AMERICAN HOMES 
AND GARDENS 
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Volume X1 ® January, 1914 M n^TT 
A City House of Distinction 
By Robert H. Van Court 
Photographs by Frances Benjamin Johnston and Mattie Edwards Hewitt 
HE student of architecture in America or any- 
one who follows the changes in tendencies 
in home-building cannot but be impressed 
with the growing fondness upon the part of 
architects, as well as their clients, for the 
manner of building which was in vogue 
during the days of the Italian Renaissance. The past ten 
years have seen the building of many great American homes 
in this most sumptuous of architectural styles, some of them 
being in the city and others in surroundings more or less 
rural. In either case there is a consistent following of tra- 
dition, for ancient precedents are not lacking for the build- 
ing of a great Renaissance palace close to the curbstone of 
a city street, where its area is necessarily circumscribed, 
while the old Renaissance country villa, with its formal gar- 
dens, its marble fountains, and its general atmosphere of 
The great gallery in the residence of Mrs. O. H. P. Belmont, New York, is filled with a priceless collection of antique armor 
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