The morning call., 1893-03-05

OF Chicago. who has now a lease upon it..
| VIII have one of the finest houses in the
| united States OF his own within stones
! throw OF 1t next fall. and the Blaine house
VIII probably be again or the market. Mr..
Letter has rented it for years. His first
lease was, it is said, at the rate of $4,000 q
| year for five years, and at the end OF this
time another lease was made, so l am told
| al $4,000 or S11, 900 a year. The Blaine
mansion is about mile from the White
House, and is one of the biggest houses
here. 1t is a red brick, and it has, it is
SAID. more rooms than the British legation.
1here are two main entrances TO it, one for
carriages on Massachusetts avenue and an
otner by fine stone staircase on Dupont
circle. Passing up the latter between brass
ratings you enter hall fifteen feet wide and
iorty-hye feet long, at the back Of which
Is a handsome fireplace and mantel, into
Whlcn is set great plate-glass mirror. At
tne me right Is the reception-room, and on the
Ie1t are parlors through which you pass into
the draWlng-room and library. The dining
room IS hardly large enough for state din
ners, Out 1t has a dumbwaiter as big as a
good-sIzed elevator, and this waiter runs
from the tioor to the roof. The interior of
THIS house is finished in beautiful woods;
Lhe windows are of plate glass. There are
numerous chambers and the most elegant
OF bathrooms, including hot-air and Turk
lsh bath chamber. There is a billard-room
IN the basement and there are smoking
rooms. IOahng-roOms and all the accompani-
ments OF mllllonaire's palace. 1t requires
retlnue of servants to keep it in ORDER
and have heard it estimated that it would
take at least $50 day to live properly in it.
Ihe sanitary arrangements Of it, however,
are perfect, and Baby Ruth wOuld be sure
OF having good air and the atmosphere of
summer If her father does not stint the coal.
Speaking of Letters big house, visited
II Yesterday, and in company with the
steward went over it from attic to base
| ment An army of workmen are now ham
merIng away at it and this, perhaps the
most elegant mansion in the country, is
now rapidly approaching completion. The
ground on which il stands cost 100000. 1t
VIII cost thousands upon thousands of dol
iarS TO build the house. and the interest on
the money invested in it will annually
amount to go0d-siZed fortune. 1t is on
Dupont circle and New Hampshire avenue,
and 1t is massive four-story building of
Milwaukee, brick, cream white in color and
polished Ike marble. These bricks form
The outside coating of the house, and it
TOOK 10000 OF them to cover it. The bricks
were all selected ones. made with great
care, and the process of selection was
so careful that out of lot of
10000 bricks only 5000 were chosen
The effect Of these bricks is that OF
marble, or rather of a delicate ivory,
and the house is mora beautiful than any
marble palace l have ever seen. On the
New Hampshire avenue side there is vast
porte cochere of white stone upheld by
Ionic pillars as large around az the biggest
oak tree you have ever seen and reaching
to the height of athree-story house & Pass
Ing through these you come to wide en-
trance way, the staircases of which are of
polished marble, beautifully carved and OF
delicate tint of an iridescent pearl. The
staircase leads first to the basement where
are the TeceptiOn-rooms, almost on a level
with the ground, however, and where the
guests walk down this magnificent marble
staircase to take off their things and where
there are ALL convenlences. AT the right of
this staircase and at the left are TWO Others
leading to the first floor or the parlors and
dining-rOOm, and these are immense and
they Will be finished most gOrgeously.
But brst let me tell you something about
the basement or ground floor. You can get
lost in 1t. There are rooms for all sorts of
purposes. Here are two for ice and cold
storage. In this iceh0use you could stow
away enough ice for month, and in ii are
hooks where the beeves and sheep and game
shipped TO MIR. Letter can be kept for
weeks. All the beef and mutton used in
this house will come from his big farm in
Wisconsin 1t will be killed by his own
butchers and shipped direct to Washington
for his own use. This is now done at the
Blaine mansion. Take look at the kitchen.
The stove is nine feet long, and you could
feed one of John Wanamaker's Sunday
school pcnies with the food that could be
cooked on it at one time. 1t has a veutilator
over 1t which runs from the kitchen to the
roof. and this Is so operated by fan and an
extra pipe that when Mr.. Letter eats
sauerkraut Ur goldfish the smell of the
cooking will 90 from the stove UP this
veutilator, and even after the dish
is taken OF the stove the pipes
will carry its aroma from the table to the
ventilator. Another curious arrangement
is the apparatus for keeping the plates
warm. | venture TO say that this apparatus
cost at least $500, for it had 10 be made espe-
cially for the house. 1t consists of great
hg1l llr = haaa frn nc h hfrr
bushel basket and so heated by gas that
coil of pipes rum ming from it to the butler's
pantry overhead is always filled with hot
water. These pipes run back and forth n
the shape of coil In a cupboard of zinc in
the buffers pantry, and in this cupboard
the plates are kept. They grow warm in a
few minutes, and the cupboard is large
enough to hold the service of a whole din
ner. There is billiard-room In the base
ment which is twenty-five feet square and
this. as the whole house. is heated by hot.
water, the pipes being so covered up that
you can't tell where the heat comes from,
Under many inviting divans and beautiful
resting places there will be steam pipes and
the arrangements for furnishing the heat
are such that it would automatically be
kept at an even temperature throughout the
whole house.
None of the finishing has yet been done as
to the parlors and dining-room. ButI can
tell you something about them. The grand
hallway on the first floor is itself big enough
for an ordinary house. The music hall or
dancng-room is about % feet wide and 80
feet long. 1t opens into a drawing room
and q great library, which is 81 by - feet in
length. All the ceilings OF this fiOor are 10
feet high, and all Will be finished in mahog.
any. The upper part of the house is to be
finished in cherry in its natural color, pol
iShed like piano. and of the finest selected
varieties. The third floor, of the same
wood, is to be painted delicate ivory, and
all the woodwork of the house will be like
mirrors. The floors are to be of quartered
oak and Of the heart OF Georgia pine. Only
the finest of selected woods are used, and
thoroughly seasoned woods brought from
the planning mills are reseasoned here before
they ars put down.
can't begin to describe the queer con-
ceits of this house. The lighting is to be
revelation. Electricity will turn night into
day, and in the dIniDg-room and in the music
hall the electric lights Will be so arranged
that no one can see where the light comes
from, but the rooms will be brilliantly
lighted by the pressing of button. The
whole house has electric lights and electric
bells In each room there is bell for the
butler and the ladies' maid and third SER
want. whose name forget. The lights are
80 arranged that you can touch one button
and light the whole house, or you eau turn
OIL the light on single floor or in a single
room. The electric wires of the building
are all incased in tubes, so that if anything
gets out OF order you can pull the wire out
from the tube and pull another within it at
the same time, without disturbing the house.
These tubes run all over the house. The
tubes for the electric lignt wires are brass.
those for the electric bells are of a different
composition, but both are made so that
they are non-conductors. and the wires
are also wrapped in some non-conducting
material.
The mantels are 10 be magnificent There
is one made of green marble in the dining
room, running from the floor to the ceiling,
which is made up of 5000 different pieces Of
marble, and which looks more like mala-
chite than anything else. The dining-room
is paneled in mahogany, and some Of the
most beautiful rooms in the house TO me are
the bathrooms. These are floored and walled
with ivory tillings, and many of them are
as large as fair-sized bedrooms. There are
ten bathrooms in the house. all finished in