type of the splendid house that, in very 
recent years, has become characteristic of Newport. Noth- 
ing whatever was left undone to obtain a satisfactory and 
satisfying house, splendid in every sense of the word, and 
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A Stately Fountain with a Seated Figure of a Woman is the Chief Adornment of the Garden of the Sea Front 
On the contrary, the architectural achievements of New- 
port, in some instances, are of the most impressive kind. 
There are few more difficult tasks than to design a sumptuous 
house in a quiet and unpretentious way. A contradiction of 
terms, no doubt, but a simple statement of the real problem! 
Splendor in architecture is not necessarily produced by rich- 
ness of parts and elaborateness of detail. A skilled de- 
signer can give a true splendor to a comparatively simple 
design by his mere way of designing. But the task is not 
an easy one, though the results will amply repay the labor 
put upon it. 
And there are limitations that must be met in designing a 
splendid house in America. ‘These are the limits of size and 
time. ‘The large American house is, as a rule, a compara- 
tively small affair measured by the great houses of England 
and the Continent. Our American “palaces” are small; those 
of Europe are vast, almost beyond comparison. ‘The build- 
thoroughly adequate to meet any social demands which 
would be put upon it. The first step, naturally, was the 
selection of an architect, and in giving her commission to 
Messrs. McKim, Mead & White, of New York, Mrs. 
Oelrichs was not only taking her first important step, but 
was practically securing the very result desired before any 
plans were drawn or any work of construction undertaken. 
It is a singular characteristic of most of the Newport houses 
that the grounds that surround them appear inadequate to 
the great houses built upon them. It is an inadequacy that is 
comparative rather than actual, and seems actually so since 
a great house, quite naturally, presupposes a great garden. 
This is not the case in Newport, where the grounds are re- 
stricted and the gardens small; and ‘Rosecliff’? is no excep- 
tion to the rule, although it has a very unusual situation from 
the fact that its grounds are entered from Bellevue Avenue 
by a private road that adjoins the Whitney property, and 
