160 AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS 
face the drawing-room, which occupies the center of the 
house. ‘They are superbly designed, with a great outward 
curve that, at the base, is nearly thirty feet in diameter. They 
rise with curved sides to about half the height of the floor, 
then divide on either side and rise in other curves to the sec- 
ond floor. The platform at the dividing point is immediately 
below a great window. A splendid metal railing is the chief 
ornament of the stairs, unless the first place be given to the 
pair of old Spanish twisted columns standing within the 
lower curves, each of which is surmounted with a figure of 
an angel, treasure-trove from a European church. It is a 
magnificent flight of steps, truly palatial in conception and 
carried out in a very bold and strong manner. 
The space beyond is termed the main hall, and is a spacious 
rectangular apartment. It has an enriched paneled ceiling, 
supported on a cornice, below which is a decorative frieze. 
The windows are inclosed within paneled pilasters, richly 
decorated, and the walls are paneled and hung with superb 
pieces of tapestry. [he mantel, of marble, is copied from 
the antique, and is surmounted by an elaborately carved and 
decorated over-mantel. ‘There are many fine old pieces of 
furniture in the hall, the floor of which is almost completely 
covered with a magnificent rug. 
The drawing-room occupies the whole of the center of the 
house. It is a room to which the word magnificent can be 
applied without any limitation. Lighted by five great win- 
dows on either side, it is an immense apartment forty feet 
wide and eighty feet long. As a room it is, therefore, of the 
first size in point of dimensions, and it is designed and fur- 
nished in a manner commensurate with the dignity of its 
parts. Its architectural treatment is in a rich type of the 
March, 1906 
Renaissance. The walls are paneled throughout; the win- 
dow frames, with richly decorated arches, are supported by 
channeled pilasters with Corinthian capitals. ‘The ceiling is 
extraordinarily rich, with a vast central panel, surrounded 
by a broad border in relief with painted panels. The floor 
is of hard wood, covered in the center with a superb rug. 
There is a splendid chandelier at either end of the room. 
The further wing of the house has two great rooms—the 
dining-room on the entrance front and the library on the 
ocean front. ‘The latter is entered directly from the drawing- 
room; but the dining-room is approached through an ante- 
room, which, opening from the drawing-room, admits one 
to the dining-room through the adjoining left hand wall. 
The intervening space between these rooms is occupied by 
the pantry and by stairs to the kitchen and service rooms, 
which are placed in the basement. 
The dining-room is about thirty by forty feet, and is thus 
a large and spacious apartment. It is designed in a severe 
Louis XVI. style, with paneled walls, a plain ceiling and a 
marble mantel. The panels over the doorways and the 
mantel chimney breast are arched to correspond with the 
arches of the windows. ‘The large wall panels are filled 
with tapestry. 
The library, which in some respects is the least formal 
room of the main floor, overlooks the ocean. It is finished 
with old Rhenish oak paneling, in small squares, with a plate 
shelf or cornice just above the height of the mantel. The 
latter is an old stone structure found abroad. ‘The ceiling is 
decorated with a richly interlaced curved pattern, and is 
supported by a simple molding, which surmounts the panels 
of the walls. 
The Spacious Drawing-Room is a Rich Renaissance Apartment, Sumptuously Decorated and Furnished 
