House and Garden 
situated in extensive parks, each owner trying in 
good-natured rivalry to have more of the beauties 
of nature and cultivation than his neighbor, result¬ 
ing in grounds laid out in formal groves, hedges 
and gardens rioting in azaleas, camellias and cape 
jessamine for outdoor luxuriance and in hothouses for 
less hardy flowers and 
fruits under glass. 
The most notablefeatures 
of the stately Colonial man¬ 
sions are great brick col¬ 
umns of Doric, Ionic and 
Corinthian mould, and as 
no two of the buildings are 
on exactly tbe same plan, 
Concord, Arlington, Au¬ 
burn, Melrose, Montebello, 
Rosalie, Monmouth, Deve- 
reux, Dunleith, Homewood, 
Gloster, Richmond, 1 Stan¬ 
ton Hall, etc., have the 
distinctive charm of indi¬ 
viduality, only the general 
effect being somewhat sim¬ 
ilar, like people of the same 
generation. 
“Arlington,” of brick, 
with stone facings, that 
were imported, having been 
brought to Virginia and 
then here, is one of the earli¬ 
est, the spacious entrance 
hall is used as art gallery 
and ballroom, the beautifully carved doorways and 
fantail transoms, giving quaint effect, tbe walls bung 
with old-world paintings, bronzes and brass armor 
plates, making a picture-setting lor a ball. At the 
right is a drawing-room in sunlight brocade, lit 
with myriad candles in brackets on the side walls, 
that shed a soft light on 
the objects of art in marble 
and bric-a-brac. Beyond 
the drawing-room is the 
library of eight thousand 
volumes, the book shelves 
running from floor to ceil¬ 
ing in this spacious room, 
lighted by windows set be¬ 
tween the book shelves. 
Across the hall is the din¬ 
ing-room, a morning-room 
and side hall, where the 
stairway runs to the floor 
above, planned on the 
same broad lines in ball- 
way and off - lying bed¬ 
rooms. 
At “Auburn” the spiral 
stairwayis a unique feature 
of that period of architec¬ 
ture, as are the cross halls 
at “Homewood.” Onlythe 
brick pillars of “Monte¬ 
bello” are left to give out¬ 
line of the vast dwelling 
that burned several years 
62 
