The Kootenai herald. [volume] (Kootenai, Idaho) 1891-1904, 1891-08-22
AN ARTISTIC CLUB HOUSE.

The Unique and Luxurious Home of One
of Neg York's Most Famous Clubs.
The new house of the Century is built
a mile and half farther uptown than
its old 6ne, occupying a space 100 feet
square on the north side of Forty-third
street, little distance from its junction
with Fifth avenue, at the point where
the process of degrading that royal road
into shopping street seems for the
moment to have paused. It's style is
that Italian Renaissance brought into
such vogue of late years for both pub
lie and private buildings. The material
is pale brick, in color a little warmer
than gray. rather colder than yellow,
somewhat raw as yet. bur promising
mellowness with time, and relieved over
much of its surface with terra Gotta or
namentation of harmonizing tint
1t rises to the height of three stories,
the lowest one finished in dressed gray
stone crossed by narrow horizontal
bands of terra Gotta, forming such an
elevation as to serve for massive base
to the whole structure, and each of the
upper ones gaining in height upon the
one below it. The entrance is through
a graceful and stately arch of gray
stone, piercing the two lower stories,
and supporting at the base of the third
a broad entablature crowned with an
exquisite recessed loggia, which, after
the Florentine manner, is open to the
air, and with which the dining room
connects Low pilasters, parting the
window bays, two on each side, relieve
the fiatness of the front and inclose
spaces enriched but not crowded with
wreaths and other decorative forms in
terra Gotta. The effect yielded by the
simple contour pure lines and large
treatment df surface of the building,
aided by its color, is that of blended
dignity and delicacy.
! The interior arrangement preserves
throughout that scheme of large com
municating spaces which made so
agreeable a feature in the old building
At the rear of the ground floor, given
to offices and strangers rooms broad
stairway mounts on each side to plat
FORM midway of the height of this
story, giving access to the gallery, de-
tached from the main structure, built
nearly across the width of the ground,
and lighted from above and on three
sides The billiard room is below the
gallery.
Turning again toward the front, the
double stairway rises to the second
floor, divided into spacious halls for
meetings and conversation, and, gain
ing the third floor, leads to the library
and the dining room and smoking
rooms Following the plan of all mod
ern clubs which civilization is strangely
slow in adapting to private houses, the
processes and odors of cooking are con
fined to talIregion just below the roof.
1t is curious that the ridgepole and the
hearth, both of which were once syno-
nyms for the home, should at length
have met in one place.
An air of severe simplicity reigns in
these marble lined halls and oak vain.
scoted apartments, relieved by color OF
onyx panels by graceful curves of elias
sic chimney pieces, by columns of dark
wood and veined marble, and by the
gliding of capital and balustrade 81
free are the spaces that from almos
any point there opens a striking per
spective of arch and pillar and stair
way. The many members who hav,
surveyed the world of clubdom from
Calcutta to San Francisco pronounc
the Century's new home to be, among
buildings so occupied, unique and com
, plete.-A. r. Marlborough in Century