December, 1908 



AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS 



459 



Notable American Homes 



By Barr Ferree 



The Home of Lieut.-Governor Lewis Stuyvesant Chanler at Tuxedo, New York 



T IS one of the many charms of Lieut.-Gov- 

 ernor Chanler's home in Tuxedo Park that 

 the approach to it is through a wilderness. 

 The road mounts onward and upward, as 

 most of the roads in this fascinating place 

 have a habit of doing; the automobile whirls 

 past handsome place after handsome place, 

 of which one no sooner catches a glimpse than some new 

 object of interest presents itself. Then, all at once, civil- 

 ization seems left behind; for a few minutes the road 

 seems to have plunged into the forest; there are dense 

 trees to the right and left, and trees before one. Suddenly 

 there is more light ahead, more space, no doubt, for the trees 

 are further back from the road; the underbrush, all along of 

 a genuinely woody character, now gives way to great bushes 

 of white flowers shining behind an avenue of white pines. Al- 

 most before you know it you have driven into an open fore- 

 court and dismounted before the doorway of the house. 

 Vastly unexpected and vastly delightful it is. One knows, 

 of course, there is a house here, for one has started to reach 

 it. One knows, 

 also, if the dignified 

 folk who have made 

 Tuxedo Park fa- 

 mous were addicted 

 to the game of hide 

 and seek, they could 

 have no better sport 

 — were they actu- 

 ally unfamiliar with 

 the location of these 

 dwellings — than to 

 use them as a base 

 for play of this sort. 

 One lives in Tuxedo 

 for the beauty of the 

 place and not to be 

 seen or heard; and 

 while there are 

 many beautiful 

 places and wonder- 

 ful sites here I doubt 

 if any one has a 

 more charming and 

 delightful situation 

 than Lieut.-Gover- 

 nor Chanler. More- 

 over, the seques- 

 tration of his place 

 is more apparent 

 than real, for the 

 Park automobile ser- 

 vice permits it to be 

 readily reached at 

 all times, and the 

 telephone keeps him 

 in touch with the 

 whole world. 



The house is a 

 charming structure, 

 not large, but mo- 

 dest in size, and was 

 designed by R. Clip- 



The inscription from Isaiah over the door is the 

 solitary place shall be glad for them; and the 



ston Sturgis, architect, of Boston. It is built of Harvard 

 brick, with sandstone trimmings. The entrance front pre- 

 sents two wings of which the larger, on the left, contains the 

 service rooms; while the smaller, on the right, contains the 

 end of the drawing-room. Midway between these is a third 

 extension, a shallow pavillion with the entrance door. The 

 first story of this is completely encased with sandstone. The 

 doorway is placed beneath a curved pediment, cut away in 

 the center to give space for a decorated cartouche; the en- 

 tablature is supported by channeled pilasters standing on 

 pedestals. Higher up is a twin window and then the plainly 

 pointed gable. 



Save for the stone edging of the corners there are no 

 other parts of this front that may be described as "features" 

 except the windows. In other words, the exterior of the 

 house is strictly architectural, depending solely on its struc- 

 ture for the effect. And this, it should be noted at once, is 

 highly picturesque; not the picturesqueness of the bizarre 

 and the strange, but the picturesque that is obtained by the 

 use of simple motifs arranged in a picturesque way for the 



obtaining of a pic- 

 turesque end. 



One can imagine, 

 then, the pleasure 

 with which the ar- 

 chitect set about his 

 task; choosing a 

 style that permitted 

 of varied surfaces 

 and parts and 

 which encouraged 

 the employment of 

 windows designed 

 to meet definite in- 

 terior problems 

 without very much 

 regard as to where 

 they came on the 

 outside, being sure 

 that whatever their 

 form or location, 

 they would be 

 bound to help the 

 design and not to 

 hinder it. One 

 does not realize, 

 until one sets out 

 to study it, how ex- 

 ceedingly irregular 

 this front is and 

 how very varied are 

 its component parts. 

 As a matter of fact 

 such an analysis is 

 not needed, for the 

 exterior offers itself 

 as a whole, and as a 

 whole it is im- 

 mensely delightful 

 and th o rough lv 

 charming. 



The building 

 problem here was 



keynote of the place : "The wilderness and 

 desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose" 



