“The House of the Seven Chimneys” 
PLAN OF THE PLACE 
junction with a wall, is filled with a mixture oi broken 
bricks and mortar flowed with liquid cement. Every 
wall and every floor, ordinarily a flue for the spread of 
fire, is here a fire trap, stopping the spread of any pos¬ 
sible blaze as effectually as if each room were an iron 
safe. Every lamp in the house is protected above 
with a brass shield; low ceilings and flaring lamps 
can do no fire damage here. The oil for the lamps is 
kept in a copper 
tank surrounded 
with slate facings 
and with a slate 
oil si nk. This 
sink drains di¬ 
rectly to the main 
sewage line, so 
that kerosene 
can be run in 
the pipe to cut 
out a grease- 
caused stop-up 
without trouble. 
Mr. Davis once 
experienced a 
fire from an oil 
rag on the end of 
a broom. So 
here he has a fire- 
p r o o f, cement 
broom-closet with asbestos door. It is a case of 
the “burned child.” 
The house itself, as a whole, is built on the north¬ 
east, southwest diagonal; it gets the force of the 
prevailing winds at the kitchen end in winter, thus 
tending to warm the house, and in the summer, the 
prevailing winds from the other xmd, thus keeping 
smells from the kitchen from open windows, and 
getting the cool 
breezes from the 
water when and 
where they are 
wanted. With the 
possible excep¬ 
tion of the cellar 
windows, every 
one of the one 
hundred and 
ninety-one win¬ 
dows in the house 
gets sun at least 
th ree hours every 
day in all the year, 
and most of them 
for half the day; 
there are no dark 
rooms in the 
house. And the 
windows are 
THE ENTRANCE HALL 
187 
