File:American homes and gardens (1908) (17535203974).jpg

Title: American homes and gardens
Identifier: americanhomesgar51908newy (find matches)
Year: 1905 (1900s)
Authors:
Subjects: Architecture, Domestic; Landscape gardening
Publisher: New York : Munn and Co
Contributing Library: Smithsonian Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Biodiversity Heritage Library

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480 AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS December, 1908 burned to the ground. Another house was then built and de- serted after a time for a new dwelling near the spot on which a fine old elm tree stands. The other house was used as a barn; but when Mr. Benjamin Poore returned from England in 1832 he determined to restore the old barn and use it for his home. He added a wing (the present study), which he connected with the main house by a one-story room with a glass front, which was used as a greenhouse for flowers. In 1852 this room was changed by Major Benjamin Perley Poore into its present form. The other wing was begun by Mr. Benjamin Poore in 1848, and also completed by his son Benjamin Perley Poore in 1850 or 185 1. The "Colonial" wing of the house was delicious with fragrance and always satisfying. Passing through the stone gateway, the carriage soon drives into a graveled courtyard framed in on three sides by the barn, stables, clock-tower and house, with its wings, the lines of which are broken by jutting out windows, low spreading roofs and vine-wreathed porches. Entering through a bower of roses and honeysuckle, the guest finds himself in a square hall surrounded by a gallery hung with family portraits and containing specimens of oak and mahogany furniture. Here also is a fine old japanned clock, while a suit of armor and many relics and curios at- tract the eye. At the end of the hall is the family dining-room, with low
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The parlors are furnished with rosewood and mahogany built by Mr. Benjamin Perley Poore from parts of old and famous houses, which he had been collecting for a long time. On a visit made by him and his father to Sir Walter Scott at Abbotsford, the former was fired with the idea of making a home for himself on the same plan, and gathering a col- lection of native relics. The picturesque mansion stands, as we have said, on the crest of the hill, an irregular conglomeration of roofs, wings, porches, bay windows with quaint diamond-shaped panes, chimneys adorned with English chimney-pots, towers, gables, doors—all wreathed and framed and almost smothered with honeysuckle, ivy, roses, clematis, and all the beautiful flower- ing creepers known to the latitude, adorning a beautiful home with graceful festoons of blossoms bright with color and ceiling and a bay-window with little diamond-shaped panes of glass imported from England many years ago. A sideboard, chairs of a Chippendale model and a very chaste mirror are notable among the furnishings of this room. Across the hall are four square parlors which are furnished with rosewood and mahogany of a past age. Every piece of furniture and china in these home-like and delightful rooms has its history: four of the chairs, for example, were owned by Washington at Mount Vernon. Among the valuable specimens of china is a set that was given by the Society of the Cincinnati to Martha Washing- ton, and a series of White House dinner plates representing a plate from the dinner service of every President from Washington to Hayes, including, of course, a specimen of

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