Middletown transcript., 1895-01-26
LENS

yH CiIlo 10y
SS21A>- lowance. No one
of them would be able to keep house
on less, they say. And even on $780,,
900 year, birds, fruits, flowers and
servants are really quite task to pay
for and order.
Mrs. Theodore A. Havemeyers spends
more upon her housekeeping than
any other woman in New York, and
Mrs. Anson Phelps Stokes, who lives
on the opposite corner of Thirty-ninth
street and Madison avenue, probably
comes next.
Mrs. Havemeyer's housekeeper en-
cages all of the servants for the house
except the chef and ladies' maids, and
these are chosen by Mrs. Havemeyer
herself. All of the responsibility of
the housekeeping falls upon the stew
ard and the housekeeper; he supplies
the pantries and cold storage rooms
with everything that the markets of
the world contain, and the house
keeper sees that each of the servants
does her work in the most perfect
manner. The work is not hard, but
the hours are. For the maids, day
begins at O. clock in the morning;
for the windows, marble floors, books
paintings and everything in the mag
nificent house is carefully gone over
every day, and all must be finished
and every servant except the butler
and footmen invisible before the ear
liest riser in the family saunters in for
his 8 o'clock breakfast. When the
entire family is finally assembled
downstairs, which is usually not much
before O. clock luncheon, the upstairs
work is finished, and so much work
is to be done, and to be done
throughly, that each hour Of the day
brings its duties, and there are not
many rest moments before them.
Each morning as the lady of the
house finishes her dainty breakfast of
rolls and chocolate, her maid brings
to her the menu made out for the
next three meals by the chef. She
checks off what it would please her to
have, and the genii of the kitchen do
the rest. The amount the steward
spends in q month is enormous, the
butchers bill often amounting to $3.50
per week, or the tidy sum of 81 900
per month. This, of course, includes
game of every kind and choicest cuts
of the most expensive meats in the
market. The amount spent for fruit
almost equals the meat bill, for the
choicest grapes are sometimes $50 pc,
pound, and other hot-house fruit costs
in the same proportion. Counting
the wines, S., 900 would about pay for
the Havemeyer table for one month,
Mrs. William Astor keeps house in
the most delightful manner, but on a
less expensive scale than Mrs. Have
meyer. Her beautiful home on Fifth
avenue and Thirty-fourth street is
always perfectly appointed, but since
she has been in mourning she has en-
tertained very little, and has not
needed the large staff of servants
she kept when her children were
with her. She has steward who is
matchless for worth in the whole
country. He engages, pays and sup
erintends the fourteen servants who
make up the Astor menage. When
this steward came to Mrs. Astor ten
years ago she said to him: II re-
quire my house to be kept in perfect
order from top to bottom. have no
set day in which things are to be
but they must be spotless, if
all the work has to be done twice
every day. If you have not enough
get them This simple,
sense rule has worked ad-
nirably, and it would be difficult to
ind household in which every por-
ion of the household machinery
works SO perfectly. There is a chef,
md very good one, but when Mrs.
Astor gives a state dinner or ball, Pin
trd always serves it, as he has done
or twenty years or more. The table |
expenses rarely exceed $500 per month |
md $75 per week is the limit of the |
butchers bill.
~
Mrs Cornelius Vanderbilt is very
etiring, conservative woman, and
While her home which covers half
'lock and is the largest in New York,
equires the care of many servants,