The Sunday herald and weekly national intelligencer., 1890-12-07

All of the noted Washington houses are now
open for the winter, and great preparations are
being made for the social season, which begins
with January l. the number of people owning
their own houses steadily Increases, and the
homes of our statesmen grow more magnificent
and more luxurious from year to year. l was
told yesterday by one of the Washington archi-
tects that there are dozen bathrooms in this
city which have cost all the way from one thou
sand to ten thousand dollars apiece, and one Sem
ator's home has nine bathrooms, all of which
are finished in mahogany. The finest house in
Washington to-day is that which is being built
by Mrs. Zach Chandler. 1t is on the corner of
Sixteenth and X streets, and it must contain
about thirty rooms. 1t is q great square struc-
ture of Milwaukee brick, trimmed with drab
sandstone, and its architecture partakes of the
Grecian order. Here Mrs. Senator Hale and her
husband will live, and many fine entertainments
will be given. This ground cost Mrs. Chandler
five dollars square foot, and it was offered to
the Ohio millionaire Warder, when he was look
ing for place to build The price was, how
ever, five thousand dollars more than that of u
lot in the centre of the same square, and in a
penny wise, pound foolish way he bought the
cheaper lot He built house costing about two
hundred thousand dollars which does not look as
if it cost more than seventy-tive thousand, and
which, owing to its location, will never bring
what tits worth. Mrs. Chandler's lot is one Of
the finest in the city, and it will increase in value
right along.
A CLUSTER OF FINE HOUSES.
In sight of this house Of Mrs. Chandler's there
are half dozen and more mansions, none of
which cost less than hundred thousand dollars
TO build, and some of the most noted men and
women of the country will be her neighbors.
Just across the street lives Senator Evarts in q
big red brick, and block away is the great
mansion of Col. John lay, who, with his accom-.
plished wife, Amasa stones daughter, spends Il
small fortune every year in his Washington en-
tertainments. The Hay house is one OF the finest
here 1t has dining-room finished in South
American mahogany, and the great library has
a ceiling of paneled oak, the grain of which has
Hay, and between him and Mrs. Chandler, is the
palace of Justice Gray which is so severely
round Justice entertains his select crowd of
friends in company with his wife, who was, it
will be remembered, the daughter OF Stanley
Matthews, and who is very popular in Washing
ton society A little further down X street is the
house of Col. Jerome Bonaparte and on another
corner is q big red brick which Col. Nick Ander-
son, of Cincinnati built for himself few years
ago at the cost of about eighty thousand dollars.
which Mrs. Senator Stanford will give her mag
nificenG entertainments this winter. 1t is the
since they have lived in Washington, and which,
/ am told they rent. though tae Senator is the
anard aR m his stable Which, by the
way, cost him about twenty-five thousand dol
lars, and which is the most comfortable of the
elegantly furnished. Mrs. Stanford has picked
up the most magnificent embroideries that the
world can furnish and she has these scattered
here and there in all sorts of shapes and in all
sorts of places throughout the house. Her house
is not gaudy, though it is rIch and it is most
comfortable home us well as magnificent place
for entertaining.
BIG HOUSES HARD TO SELL.
Senator Stanford has done wisely in not buying
house in Washington. The mansions of mil
lionaires do not sell very well here, and there are
several now in the market. Senator Palmer's
big brownstone house, which faces Mcpherson
Square, can be bought for $4,000. 1t cost him
SS5,0OO to build it, and the ground is easily worth
the difference Still it has been for sale for more
than year, and he is losing at easttive hundred
dollars month in the interest on the money
tary of the Navy Robeson's house, on the corner
of Sixteenth and streets is still for sale, and
the Pmoe Is tai9E 6a SsU do Is %th n
creaslng in value the house will not bring what
it cost The Chinese Lgga9n @ occupy Sea
good rent, but Stewart will be glad to sell for
$4,000 He offers the he property at that but
homes of all sorts to be bought here for con-
dollars sell readily, and ten and fifteen tho usand
dollar houses are sold every day. 1t is only the
big houses that remain on the market, and every
month or so there is real estate transfer here
which runs high up into the tens of thousands.
HISTORIC HOUSES.
understand, by the way, that Admiral Porter
property in the most fashionable part of the CITY,
and it has been his home for a long time, II is
many of the others of our statements homes, its
occupants have made it historic. Blaine, for in
stance, lives in a house which has entertained
statesmen for two generations. In it Admiral
Rogers lived, Secretary Seward occupied it when
he was at the head of the State Department, and
Clay, Calhoun, and Webster have all taken din
ner inside it's walls 1t is big house, within q
stones throw of the White House, and it will
eventually be very valuable as business prop
erty. Blaine rented it, am told, with the option
of buying it any time within certain period at
ten dollars square foot, and this would be very
cheap for the ground if there was nothing on it.
Just next door to Blaine is the old mansion now
owned by Don Cameron, and which cost him
S67 900. 1t was the old Tayloe mansion, and is an
English basement house of three stories and au
attic. Mrs. Cameron has her parlors on the sec
ond floor and the Senator uses the first floor as
his offices: just across Lafayette Square, in the
old mansion which Commodore Decatur once
owned, Gen. Ed Beale lives, and it is here that
Mrs. Gen. Grant usually stops when she comes to
Washington. few doors further south is the
old sickles mansion. which Washington Mclean
paid something like 100000 for and in which he
now lives. John Mclean, who married Gen.
Beales daughter, has remodeled another of the
old houses of the Capital just opposite Chamber
lain's restaurant, and the land upon which his
house is located is valuable that you would
have to pave it with gold to buy it. The