The Indianapolis journal., 1885-03-01
NEW WASHINGTON.
A City Of Beautiful Streets and Artistic and |
Elegantly Decorated Homes.

Elegantly Decorated Homes.
E. w. Lightner, in Harper's Magazine
The transformation began with the almost
magical appearance of long stretches of concrete
pavement, lined on each side with one and fire.
quenty two rows of trees. On either side of
nearly every street and avenue there was left
of the highway from ten to thirty feet which
might be used by the house builder as a lawn
or planted with flowers or shrubbery but never
built upon. The streets crossed each other at
right angles The avenues cut through the
streets at a different angle and at the intersec-
tions in every part of the city made bits of tri-
angles and odd shaped lots which could not fail
to rouse the most obtuse architect to realiza-
tion of the opportunities afforded fol
unique forms and unusual display
Where these streets and avenues in
tersect most numerously there are miniature
parks, triangular. multiangular or circular.
fowered. shrubberied, and statued from which
the houses hemmins the wide diverging streets
may be seen for a long distance. From Dupont
Circle, for example. no less than ten streets and
avenues radiate. Between their terinini upon
the park there are as many building sites which
end in more or less acute points. On these the
houses are constructed in irregular form In
the more obtuse angles, where two or more dwell
lings may stand side by side, each front deviates
slightly from straight line with the others, the
whole forming concavc elevation facing
the circle the rear of each opening like
a fan. With such opportunities for dis
playing tasteful architecture, it would
The mere conditions, in whose production they
had part, prompted architects possessing
little artistic sense to look for more graceful
forms, something less sombre and heavy, al
though more chaste--in short something that
would warm instead of chill the healthy taste
From opportunity, therefore. sprang the
buoyant, airy homes, which seldom slavishly
follow any defined style, but which combine,
usually with taste. and often with fine artistic
Judgment, the best features of several schools.
From these conditions also sprang the endless
variety and artistic beauty of red brick homes
which form distinguishing feature of the cap
ital and which will seem more and more appro-
pirate as the trees grow, and the profusion of
flowers and shrubs and green grass increases.
Even the spectators, who are quite too
numerous in Washington, who build long rows
for lease or sale, who care nothing for art and
everything for money and who buy and build
cheaply and sell at unconscionable prices, are
compelled to follow to some extent the indi-
vidualiSm which is aimed at by architects in re-
sponse to the new born sense of the public.
They have learned that vulgar ornamentation
and finical display more attract purchasers or
tenants. Therefore therrows, like their isolated
dwellings, usually exhibit more or less success
full attempts to escape at once painful monot-
ony and q nausea of gewgaws. So common
has this NATURALIZATION of each house be
come, that row in which the old
fashioned Philadelphia monotony is retained
is marked for public condemnation. The result
is that wherever one goes in the new city the
eye is relieved by continual variety though
analysis might not in every case discover any
specially pleasing distinctive features
Interior decoration exhibits wider range and
a more radical departure from the obsolete
American idea than exterior designs. If the
latter are filched from Queen Anne, Queen
French Italian renaissance. the former has
brought into requisition not only native Brit
ish, and continental art ideas, but also the
wonderful household aesthetics of the furthest
Orient, and even the beauty which is born of
the finer instincts of the savage and barbarous.
Washington is not exceptional Ill this revolution
of taste. Other homes in other cities are SINH
larly transformed since the so-caed craze in the
domain of decorative art awakened all lovers of
beauty to the possibilities of this phase of DO
mestic ornamentaton. But it is probable that
there are few cities in which great skill and
intelligence have been brought to bear upon this
question as in the national capital. Washington
was the first city to Danish big brazen mirrors
with their monstrous eilded frames. the pride
of the old-tme stiff and chilling par
)or." Here appeared the vanguard of
that army of housekeeper which first
abolished the dust holding. disease breeding car
pets in favor ofcleanly polished floors and soft,
bright Oriental rugs. Here interior doors were
first dispensed with where feasible, and their
places supplied by the more or less Ich and
always graceful portere Velvet and plush
hangings, to relieve the monotony of walls and
form n background for pictures, were introduced.
and the old-style set of furniture. with fixed
number of pieces, all similarly upholstered, was
supplanted by variety of odd and pretty pieces
and quaint antiques. In these respects Washing
ton can safely claim to have been the pioneer.
Indeed. there are many large cities within whose
limits not single home be found which IL
lustrates in any feature this new school of deco
ration. Here it is universal as to be often
amusing. In old and ugly houses carpets and
doors are put away, and rugs and portieres in
troduced, though the new material may be of
the cheapest, the floors unpolished and the walls
bare. The constant presence of II numerous and
always cultivated foreign population unques-
tionably had much influence in efecting the
change. The tendency of the native to ape for
eign customs doubtless had something to do with |
it Native artistic sense also taught that the de-
parture would be both pleasing and healthful.
JAY GOULD'S METHODS.