House and Garden 
POND NUMBER THREE AND WEE WAH LAKE 
served and enhanced the character of the 
country. The rugged topography of the place 
forbade attempts at any formal arrangement. 
No main axes, save that of the chain of lakes, 
are to be found, and no effort was made to 
supply them. The vistas are purely natural 
—such as one sees between arching houghs, 
terminating abruptly at a curve in the road, 
or by the interposition of a wooded hillside. 
The single exception is furnished by the prin¬ 
cipal gate, | ust north of the village, on the road 
leading from the Orange turnpike. Here 
Bruce Price constructed a stone lodge and 
keep which, viewed from the road or train, 
offer an admirable entrance, suggesting faith¬ 
fully the character of the Park, as the prelude 
to an opera hints at what is to come. Once 
within, the drives conform to the natural 
grades. The Circuit, Mountain Lake Road, 
Valley Road and Ringwood Avenue form a 
fairly direct passageway through the south¬ 
eastern half of the enclosed Park, the western 
portion of this being a game preserve. The 
lakes are skirted by a continuous drive, which, 
on the east side, is the main artery of travel 
between club house and cottages. Stables are 
concentrated in several localities—along the 
West Lake Road north of Pond No. 3, and 
under the sloping sides of Tower Hill, below 
Mr. Poor’s place. 
The character of the houses in Tuxedo Park 
is less homogeneous than might have been 
expected. The newer ones are most of them 
of stone; some differ little from isolated city 
dwellings, while others’ are solid without 
being pretentious. As they were not designed 
to withstand the extreme cold of the moun¬ 
tains, it is natural that the light wooden 
cottages of the late eighties have been super¬ 
seded. When Tuxedo was started, it was not 
generally realized that it would become not 
only a summer home but also a winter resort. 
The thirty or more families that spend the 
winter in the Park enjoy, with the club 
house guests, the best aspects of country 
life in a bracing climate, with skating and 
tobogganing on the lake, and sleighing that 
rarely fails them. Summer life at Tuxedo is 
kept as near to simplicity as is consistent with 
people and place. Dinner parties form a 
favorite mode of entertaining one's friends, 
and the club house is a natural rallying 
point. The community rarely needs to go out¬ 
side its own boundaries for its social pleasures. 
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