The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1893-04-29

| ing Is OF the same wood in great panels
| 1 GU come first into a grand hall nearly as
/ long as the promenade corridor of the
| Whlte house, but far more beautifully fin
| lshed 1t must be 100 feet long and about
| twenty feet wide, and it runs from the
| picture gallery at one end to the great
mahogany dining room at the other Its
| rOot IS made up of four great panels in
! closed IN rafterS of carved oak each four
Ieet wide, and these are upheld by eight
! huted oak columns, each of which is as bic
! around as the waist of a gOOd--sized man
Inc walls of this hall are hung with fine
/ paintings. Its floor is covered with soft
rugs, and 1t is lighted, as are the large
| rooms OF the house, in most wonderful
way. From the center of each of these
panels, strung as it were upon wires,
seems to hang down a bushel of dia-
monds. They are prisms of cut glass fes-
| TONED in the shape of a basket and
lighted by electricity, which, coming
! from globes behind them and reflected
! by mirrors above, make a most wonder
| 1uIIy effective illumination. There are four
of these diamond baskets in the hall,
one IN the dining room, another in the
library and others in the music, reception
ana drawing rooms. A chandelier always
looks out of place in a house. 1t makes
big room look larger and small room look
smaller, but these diamond baskets take
up no room, and they are the most beauti-
tul things | have ever seen in house light
ing. From the center of this hall rises
the stair case between futed oak columns,
by easy landing to the second story, and
looking down upon you from it as you
come IN are great windows of stained
glass, which throws a soft light into the
hall. At the right and left of the stair
case are CRATES covered by mantels of the
same massive oak, and over one of these
IS painting of Mrs. Hill and the other of
Mr.. Hill.
THE DINING ROOM.
The dining room is so feet long by 80
feet wide. 1t is finished in South Ameri-
can mahogany and the furniture is of the
same wood. The walls, from your feet to
above your head, are paneled in the
richest of mahogany, which has a polish
equal to that of the finest piano The
ceiling is made up of panels framed in
great mahogany rafters, and the panels
are of rough stucco covered with gold
leaf.
There is a great sideboard of mahogany
twelve feet long filled with the finest of
china and cut glass. In two corners of
the room are glass covered cupboards
filled with beautiful glassware, and on
the sideboard and other places about the
room are pieces of the finest of all kinds
of china, not a few being of Sevres and
Royal Dresden. The butler was with me
while ! stood in the room and he told
me the cost of furnishing it was over
$4,000. The dining table is of carved
mahogany, and it is of immense size. In
fact, all the furniture in the house is fully
from one-third to twice as large as that
you find in ordinary houses. Mrs. Hill
told me that when she came into the
house she was surprised at the immense
size of the rooms, and she was in despair
as to how she would make them look
smaller and more hOmelike. She did so
by having the furniture made in proper
ton, and the result is that the whole
house has homelike character and every
thing is harmonious. In Mrs. Hills bed
room for instance, the bed, of white ma
pie, is six feet wide, but it does not look
larger than an ordinary one, and ] was
not aware that it was so large until my
attention was called to it. The sofas are
long and the chairs and tables match
Even the lamps have been made larger
than those of ordinary houses.
THE DEN OF A RAILROAD MAGNATE
The living room of the house is the
library, and just off this is Mr. Hills den.
1t is not more than ten feet square and it
is walled in mahogany. 1t has an air of
solidity about it and t is furnished ele-
gantly, but simply On the bookcase on
one side of the room are great volumes of
railway reports and railway magazines.
while a globe stands in one corner. There
is a little library table under the window
with paper and pens on it, and at the rear
of the room there is mahogany door,
which opens into great vault, in which
is stored at times, doubt not, securities
which are worth millions The library
is furnished in mahogany. Bronze figures
of Henry Clay and Daniel Webster
stand on each end of the low book
cases, which run around the room on
either hand as you enter. The great Ii
brary table is covered with papers and
magazines and the room looks as though
it were used. The collection of books is
good one All of the great authors of tic-
ton and science may be found upon the
shelves, and you will find French and
German books as well as English. Mr..
Hill is a good French scholar and both
himself and his wife have good literary
taste.
THE BASEMENT AND THE ATTIC
The basement and the attic of this great
mansion are to me even more interesting
than the living rooms. The house must |
have a quarter of an acre of floor space,
and the basement is a house in itself. 1t
has hall so wide that you could drive a
walls, and its rooms are all large, airy
and well lighted. The floors are of mar
BILE The halls and rooms are paneled |
with slabs of white marble so polished |
that you can see your face in them. and |
the whole is lighted with electricity |
These marble floors rest on a bed of min |
eral wool, and $4,000 pounds of mineral |
wool were used in making this house fire |
proof Mr.. Hill says it is fireproof, rat |
proof, and cyclone proof, and it has steel |
roof over the whole of it so strong |
that you could run train of cars |
over it without injury The attic |
has been turned into a theater for the |
of Mr. Hill's children, and |
there is a miniature stage here and an |
room about thirty feet wide by |
fifty feet long. The stage has scenes and !
footlights, and it is, in fact, a complete |
little theater. The boys have a magic |
lantern and they sometimes give exhibit |
tions.
TWO TONS OF COAL DAY.
It takes two tons of coal day to keep |
this house warm, and spent some timei in |
looking at the great boilers in the base |
ment. There is an engineer who does |
nothing else but attend to these The |
laundry has a marble floor and brick |
walls. The washing is done in great |
porcelain tubs and the clothes are put on |
racks that are rolled in and out of cases
under which steam pipes are coiled. These |
pipes keep the temperature of the drying |
cases at 1902 degrees and the clothes are |
dried in a iiffv The kitchen has thA saune