Great Gatsby Movie Trailer(2012)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Gatsby_(2012_film)

"Rosemary Farm"

"ROSEMARY - THAT'S FOR REMEMBRANCE": AND ROSEMARY FARM, THAT'S FOR LOVE AND MEMORY, TOO. ***unknown author - 1918***


THE most intangible and lovable quality about a country place is atmosphere, that air of charm and accrued memories which cannot be bought or built. It is usually the fruition of the years, an amalgam of nature and art and time. All along the shores of Long Island are coming into being great houses
beautiful grounds which a century hence may have
achieved atmosphere, but which today proclaim only the affluence and taste of their owners. The earth has not welded them to herself, they rest lightly on the ground, suns and storms have not mellowed their color, and birth, and death, and living have not yet made of them homes. The man who desires a mansion can secure one by the combination of a big architect and a big purse; but the man who desires to put into outward expression his ideal of home and hospitality must put himself into the job of home making from its inception to the end of his life.


The architect and the landscape artist have to be wary to keep man and his abode from being an intrusion on the landscape, and the larger the house the greater is the skill needed to weld the sophistication of our growing elegance with the gracious simplicities of nature. When a man marries himself to the land, he needs to feel a touch of the same glamour with which he marries his wife, and that will make the growth of a comely home a romance.

***"Rosemary Farm" Roland Conklin Estate - Huntington, NY - Circa 1924***

SOME forty miles from New York, there is such a place called Rosemary Farm, a Long Island estate of several hundred acres where beautiful things have been happening during the past decade. There were hills and lakes and woods and sea to begin with, and on the place Mr. Roland Ray Conklin found a little preRevolutionary farm house, clinging to the highway, as homes did when men were so scarce that every touch of human contact was desired. Just enough modern comfort was added to this farm house to make a living place for his family, while Mr. Conklin built the long red brick residence which tops the loveliest of his hills, commanding the wondrous Cold Spring Harbor, which looks like a Norwegian fiord in the low light of afternoon. Directly opposite are the beguiling involutions of Oyster Bay, while to the right a great sweep of the waters of the Sound meet the Connecticut Hills weaving into a blue horizon. From the living rooms and the terrace the pageant of the sunset crowns the day, while twilight comes first in the great cedars which sentinel the Open-Air Theatre set within a cleft between the house and the sea.

***Open-Air Theatre - "Rosemary Farm"  Roland Conklin Estate***   

This theatre is perhaps the keynote of Rosemary, for the host finds even his big house so inadequate to satisfy his joy in sharing his acres, that he has built for the use of America this lovely amphitheater, which accommodates itself so fraternally with the place that there is no sense of intrusion. It never looks empty, and even at midnight, when Pelleas and Melisande, its two guardian swans, abandon their vigil in sleep, you can almost see Pan leave his stony base and call his people from the woods beyond the stage.

Brooding over the amphitheatre is a balustraded terrace, and beyond that the water front of the house, mellow with soft bricks and huge, adzed oak timbers. Numerous sleeping porches cling to its sides, without destroying the vigorous simplicity of its lines. The garden front has a more intimate overhanging quality, the great roof line in the center sweeping down to the mezzanine floor supported by carved caryatides. Vines have climbed to the gable tops, and the hedges are now man high. 

WHITE MARBLE DOORWAY BROUGHT OVER FROM ITALY SETS THE TONE FOR THE LUXURIANCE OF THE INSIDE OF THE HOUSE: WROUGHT IRON GATES AND CARVING OVER THE DOORWAY ARE UNUSUALLY FINE.

The hospitable front door has a way of standing open even after Jack Frost pushes his way in, and through the reception hall comes the glow of immense logs whenever there is the slightest excuse to keep the hearth fires burning. The visitor gets an instant impression of dignity, beauty and homelikeness, but there is still another joy for the trained eye, which welcomes the realization that the ornament is constructive, not applied. 

THE HALL AT ROSEMARY FARM WITH THE ORGAN IN THE DISTANCE: THE SPACE MADE BEAUTIFUL WITH RARE SPANISH ANTIQUE FURNITURE AND  RICH  POLYCHROME  LIGHTING FIXTURES.

The carved figures on the arches and the stairway are part of the structural beams, and as one glances through the rooms, opening one from another, one realizes that all the richness expresses something inherent.

A CLOSE VIEW OF THE ORGAN IN ONE END OF THE LIBRARYAT ROSEMARY FARM.

The living hall has a fine organ whose golden pipes blend with the dim, mysterious gorgeousness of the Panels of the Wise Men which line the walls. This organ once cast an aureate(gold) glow over the choir of an old Portuguese church. The room is lit by a lovely old metal lampidere colored in polychrome, which used to carry little lamps of oil above a high altar.


There is an Hispano-Moresque Cabinet of walnut, ivory and gold, chairs from an old Venetian palace, Russian brass, and other lares from far lands, which nevertheless blend so unobtrusively and quietly that they do not call the eye until after a full realization of the comfort and welcome of the room. 

A LIBRARY IN THE CONKLIN HOME ON LONG ISLAND N. Y. - DESIGNED AND EXECUTED UNDER THE HOGGSON BUILDING METHOD.

Beyond is the library, where upon the ceiling is woven a cunning design of arabesques, in the middle of each the symbol of one of the ancient formlers whose press assisted in the evolution of books.

ROOM OF THE ROLAND CONKLIN HOUSE, REMODELLED BY HOGGSON BROTHERS. FURNISHED WITH SPANISH LEATHER CHEST, CARVED  CABINETS  AND QUEEN  ANNE CHAIRS.

In the owner's study are many beautiful specimens of bindings from the Kelmscott and Dove presses. Toward the east is the music room, panelled in grey and hung in soft blue. This room is also a theatre, having stage curtain and footlights. Beyond is the conservatory, paned in Welsh quarries and banked on three sides with masses of blooming plants, which change from month to month in color and form. On the fourth side is a tile-lined pool with mosses and ferns banked above it.

THE FIREPLACE IN THE DINING ROOM AT ROSEMARY FARM.

On the western side of the house are the dining room and breakfast room, the former with an impressive old Italian mantel, tapestries, and chairs made from the choir stalls of a Mediaeval French church. Twisted Venetian columns divide this from the breakfast room; through a hexagon of glass is seen the beauties of the waterways and the distant shores of lovely contour.


The circular dining table has a magic quality of growth, for the number of diners at this elastic board is generally an unknown quantity, since motorists dropping in for a five minute call have a way of still being there the following morning for breakfast. All the impediments you have left at home appear waiting for you in your room, and so friendly is this stately house that you conclude it matters little what you wear. If you are fortunate you may happen upon a Rosemary dinner, which means a meal provided entirely by the host, if we conscientiously exclude the salt. Oysters and clams grow on his shores, bread comes from his fields, fish from the bay, meat and game from his flocks, mushrooms, vegetables and fruits from his farm, sugar from his Cuban plantation, cream from his herds, and wine and liquors from his vineyards. There is even a Rosemary cocktail containing a sprig of Rosemary, and of a secret brew we none of us know, and lastly nut trees in a sheltered ravine, coaxed and sheltered to feel themselves near the tropics.

A FLEMISH BED IN MASTER'S BEDROOM WITH RARE LACE COUNTERPANE BROUGHT FROM THE OLD WORLD AND A LANTERN BROUGIIT OVER FROM AN OLD WORLD CASTLE.

I remember seeing at Rosemary the full rose-tinted cups of seven thousand peach tree blossoms each holding in its corolla a rounded mound of snow. There were gray clouds, and gray stems to make an exquisite background for this Chinese acquerella, shimmering and silvery and roseate, but September saw very few peaches.


There is much still to be done at Rosemary, its owner has great dreams and plans for coaxing it to develop further allurements, but it has already achieved that entrancing quality - atmosphere. This is a place you do not forget, a haven well named, "Rosemary, that's for remembrance."


Vacant for many years house burned on December 27, 1990. Click HERE to see remains of "Rosemary Farm" at wikimapia. Follow additional links to Bing Maps and Historic Aerials from 1953 showing house still standing.  


Learn more about Roland Conklin and "Rosemary Farm" by visiting oldlonisland.com. Find-A-Grave site for Roland Ray Conklin.


The Hoggson Building Method.

"Preston Hall"

AKA "Martin Hall"


Originally built for James E. Martin Sr.(executive at Standard Oil). Designed by Little & O'Connor c. 1900. After the death of Mr. Martin in 1908 his widow Florence remarried Dr. Preston Pope Satterwhite. The Satterwhite's hired the Olmsted Brothers to landscape the grounds between 1915-18. Mr. Satterwhite remained in the house following the death of Florence in 1927 until a short circuit in the organ caused a large fire in 1932, burning the house to the ground. Click HERE to read details of will for Mr Martin.

"Preston Hall" - Time frame between 1915-1918 when Olmsted Brothers redid landscaping. 

"Preston Hall" - Time frame between 1915-1918 when Olmsted Brothers redid landscaping.

The original "Martin Hall"

Below "Martin Hall's" playhouse - which still survives. Click HERE to see location at wikimapia.

"Martin Hall" - Playhouse - Photo courtesy of roving photog  JamesH.  

"Martin Hall" - Playhouse - Photo courtesy of roving photog  JamesH. 

Click HERE to see remnants of the Olmsted garden and house foundations at Historic Aerials c. 1954.

For more on "Martin Hall" visit oldlongisland.com and Mansion of the Gilded Age.

Dinner at Eight - Murder at...

On October 30, 1955, Edith Baker gave a party for the Duchess of Windsor which was attended by Billy Woodward and his wife Ann, who would murder him later that night. Edith's late son Grenville was Billy's best friend, and she always invited Billy to her parties. Grenville had been killed six years earlier by a sniper surmised to be the husband of one of his girlfriends. That murder, almost a precursor of the one about to involve his best friend on this evening, was ruled "accidental." As this one would be. 

As they filed in, everyone curtsied to the Duchess as though she were royalty herself. She did nothing to dissaude the formality. She and the Duke were world-class freeloaders, living off the Baker's largesse at Viking Cove every year. They expected to be wined and dined during their stay and this particular party became synonymous with the end of the good life in Oyster Bay, though the parties went on. 

In fact, the Duchess threw a well-attended party the day after the murder, more like witness prep, where she explained that when they were all questioned by the police, as they soon would be, they were to say "Bill and Ann Woodward were an ideally-suited couple." This curt sentence hides but does not obscure the truth - Billy and Ann had a volcanic relationship characterized by beatings and the occasional public spectacle on both sides. "They seemed to spur each other on," said one of their friends.   

Ann Woodward was not charged in the murder and, like the movie "Madam X" with Lana Turner, she was stripped of her children by her rich mother-in-law who paid her off to go away. 

Mrs. Woodward eventually commits suicide in Switzerland because of something Truman Capote wrote in his controversial 1975 Esquire piece titled "La Cote Basque."

Dominick Dunne took this real-life tale and turned it into a delicious novel "The Two Mrs. Grenvilles." The other result was this fabulous 1987 TV movie, based on Dunne's book, starring Claudette Colbert and Ann-Margret.  A year later, one of her sons also committed suicide by jumping from a window. In 1999, her other son met the same fate, thereby wiping out an entire branch of the Woodward family. 

The Woodward's arriving for dinner. From the serialize version of Dominic Dunn's book THE TWO MRS. GRENVILLES. 

That night at their home "The Playhouse" Billy confronted Ann with the information from her past - she had been married before and NEVER properly divorced. Later, she mistakes hubby for a prowler, shoots him dead. 

Watch final scenes below -

Click HERE to read a preview from the book including dinner conversation at the Bleeker's(Baker's of "Vikings Cove" Glen Cove, L. I.).

Click HERE to read a extensive true-life article on the Woodward's and the scandal.

"Castle Hill" Italian Style

An Italian Renaissance Revival villa with stucco walls and red tiled roof designed by Shepley, Rutan and Coolidge(successor firm to Henry Hobsen Richardson) c.1910. Built for Richard T. Crane, Jr.(Crane Co.) on Castle Hill, the highest promontory overlooking the Atlantic Ocean near Ipswich, Massachusetts.  According to wikipedia his wife Florence felt that the mansion was cold and drafty, and made her displeasure known. Crane countered by promising that if she would give it ten years, he would replace it if she still insisted. She did! It was razed and replaced in 1928 with a 59-room Stuart-style mansion designed by architect David Adler.




Click HERE to see "Castle Hill" today at wikimapia.

"Pembroke" Under Construction

The palatial country residence of Capt. J. R. DeLamar. at Glen Cove, L. I., to cost $275,000, now being designed by C. P. H. Gilbert, architect, New York City, is to be heated and ventilated by the Harrison Aertube heater system to be installed by the Harrison Engineering Co., New York City, which has the contract for the entire plant. ***Domestic Engineering - 1910***

The photograph shows the new residence at Glen Cove, L. I., of Captain J. M. DeLamar, now under construction. The building is 150 feet long, 100 feet wide and three stories in height, and is fire-proof throughout, the floors being of steel and terra cotta.


The structure contains approximately 250 tons of structural steel, an exceptionally large tonnage for this class of construction. All of the structural steel and ornamental iron was painted with two coats of Dixon's Silica-Graphite. The steel contractor for this work was Fitzpatrick & Coombs, of New York City. ***Graphite - 1909***



The Isolated Sewage Disposal System 


A Type Adaptable to the Country Residence 


By WILLIAM C. TUCKER 

COUNTRY ESTATE OF THE LATE CAPTAIN DE LAMAR AT GLEN COVE, LONG ISLAND, N. Y. C. P. H. GILBERT, ARCHITECT

SOME of the choicest residential sites are located in sections unprovided with municipal sewers and, therefore, it is generally necessary for the architect planning such a country home to make provision for a satisfactory method of sewage disposal. Fortunately scientific investigation has resulted in 
evolving a plan both simple in construction and effcient in operation.


Former methods of draining household waste material either into a cesspool or a nearby stream are no longer countenanced and these methods cannot be too strongly condemned, nor their attendant dangers  overemphasized. 

The underlying principles to produce complete bacterial reaction are quiescence, sedimentation and the delivery of the material for treatment in as dense a form as is expedient, with sufficient fluid only to hold the solids in suspension so that they may be moved in the sewer with celerity and freedom. To produce these results the sewage must be delivered to a water-tight masonry chamber of sufficient capacity to retain the accumulation of two days' supply. The receiving basin must be so constructed that the movement of the sewage during its passage to final disposal may be leisurely. 

ESTATE OF THE LATE CAPTAIN DELMAR AT GLEN COVE, LONG ISLAND N. Y. THE SEWAGE DISPOSAL SYSTEM SHOWN HERE HAS BEEN IN SATISFACTORY OPERATION FOR SEVERAL YEARS 

To obtain this condition a short masonry wall two feet high is usually built across the bottom of the receiving tank, located at the center, to act as a baffle plate and assist in producing a sluggish and retarded flow. Thus fermentation and sedimentation will be most thorough, accompanied by complete bacterial activity. This action changes the solids into insoluble and mineral components which settle to the bottom in the form of a thick black viscous sludge into which bacterial activity continues, as well as the formation of gases which escape to the outer air. The resulting effluent should be free of suspended matter, and is generally of grayish color, with slight sweetish odor, and retains much heat. 


The receiving basin must be of the correct size. This cannot be determined until the daily water consumption within the house is known. The depth of sewage should, if possible, not be over 4 ft. 6 in., which has been generally accepted as correct from numerous scientific experiments. The receiving basin may be circular in form for smaller units, including those of 600 gallons capacity ; if larger, the rectangular form will be found more advantageous. The determination of the water consumption within the house is somewhat difficult and is dependent upon its availability, whether there be running water or not. In the former instance, 60 gallons per head per day may be assumed as a fair allowance. No animal stall or wash table drainage should enter the sewage disposal system, since that from the former contains finely masticated food of the animals, which fails to settle in the receiving basin, causing clogging and serious interference with the proper action of the filtering media. The road material carried by the drainage from wash tables quickly settles in the sewers, causing interruption of flow and final stoppage. 


The location and character of the surrounding material, for final disposition, for whatever mode may be employed, is most important and cannot be selected with indifference. The location should be upon gradual, sloping, unshaded ground exposed to the sun arid at considerable distance from growing shrubbery or trees whose root tendrils may seek the nitrogen in the effluent, enter the sewer pipe and interfere with the free absorption by the earth. The surrounding material must be of gravel or sand ; loam and hardpan should be avoided as much as possible on account of their non-absorbent qualities. 


When this is impracticable the means of disposal must be considerably increased or the unit subdivided. An area of generous proportions is necessary for final disposal, situated at some rather remote and protected point and should not be used for general farming purposes, nor traversed by the farm implements. It should be placed at as great a distance from the source of the water supply as is practical to avoid contamination. 


The scientific method of sewage disposal is most elementary and mechanical in its application, and consists of consigning the effluent to the earth in such quantities and manner that it may be readily and continuously absorbed. This may be accomplished in a number of ways which differ radically from each other in form and cost, but the underlying principle is the same. 

FIG. 1. THE TYPE OF ISOLATED SEWAGE DISPOSAL SYSTEM ABOVE ILLUSTRATED FOLLOWS THE MOST ADVANCED METHODS YET DEVELOPED

The most advanced method of sewage disposal and one of highest scientific attainment is shown in Fig. 1. A chamber is provided containing a siphon which acts automatically when the sewage has reached a predetermined height and discharges the entire contents at point of disposal in one operation. The siphon is manufactured in one piece, is most simple in construction, has no moving parts and can be readily installed. From the siphon chamber the effluent is 
discharged into disposal fields, primary and secondary, one of which is always in use, generally for a period of two weeks, while the other is at rest, recuperating, as demanded by good practice. The valve shown on the siphon discharge directs the flow to either field as desired. These disposal fields consist of lateral lines of drainage tile laid a short distance below the surface of the ground. 


The laterals, a cross section of which is shown in Fig. 1, consist of 3-inch tile laid with open joints, protected against falling material by caps, laid 10 to 12 inches below the surface of the ground and surrounded on top and sides with a 4-inch layer of 1-inch broken stone or furnace slag which is protected by a thick layer of salt hay against the filling entering the interstices. These lines are taken from 4-inch sanitary right and left Y's with 3-inch branches, are spaced 3 to 4 feet apart, as shown in Fig. 1, are laid very flat, with a fall of but 6 inches in their entire length, and are approximately 80 feet long. This length has been scientifically determined as correct, so that each siphon discharge completely fills all lines, allowing the contents slowly, to seep into the surrounding media through the open joints. 

FIG. 2. THE STEPPED UP ARRANGEMENT OF THE MAIN FEEDERS HERE SHOWN IS NECESSARY WHEN THESE ARE LAID ON STEEPLY SLOPING GROUND

It often develops that a hillside is the only available space upon which to locate the disposal field, which necessitates special forms for the main feeders, so that the onrush at each siphon discharge may not burst through to the surface at the end, and not completely fill each lateral. To obviate this and reduce the velocity of flow to a normal rate, the main feeders are installed in a series of steps, as shown in Fig. 2, with the horizontal space between each step laid flat, so that the rate of flow is greatly reduced. 


The country estate of the late Captain De Lamar at Glen Cove, L. L, is here shown and the sewage disposal system installed is clearly indicated. ***The American Architect - 1920***


For more on "Pembroke" visit oldlongisland.com and Mansions of the Gilded Age.

THE NEW ASTOR MANSION

THE NEW ASTOR MANSION

COLONEL JOHN JACOB ASTOR'S NEW YORK HOUSE AS RECENTLY REMODELED

BY WALTER E. PATTERSON ***Published 1910***

THAT section of Fifth Avenue, New York, known as Millionaires' Row used to extend from Fiftieth Street to the Plaza, and contained the Vanderbilt mansions, the stone castle of the late Collis P. Huntington, and many other famous houses. But in recent years commerce has pushed the residence section farther north, and now it may be said that the avenue from the Plaza northward along Central Park to Ninety-Third Street has become the real Millionaires' Row.

Here are the mansions of John Jacob Astor, of Elbridge Gerry, of George Gould, of Andrew Carnegie, of the late William C. Whitney - now occupied by Harry Payne Whitney, his son - of Senator Clark, of Henry Phipps, of Thomas F. Ryan, of Jacob H. Schiff, of E. J. Berwind, of D. G. Reid, of Archer Huntington, of James B. Duke, and many more besides.

The interior of the Whitney house at Sixty-Seventh Street was entirely designed by Stanford White, and it is constructed and furnished with the spoils of European palaces and chateaux, selected and recombined by the architect. The wrought iron entrance gates were brought from the Palazzo Doria in Genoa. The ceiling of the entrance hall came from the chateau of the Vicomte de Sauze, in southern France. The great fireplace was brought intact from another French chateau, and dates from the time of Henry II. In the library, the bookcases are built out of a set of carved choir-stalls from a church in Naples. Almost every bit of floor and ceiling in the lower portions of the house is thus constructed out of antiques, while the wall spaces are covered with ancient paintings or tapestries, and the antique furniture was purchased at great price to match.

THE COURT, OR WINTER GARDEN, IN THE ASTOR MANSION - THIS IS THE SPACIOUS RECEPTION COURT ON THE FIRST FLOOR, ROOFED WITH A GLASS DOME

Colonel Astor's mansion, completed some fifteen years ago from plans made by Richard M. Hunt, has had its interior remodeled, in the past year, by the firm of Carrere & Hastings, the architects of the New Theater and the New York Public Library. Here, unlike the Whitney house, the workmanship is entirely American; and although classic architectural models have been followed, they are freely adapted to the case in hand. The house suggests a sumptuous palace of the old regime, without in the least resembling a museum, or failing to be a home.

Externally the Astor mansion, which stands at the corner of Sixty-Fifth Street and Fifth Avenue, is a typical French chateau of the period of Francis I, and like all chateaux, it should, for its proper effect, be set not on a city street but amid acres of formal gardens to complete the design. Originally it was built, within, as two houses. Colonel Astor's mother, the late Mrs. William Astor so long the arbiter of New York society, occupying the northern half, her son the southern. A large grilled entrance at the front, however, serving for both wings, gave it the aspect of a single house.
After his mother's death, Colonel Astor decided to convert the whole structure into a unit, and in the process the architects have practically made a new design of the lower story, though the upper story, built around a central court, remains unchanged. The alterations are said to have cost not less than half a million dollars.

Removing the dividing wall between the two wings of the house, and pushing back the stairs to the extreme corner, so that they ascend cleverly concealed in the rear wall, the architects have converted the entire square space on the first floor, under the open court above, into a great reception court, roofed with a glass dome and flanked by a loggia. A great fountain of gray Sienna marble is now being carved to place in the center. This fountain alone will be as large as an ordinary room.

ANOTHER VIEW OF THE COURT IN THE ASTOR MANSION, SHOWING THE LOGGIA THAT FLANKS IT - A FOUNTAIN OF GRAY SIENNA MARBLE IS NOW BEING CARVED FOR THE CENTER OF THE COURT

The court is built of beautiful soft, white Caen stone, not unlike Yorkshire sandstone in appearance. The glass dome is supported on a bronze grille designed by the architects, somewhat elaborately wrought with scrolls and figures, but avoiding any top-heaviness. At the far side, under the cloister, is a stone fireplace. Opposite the entrance, a richly carved oak screen shuts in the arches. This screen was executed by a New York workman, but, as the architects say, a little dust might be nibbed upon it and a few wormholes peppered in it with a shot-gun, and it would pass nicely for a forty-thousand-dollar antique. The heavy bronze lamp-brackets, on the stone pillars, are also made from special designs.

The furniture, however, in this room consists of real antiques. It was purchased under the advice of the architects, and blends with the style of the court. There is not much of it, and it is made of carved oak, with tapestried upholstery, toning gratefully in with the stately white walls. The inner walls of the loggia are of brown stained wood, and the plaster panels and groined ceiling have been appropriately decorated with designs in warm but unobtrusive colors by James Wall Finn.

A CORNER OF THE LIBRARY IN THE ASTOR MANSION - THIS ROOM  REMAINS AS ORIGINALLY  DESIGNED, IN THE STYLE OF LOUIS XII,  WITH  HEAVY GILT DECORATIONS

THE DRAWING-ROOM IN THE ASTOR MANSION - THIS ROOM REMAINS AS ORIGINALLY DESIGNED, WITH FURNITURE AND DECORATIONS IN THE  STYLE OF LOUIS XII 

South of this central court open the library and   drawingroom. They remain much as they always have been, done in the style of Louis XII, and somewhat over - elaborate and heavy with gilt. But to the north, in the wing of the house formerly occupied by Colonel Astor's mother, the present architects have made great changes, their chief work being done in the dining-room. Here almost the entire end wall has been removed, the upper stories supported on a cross girder, and a huge bay window substituted, set in a bronze grille. Thus the room is flooded with daylight, though the prospect without is not of rolling acres of formal gardens and forests, but of the neighbors' back yards down behind Sixty-Sixth Street.

THE DINING-ROOM IN THE ASTOR MANSION - THIS MAGNIFICENT  ROOM,  MEASURING FORTY-TWO FEET BY  THIRTY-TWO FEET,  IS ENTIRELY NEW AND IS TASTEFULLY DECORATED IN AN ITALIAN  RENAISSANCE STYLE

The floor of the dining-room is a checkerboard of black and white marble, each square being eighteen inches across. 

A CORNER IN THE DINING-ROOM OF THE ASTOR MANSION - THE COLUMNS ARE OF ROSE-TINTED FORMOSA MARBLE; THE FLOOR IS A CHECKERBOARD  OF BLACK AND WHITE MARBLE

Balanced columns of lovely mottled, rose-tinted Formosa marble flank the entrances, the bay window, and the fireplace. The marble fireplace, the supports of the rose-tinted marble serving-slabs, and the trimmings of the room, are of Vermont cream marble. The wall spaces are hung with huge tapestries a delicate golden green in general tone, and the ceiling has been specially designed in low plaster reliefs and painted a rich brown, just touched with old gold. Thus the room, which may be described as a free adaptation of Italian Renaissance, is sumptuous without seeming to be overloaded. Under the strong light from the great bay window, or in the candle-light effect produced by the crystal pendant chandelier, it has a spacious coolness which is peculiarly grateful. Some costly dining rooms seem only adapted for dinner. In this one you can also fancy yourself enjoying breakfast.

Opening out from the dining-room, on the Fifth Avenue front of the house, is another large room, somewhat less formal in character, and substituting a warmer wood paneling for the marble. It has been adapted to blend with the French style of the older portions of the house and the free Renaissance design of the new portions.

THE PICTURE-GALLERY IN THE ASTOR MANSION - THIS IS ALSO USED AS A BALLROOM, AND HAS SEEN THE SCENE OF MANY NOTABLE SOCIAL FUNCTIONS

The art gallery - which was also Mrs. Astor's famous ballroom - opens out of the new court at the rear, at either side of the stone fireplace. It has not been altered. It is a rectangular room of great height, lighted from the roof. 

THE MANTEL IN THE ASTOR PICTURE-GALLERY

At one end is a musicians' gallery, at the other a huge fireplace, surmounted by two life-sized figures, in high relief, supporting between them an old portrait in an oval frame.
The walls are entirely hung with paintings by Schreyer, Van Marcke, Jules Breton, Corot ("Le Nid"), Dctaille, Troyon, and
others, largely Frenchmen. The quantity of paint in this gallery, at least, is impressive; but there can be but little intimacy in viewing the pictures. Many of them hang high, and the gallery is cold, with its smooth ballroom floor. It does not seem whole-heartedly dedicated to art.

It is, indeed, the newer portions of this house - a house which is the city home of one of America's wealthiest men - that gives most satisfaction to the visitor. Just as the brownstone atrocities which filled our residence streets a generation or two ago are now giving way to a more varied and beautiful type of dwelling, so the slavish adaptation by our architects and builders of the French chateaux, misplaced on a city curb, and by our decorators of the eternal gilt furniture and rococo ornamentation of the period of the Louises, is giving way, in the homes of the very wealthy, to a less showy if no less sumptuous adaptation of Renaissance models.

George Gould's new house, and several others on Fifth Avenue, present a dignified, almost classic, front to the street, and gain their beauty and elegance by their proportions, by the restraint of their ornamentation, and by their fitness to flank a curb. The nun who built the medieval towns of Italy had to meet just these conditions of placing a house on a comparatively narrow street with no grounds to show it off.   The French architects of the days of Henri IV or Louis XIV placed their chateaux in the midst of gardens and trees. Naturally, the Italian models are the better to follow in a crowded city like New York.

But within as well as without, a more developed taste turns from the overload of gilt to a cooler and simpler style. Its simplicity is a striking feature of this great white court of the Astor mansion, with its quiet wall paintings under the shadow of the cloister, and the white daylight streaming down through the glass dome, while a few green plants and darkly  tapestried  chairs - their frames not of gilt, but of stately oak - add a touch of unobtrusive color.  There is the same air of simplicity about the dining-room, where ancient tapestries fill in the spaces between the marble lintels and a single portrait hangs against the white marble panel over the fireplace.

The newer idea represents a distinct advance in taste in the houses of our American millionaires. Gilt is the least beautiful of colors, and the blank space the most eloquent of architectural expressions.

***Visit Mansions of the Gilded Age for more on this house and the Astor's. ***

Artistic Boutiques,Tiffany and the "Y"

The opulently adorned artist's studio was a new phenomenon in late nineteenth-century America. Artists traveled widely, not just to Europe but also to more distant countries whose cultures were new and tantalizing to them. They brought back art objects, artifacts and curios acquired for their artistic interest and often for use as props in their own works of art. 

Tenth Street Studio - William Merritt Chase  

The studio of the painter William Merritt Chase in the  Tenth Street Studios building held a dazzling array of beautiful, exotic and curious things massed for visual effect. These profusely decorated studios functioned as a stage set against which the artist could perform - plus they created seductive environments for potential clients. Louis Comfort Tiffany followed this trend by decorating his first painting studio with an eclectic assemblage of textiles of diverse origins draped on the furniture and hung on the walls, Oriental carpets, Chinese and Japanese vases, and colonial furniture. The exotic flavor of his studio's decoration - his very first interior - was to characterize the interiors he designed for his own use over the next several decades. 

YMCA - French Second Empire-style building designed by Renwick & Sands - 1869

In 1869 Tiffany secured a studio for himself in the newly built five-story headquarters of the New York City chapter of the Young Men's Christian Association( Association Building). Included in the building were reception rooms, reading rooms, parlors and dressing rooms. 

YMCA - lecture room - 1869

There was a two-story, 1,640-seat lecture room, as well as smaller lecture rooms, a 12,000-volume, triple-height library, gymnasium, bowling alleys, baths and a concert hall. The fourth and fifth floors of the building, located at 52 East Twenty-third Street, at Fourth Avenue (now Park Avenue South), were set aside for forty artists' studios. 

National Academy of Design designed by architect P. B. Wight in Venetian Gothic style - 1863

 It was located in the burgeoning artistic center of the city, directly across the street from the National Academy of Design (demolished). 

National Academy of Design designed by architect P. B. Wight in Venetian Gothic style - 1863

National Academy of Design - floor plans - designed by architect P. B. Wight in Venetian Gothic style - 1863

The location fostered a sense of community among the artists with common spaces available for lectures as well as a reception room on the fifth floor that served as a picture gallery where the artists could exhibit their work and from which doors opened into the adjoining studios. 


At the Association Building(demolished) Tiffany selected for his studio a space on the top floor - at the end of a long corridor - where he could take advantage of a skylight. Tiffany's studio was not the typical sort - at the door a brass manikin squatted out from a panel doing duty as a knocker. Tiffany's studio included a stairway leading to the roof where he posed his models in the sunlight. Each of the Association Building's studios had a separate bedroom and Tiffany lived there prior to his first marriage in 1872. It was reported at least one glass experiment he undertook in his studio ended explosively.

Louis Comfort Tiffany's First Studio - engraving by John Moran

***Below is text from John Moran's "New York Studios" -  published in 1880 - third in a series - describing Tiffany's decorating style. Article followed the description of artist John Henry Dolph's studio(painter of cats).***


"After the sober Flemish scene that we have been looking at, the oriental splendor of the next studio that we enter fairly dazzles. Not merely is the studio marvelously designed and decorated, but the entire large flat, with its many rooms and devious corridors, is in unison; and here dwells Mr. L. C. TIFFANY, who, although a young man, is one of the leading American artists, and whose breadth of treatment and sense of color have long made him conspicuous among his fellows. For two years he has been uninterruptedly engaged in beautifying his home, and he has by no means completed his congenial task. Wood-carving is Mr. Tiffany's pet weakness, and on every hand one finds most elaborate and beautiful specimens. His various "finds" in this direction he has utilized architecturally for purposes to which many of them were never meant to be devoted. The studio has, over half of it, a low ceiling entirely of carved wood; from the shadow of this the artist can look out into the other half, which is lit by a skylight. At the far end of this portion a staircase leads to a sort of corridor overlooking the studio, and this in turn by another stairway to the roof, on which Mr. Tiffany poses his models in the sunlight. The straight pillars which support this balcony or corridor are simple in design, but the entire face of it is composed of the most beautiful specimens of wood-carving the writer has ever seen. The architectural design and entire spirit are Oriental, although the various component portions of the whole are of different workmanship. The interstices are filled with rich stained glass, and the construction is very exquisite, the panels, which are many, being arranged and alternated with most rich and harmonious effect. Opposite the entrance is a window on which Mr. Tiffany has from time to time daubed the scrapings of his palette with a view to the achievement of accidental effects. These he has got so happily that one can see suggested in the various panes, commencing at the lower ones, the sea-depths with their rocks and parti-coloured growths, then the shore, then the earth with pools and trees; and above the sky, blending into all tints from delicate greys 
and blues, through rich purples and reds, into sombre black. From this design (if one can so call anything arrived at by hap-hazard), the artist is having a stained-glass window made. The studio abounds in stuffs and curios, although Mr. Tiffany cannot veil his beautifully panelled walls and floor from sight by many hangings or rugs. Behind, in the shadow, stands an old clock exquisitely chased and inlaid in Oriental pattens. Here are also a terra-cotta bust of Niobe, massive Persian lamps of chased and cut brass, rich silk robes, and numerous pictures. The minutest details on all hands are beautiful and full of interest, although some might think that Mr. Tiffany pushes his decorative ideas to an extreme, and that the sense of utility and comfort were sacrificed to elaboration and beauty. At all events, this work is evidently a labour of love to the workman, and his achievements must be acknowledged to be of high artistic and decorative value. One sees here a veritable “house beautiful," and is very loath to leave it. However, allons mes amis!"