The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1895-10-26

LES III. LAMSON'S FLIGHT.
secrecy and very little is known Of the
house, which is destined to be the center
of many festivities. just as the old house
at the corner of Thirty fourth street and
Fifth avenue was the pivot around which
the rest of the social world revolved
On October 1st, the palace was turned
over by the architects and decorators to
the owners, and since then thee work of
furnishing has been pushed along
steadily. Tt would be supposed that the
beautiful belongings of the old house
would do for the new, but very little Of
them will be seen when the palace is
thrown open to the friends of the family.
The wonderful decorations of the new
house make it necessary to have furnish
ings of an entirely different character,
though, of course, the priceless paint
ings, tapestries, rugs and statuary which
gave the Thirty fourth street home so
much fame, can never be out of place.
and will be given due prominence in the
new house.
AS the embargo has been lifted from
the tongues of the men engaged in con-
structing the palace, it is now possible to
give faithful description Of the inte-
rior enthusiastically it is Of the mod
ern style of renaissance 1t looks very
much like small Tuileries. manssr3
roof and all, but is more deliberately
decorated than the palace of Catherine de
Medici, which was burned by the Com
mune. This elaboration of detail is
carried into the ornamentation OF the
house proper. Some of the rooms are SO
profusely ornamented as to seem almost
heavy
Mrs. William Astor's house is the
northern one. That occupied by John
Jacob Astor is the southern, on the cor
ner of Sixty-ffth street. Ultimately, at
Mrs William Astor's DEATH the house
will be thrown into one. AS it is, some
of the rooms arc equally divided. This is
the case with the ballroom, which oc-
cupies the center of the house, at the
rear. Otherwise, Mrs. Aston has suites
of apartments which are almost precisely
of the same size as those the younger
couple occupy on the southern end
The grand central hall is 64x55 feet in
ton on each side of which there is a
grand staircase leading to the second
story. This staircase, and in fact the en-
tire finishing of the hail. is built of Caen
stone, beautiful material of creamy
tint, brought from Caen, France, which
has been used in nearly every one of the
recently built houses of American mil
lionaires.
Both staircase and hall are BEAUTIFULLY
decorated with artistic carvings and with
full-sized female figures in half length,
modelled from life by Carl Bitter. Their
graceful lines show to excellent advan-
tage in the spacious hall. Opening from
the hall are doors leading to the recep-
ton rooms, saloons or drawing rooms
and dining rooms of both the north and
south houses. At the rear other doors
| lead to the picture gallery from both
houses. The picture gallery promises
to rank as the finest single apartment IN
the country. On festive occasions 1T Will
be used as ball room, and all the SCI
ence of the architects art was brought
into play to make the combination OF PIC
ture gallery and ball room success. IL
is fifty by sixty feet in size, and in day
time the sunlight streams in through
great stained glass dome forty feet above
the floor. The immense height of the
ceiling gives the apartment dignity
which Is lacking in the rooms of other
fine New York houses.
Here, as in the grand hall. the COM
manding genius and exquisite taste of
Carl Bitter has been called upon in the
modelling of figure pieces. Perhaps the
most notable pieces of figure work which
adorn this apartment are eight caryatides
of heroic size modelled direct from San
dow, the strong man. These figures
stand upon the cornices, twenty feet from
the floor, and support the rotunda. No
two figures are alike but all are in
STOPPING posture, as If actually bearing
a great weight Sandow's massive figure,
with it's swelling muscles and tendons.
has lent itself admirably to the purpose,
and there is no doubt that these cary
atides will long be considered among the
most striking decorative figures in the
world.
But these are not the only figure dec
orations in the gallery by any means.
Upon the Eestern wall. and bewasa tha