June, 1906 
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A Glimpse of the Drawing-Room 
diamonds on window panes is not taught in the schools of 
our day, and the lettering, though it can be deciphered, re- 
sembles Egyptian hieroglyphics. It is doubtful whether it 
will be allowed a century of life. 
After several years Mrs. Haight sold the house, into which 
she had built so much of her personality, to a Quaker named 
Samuel Reynolds. ‘The Reynoldses had no children, but a 
niece helped to make sunshine in the large house. There is 
an old saying, “Ruth Reynolds was beaued by all the beaus 
in town,” so we imagine hospitable entertainers in Samuel 
Reynolds and his wife, and that neither his broad brim nor 
his wife’s plain garb caused Ruth to lead a cheerless life. 
But death came again to the little family in the great house, 
and for several years the place was unoccupied. 
It was at this time that Daniel Gantley, who had been a 
dry goods merchant of repute in the metropolis, and who 
had married a daughter of Prosper Hosmer, of Hudson, re- 
solved to make it his home. Merchants all along the Hudson 
had traded with the retired merchant for years, so in making 
this move he came among old friends and acquaintances. For 
the first time the great house was full, and its wide spaces 
rang with peals of childish laughter and youthful voices, for 
Daniel Gantley was the father of nine sons and daughters. 
These were the days of house parties and there were no longer 
lonely rooms in the great house. Every corner was filled with 
its children and guests. The carriages that swept around the 
curve of the Catskill road attested to the charms of the five 
fair daughters. Mrs. Gantley held the reins of the household 
with a wise and gracious hand. Not only the young loved to 
AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS 
gO7 
come to this house of many young people, but older friends, 
statesmen and merchants, and society ladies from the old 
home in the city, found in this hospitable country home, and 
its gracious mistress, a charm that outrivaled other places 
of entertainment. 
The furnishings of the New York house fitted into similar 
spaces and corners of the Athens house. It is the eminent 
fitness of these furnishings to the Colonial house of great 
spaces, that has given it for years the name of being the best 
preserved Colonial home on the Hudson. Many marriages 
have taken place under its great arches, children have come 
and gone, but the old home has remained the same, un- 
touched by modern thought and ideas. 
The woodwork of the great parlors, which are fifty-eight 
feet in length, is most beautiful in its carving and in the deli- 
cate tracery of its putty work, garlands and birds which 
decorate its mantels and doors. 
The Empire sideboard in the wide hall is graced by great 
cans of preserved fruits from the West Indies. “The Hosmer 
grandmother had owned sloops, which sailed back and forth 
each year, bringing back, besides the preserved fruits, rare 
china, which with the Spode and Lowestoft and beautiful 
French china fill one of the two closets formed by the curved 
end of the oval drawing-room. ‘The corresponding closet 
exhibits shelf after shelf of cut glass. These closets have 
long been the envy of china lovers. 
There are exquisite family portraits painted by the best 
portrait painters of their day. Inman, one of the artists, 
came to make a final arrangement for the sittings of two of 
the children, and caught such a pretty tableau between them 
that it was this scene from real life that he decided to re- 
produce on canvas. Mrs. Gantley and her three boys were 
painted by Myers. ‘The exquisite touch of motherhood is 
seldom caught and held as in this portrait. Near by is a 
sister, a belle of old New York. ‘The shimmer of satin and 
silk and soft touch of velvet is so realistic that one expects the 
fair lady to step forward and drop a courtesy. Perhaps her 
grand attire came in rolls of silk and velvet on one of her 
sloops that sailed to distant ports, for she, too, had a venture 
in a sailing vessel, and doubtless watched for favoring winds 
The Hall and Winding Staircase 
