House and Garden 
THE PARLOR FIREPLACE AND MANTEL 
thing, especially as the main road is almost sure 
in a hundred years to creep around to the rear of 
the house, suddenly transforming it into the front. 
The kitchen of Bow Hill is in a little wing tacked to 
the building on the east and is quite picturesque. 
The doorway with its naive semicircular transom 
of stained glass is very attractive indeed, and upon 
entering the hallway one instantly sees another semi¬ 
circular stained glass transom at the other end of the 
hall, peeping in a most playful way over the landing 
of the stairs. Under the landing is a door exactly 
similar to the entrance door, and by going out through 
it one finds himself on a porch precisely like the porch 
which lies without the other door. From this another 
path—almost as charming as the one between the 
box hedge—leads down through a little gateway 
to the slope at the extremity of Bow Hill. 
Within the house are many interesting things. 
The stair is an exquisite piece of architecture. It is 
dainty and attractive and managed with remarkable 
restraint and good taste, while the steps go around 
at just a short enough radius to give an aesthetic 
sense of excitement regarding the possibility of 
reaching the bottom in safety. The sides of the 
stair, below the string course, instead of being pan¬ 
elled in the usual way, are decorated most charm¬ 
ingly with little reed mouldings running perpen¬ 
dicularly, which make it very rich indeed. The 
bottom step of the stair, which in the illustration 
seems to be disregarding the rules of perspective, 
was capriciously set at an angle by the builder and 
architect, probably for the purpose of showing that 
that was positively the bottom. The influence of 
the semicircular transoms of the front and rear doors 
will be noticed on the interior 
doors of the hall, where they 
have put little plaster lunettes 
—a thing which is quite distinc¬ 
tive and original. 
In one or two of the illustra¬ 
tions there are glimpses of old 
Chippendale dining-room chairs, 
of which there are several lurk¬ 
ing in obscure corners of the 
house. They are really quite 
beautiful pieces of furniture, and 
if a person could get a number of 
such chairs he would have a 
dining-room set that he might 
well be proud of. In my excite¬ 
ment over the chairs I strayed 
into the former parlor (now sel¬ 
dom used) and discovered a 
mantel done in the real Colonial 
manner, with little baby pilasters 
and applied carving of ropes of 
flowers and baskets of fruit— 
not a model of good form as 
considered from a strictly architectural standpoint, 
by reason of its unstudied proportions; but very 
charming indeed on account of its perfect execution 
and that feeling of quaintness that seems to be in all 
the work of the period. The candelabra on the shelf 
are very old, too, and have a good deal of indi¬ 
viduality. The candelabra and the Chippendale 
chairs make the chance visitor want to steal them 
away when his hostess is out of the room. 
Bonaparte could not have found a more attractive 
place to live in than Bow Hill, or “Beau Hfll,” as 
after his occupancy of it with Miss Savage it was 
once cleverly called, and, if he was not happy there 
(and he does not seem to have been) it was certainly 
not on account of the house, but on account of the 
avalanche of public disapproval he brought down 
about his ears by his indiscretion in regard to Annette 
Savage. He undoubtedly would not have gone to 
Trenton at all but for his ostracism in Philadelphia, 
where he soon discovered his infatuation for the 
pretty little shop-girl was social suicide. Before 
that ostracism he had tried to purchase land from 
Stephen Girard on Chestnut Street between Eleventh 
and Twelfth, for which he offered a very handsome 
sum. There is an interesting anecdote in regard 
to the attempted purchase. Bonaparte was dining 
with Girard and, as the subject of the land came up, 
the former offered to pay any fair price at all for it. 
Girard said, “Well, now, what will you give What 
do you call a fair price “Til tell you,” said Bona¬ 
parte, “Til cover the block from Eleventh to Twelfth 
and from Market to Chestnut with silver half dol¬ 
lars.” Girard thought a bit. “Yes, M. le Count,” 
he said at last (Count de Survilliers was Bonaparte’s 
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