Saturday, April 25, 2015

INTIMATE SKETCH, LOUIS COMFORT TIFFANY HOUSE, 72ND STREET, NEW YORK CITY

Vernon Howe Bailey, 1935
    
    Louis Comfort Tiffany house at 72nd Street and Madison Avenue was demolished only one year after this rendering was sketched.  SOURCE

    Follow THIS LINK for all past post on the Tiffany house. 

Friday, April 24, 2015

"WOODCREST LODGE" HOUSE OF PAUL D. MILLS, ESQ., ST. DAVIDS, PA.

    Built in 1914, "Woodcrest Lodge" was the home Paul Denckla Mills and his wife Ellen Drexel Paul. The work of the Architect Charles Barton Keen, "Woodcrest Lodge" was built in the Georgian Colonial style with an exterior of rough buff-colored stucco.

ENTRANCE GATES
HOUSE OF PAUL D. MILLS, ESQ., ST. DAVIDS, PA.
MR. CHARLES BARTON KEEN, ARCHITECT

"WOODCREST LODGE"
HOUSE OF PAUL D. MILLS, ESQ., ST. DAVIDS, PA.
MR. CHARLES BARTON KEEN, ARCHITECT

DETAIL OF ENTRANCE FRONT
 HOUSE OF PAUL D. MILLS, ESQ., ST. DAVIDS, PA.
 MR. CHARLES BARTON KEEN, ARCHITECT

DETAIL OF ENTRANCE FRONT
HOUSE OF PAUL D. MILLS, ESQ., ST. DAVIDS, PA.
 
MR. CHARLES BARTON KEEN, ARCHITECT

DETAIL OF PRINCIPAL ENTRANCE
HOUSE OF PAUL D. MILLS, ESQ., ST. DAVIDS, PA.
MR. CHARLES BARTON KEEN, ARCHITECT
     "Woodcrest Lodge" sat atop a steep hillside. A raised terrace ran the length of the house, accessed by paired French doors from the hall, drawing, and dining rooms.


TERRACE FRONT
HOUSE OF PAUL D. MILLS, ESQ., ST. DAVIDS, PA.
 
MR. CHARLES BARTON KEEN, ARCHITECT
    
TERRACE FRONT
HOUSE OF PAUL D. MILLS, ESQ., ST. DAVIDS, PA.
 MR. CHARLES BARTON KEEN, ARCHITECT

DETAIL OF ENTRANCE, TERRACE FRONT
HOUSE OF PAUL D. MILLS, ESQ., ST. DAVIDS, PA.
 MR. CHARLES BARTON KEEN, ARCHITECT

FIRST FLOOR PLAN
 HOUSE OF PAUL D. MILLS, ESQ., ST. DAVIDS, PA.
 MR. CHARLES BARTON KEEN, ARCHITECT
THE HALL
HOUSE OF PAUL D. MILLS, ESQ., ST. DAVIDS, PA.
 MR. CHARLES BARTON KEEN, ARCHITECT

THE SKYLIT MAIN HALL AND ROOM-LENGTH STAIRCASE
HOUSE OF PAUL D. MILLS, ESQ., ST. DAVIDS, PA.
 MR. CHARLES BARTON KEEN, ARCHITECT

MANTEL IN HALL
HOUSE OF PAUL D. MILLS, ESQ., ST. DAVIDS, PA.
 MR. CHARLES BARTON KEEN, ARCHITECT
     Delicate detailing in the Adam style could be found throughout the house in the form of decorative cornices and doorways and carved white marble fireplace mantels.


DRAWING ROOM
HOUSE OF PAUL D. MILLS, ESQ., ST. DAVIDS, PA.
 MR. CHARLES BARTON KEEN, ARCHITECT
    The dining room had dark mahogany paneling, Hepplewhite furnishings, and a Waterford crystal chandelier. 


 DINING ROOM
HOUSE OF PAUL D. MILLS, ESQ., ST. DAVIDS, PA.
MR. CHARLES BARTON KEEN, ARCHITECT 

DINING ROOM MANTEL
HOUSE OF PAUL D. MILLS, ESQ., ST. DAVIDS, PA.

 MR. CHARLES BARTON KEEN, ARCHITECT

LIBRARY
 HOUSE OF PAUL D. MILLS, ESQ., ST. DAVIDS, PA.
 MR. CHARLES BARTON KEEN, ARCHITECT

SECOND FLOOR PLAN
 HOUSE OF PAUL D. MILLS, ESQ., ST. DAVIDS, PA.
 MR. CHARLES BARTON KEEN, ARCHITECT

   
    A native of Philadelphia, Paul Denckla Mills and his wife spent much of their later life in New Yorkwhere Mills was a partner in the banking and brokerage firm of Dewing, Ruggles & Mills. In 1928 Mills sold "Woodcrest Lodge" and its surrounding 30 acres to a developer who owned the property until the 1950's. Later it was purchased by the Valley Forge Military Academy. The former "Woodcrest Lodge"  was destroyed by arson in 1973.

    The couple also owned "Windsor Plantation" on the Black River in the Georgetown, South Carolina area.


    Follow THIS LINK to see an aerial from 1948 showing "Woodcrest Lodge" and the surrounding area. wikimapia site where estate stood. Outbuildings still survive. BING.


   Built on a section of the estate of James W. Paul's "Woodcrest", father of  Ellen Drexel Mills.

1907 Portrait of Paul Denckla Mills(1877-1954)
Adolphe Borie

Charles Barton Keen, Architect


Sunday, April 19, 2015

"PARK HILL" C. F. DEWITT HOUSE, HOLLYWOOD, CALIFORNIA


    The DeWitt mansion by Architect Charles H. Kyson. The principal rooms included a formal dining room, breakfast room, den, music room and billiards room. Upstairs were four master bedrooms, each with their own tiled baths, three of which featured polished crystal “fixtures” and 14-carat gold-plated hardware.

    C.F. DeWitt owned the mansion until 1936 when he sold the home in the wake of his wife’s suicide the previous November. DeWitt remarried and lived to 76, dying in February of 1946. In recent years, his former home has been renamed "Park Hill" and, although there have been some inevitable changes in kitchen and bathrooms, the home remains remarkably as built.


"YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Your Mama has been hearing for months already that Miz Perry(Katy Perry) wants to unload her never-lived in L.A. compound, 'Park Hill', and—so the scuttlebutt went—she unsuccessfully had it shopped around off-market for a few months in the high seven millions before finally hoisting the grand estate on the open market today with an official (and notably lower) asking price of $6,925,000.

    In June 2011, almost a year after nine time Grammy-nominated international pop music super star Katy Perry wed her now ex-husband—that would be raunchy and unkempt looking British comedian Russell Brand—in a lavish ceremony in India they dropped six and a half million clams on "Park Hill", an historic, double-gated celebrity-style compound of nearly three acres nestled onto a private promontory just above the frequently traffic clogged mouth of Laurel Canyon in West Hollywood (CA).

    According to the good people at Paradise Leased and The Movieland Directory, 'Park Hill' was built in the mid-1920's for successful real estate developer C. F. DeWitt who lived in the house until shortly after his wife committed suicide in the house in the mid-1930's. Eventually the house was bought by Dan Laiken, the ex-CEO of National Lampoon who was put in the pokey in 2010 on a securities fraud conviction. It was Mister Laiken’s people who sold the house to Miz Perry and Mister Brand.

    Alas, the erstwhile couple broke up in a blaze of tabloid publicity and speculation just a few months after purchasing 'Park Hill'. Mister Brand chivalrously granted complete ownership of 'Park Hill' to Miz Perry who—so we've been told by someone in the position to know—never actually occupied the property. (She moved, instead, to a modest if hardly inexpensive rental in a storied West Hollywood apartment house and he snatched up a contemporary crib at the tippy-top of the Bird Streets neighborhood above the Sunset Strip where all the streets are named after—you got it—birds.)

    Current listing details reveal Miz Perry’s unwanted real estate albatross looms over a parking lot-sized motor court, stands three stories high at the back, measures in at a roomy but hardly humongous 8,835 square feet and contains a total of seven bedrooms, seven full and four half bathrooms. There are also two fireplaces—living room and library—and loads of original architectural detailing and vintage fixtures such as the silhouette chandelier that hangs in the stone-walled and marble floored front foyer and stair hall.

    The mansion’s public rooms are nothing if not baronial and include a capacious, 45-foot long double-height living room with dark-stained wood floors, a heavy beamed wood ceiling, massive carved stone fireplace that originally warmed an Italian castle and a towering Palladian window that opens to a small terrace with big city view. The room’s quirky pièce de résistance is an old timey minstrel’s gallery from where musician once serenaded residents and party attending guests. The partially panelled dining room isn't exactly the size of a royal banquet hall but is absolutely impressive with its hand-stenciled honeycomb pattern wood ceiling.

    Some of the other living and entertaining spaces include a library with fireplace, media lounge, and spacious, center island country kitchen with snack counter, built-in banquette seating, high grade appliances and fixtures and an adjoining breakfast room with a hand-painted groin vaulted ceiling. All in all it looks like the kitchen in a suburban macmansion but anyone who pay seven million for this place can surely afford to replace the existing kitchen with something more stylish and/or suitable for a house of this magnitude.

    The bulk of the property’s landscaped grounds are at the front of the house where’s there’s a giant circular drive but there are balconies and terraces all around, some with city views, and tucked back into the steep, planted hillside there’s a lagoon-style swimming pool with waterfall.

    In addition to the main manse, the impressively scaled compound includes a two story detached structure with a three car garage upstairs and a caretakers apartment plus art/music studio below. A second detached guest house sits high on the hillside above the swimming on a legally separate lot and includes a bedroom, kitchen and bathroom according to listing details."

    Last sold: Dec 2013 for $5,565,000

ENTRANCE GATE, C. F. DEWITT HOUSE, HOLLYWOOD
CHARLES H. KYSON, ARCHITECT
ENTRANCE GATE, C. F. DEWITT HOUSE, HOLLYWOOD
CHARLES H. KYSON, ARCHITECT
C. F. DEWITT HOUSE, HOLLYWOOD
CHARLES H. KYSON, ARCHITECT
Acres of meandering paths led among deep green tree shrubs.  Settings were available for contemplative thought, reading or tending the gardens.
The grounds of "Park Hill" estate were once known for harboring the largest reserve of flowering camellia shrubs in the US.  The estate’s camellia garden is world-class and is a living legacy of a later owner, Ralph S. Peer, who was president of the American Camellia Society. In 1959, one of the world’s largest camellia bushes, an enormous 30-foot high specimen, was transplanted into the garden from its original site in Pico Rivera where it had been planted in 1887.
ENTRANCE, C. F. DEWITT HOUSE, HOLLYWOOD
CHARLES H. KYSON, ARCHITECT
"PARK HILL", C. F. DEWITT HOUSE, HOLLYWOOD
CHARLES H. KYSON, ARCHITECT
ENTRANCE HALL,C. F. DEWITT HOUSE, HOLLYWOOD
CHARLES H. KYSON, ARCHITECT
One of the most impressive features of the DeWitt mansion is its dramatic oval entry hall sheathed from floor to ceiling in cut stone and featuring a marble floor imported from Florence, Italy. A sweeping staircase leads up to a musician’s balcony overlooking the enormous living room. Anchoring the room is an elegant 19th Century fireplace, which once warmed an Italian castle and a beautiful fountain composed of mosaic tiles commissioned specifically for the house and handmade in Italy.
ENTRANCE HALL, C. F. DEWITT HOUSE, HOLLYWOOD
CHARLES H. KYSON, ARCHITECT
ENTRANCE HALL, C. F. DEWITT HOUSE, HOLLYWOOD
CHARLES H. KYSON, ARCHITECT
LIVING ROOM, C. F. DEWITT HOUSE, HOLLYWOOD
CHARLES H. KYSON, ARCHITECT
The hand-carved patterns in the diamond-shaped panel have been touched with burnished gold.
LIVING ROOM, C. F. DEWITT HOUSE, HOLLYWOOD
CHARLES H. KYSON, ARCHITECT

LIVING ROOM, C. F. DEWITT HOUSE, HOLLYWOOD
CHARLES H. KYSON, ARCHITECT
"HONOS - ALIT - ARTES"
Designed by Frederick Wilson
LIVING ROOM, C. F. DEWITT HOUSE, HOLLYWOOD
CHARLES H. KYSON, ARCHITECT
CORNER IN LIVING ROOM, C. F. DEWITT HOUSE, HOLLYWOOD
CHARLES H. KYSON, ARCHITECT
SOUTHEAST END OF LIVING ROOM, C. F. DEWITT HOUSE, HOLLYWOOD
CHARLES H. KYSON, ARCHITECT
VIEW - "the frequently traffic clogged mouth of Laurel Canyon in West Hollywood."


MINSTREL GALLERY, C. F. DEWITT HOUSE, HOLLYWOOD
CHARLES H. KYSON, ARCHITECT
VIEW OF STAINED GLASS WINDOW FROM MINSTREL GALLERY, C. F. DEWITT HOUSE, HOLLYWOOD
CHARLES H. KYSON, ARCHITECT
LIBRARY, C. F. DEWITT HOUSE, HOLLYWOOD
CHARLES H. KYSON, ARCHITECT
DOOR IN LIBRARY, C. F. DEWITT HOUSE, HOLLYWOOD
CHARLES H. KYSON, ARCHITECT

DINING ROOM, C. F. DEWITT HOUSE, HOLLYWOOD
CHARLES H. KYSON, ARCHITECT
An exquisitely turned mahogany door such as this provides its own note of decoration. The delicately wrought panels will catch the eye of the beauty lover and hold it with their delicate finish.

BREAKFAST ROOM, C. F. DEWITT HOUSE, HOLLYWOOD
CHARLES H. KYSON, ARCHITECT
Showing Gray and Black Everlastic Tile Floor installed in Kitchen, Pantry and Service Quarters of the C. F. DeWitt Home. Corner of the Kitchen shown here.
BEDROOM, C. F. DEWITT HOUSE, HOLLYWOOD
CHARLES H. KYSON, ARCHITECT

BEDROOM, C. F. DEWITT HOUSE, HOLLYWOOD
CHARLES H. KYSON, ARCHITECT

      wikimapia LOCATION. BING.




THE INDIVIDUALITY AND BEAUTY, CHARACTERISTIC OF THE EARLY GLASS WORKER, ARE REPRODUCED IN THE GLASS MOSAIC AND STAINED GLASS WINDOWS MADE IN OUR STUDIOS FOR THE C. F. DeWITT RESIDENCE, HOLLYWOOD

THE CALIFORNIA DOOR CO. 237-241 CENTRAL AVENUE LOS ANGELES
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