Los Angeles herald., 1907-09-06
CHILD HAS
WONDERLAND
OGDEN ARMoUR's DAUGHTER is
GIVEN 100000 HOME
LIKE FAIRY PALACE Is HER
HOUSE
Finest Marble to BE Found In the
World Is Being Uced In the
Marvellous construc-
tion

| CHICAGO, Sept. 5.-The heroine of the
newest story about fairy palace is j.
Ogden Armours little daughter, Lolita.
For her is being built the s2,00O.000 house
which caps the crest of the sloping prairie
at the highest point of the divide between
the Skokie and the Desplaines rivers,
| few miles west of Lake Forest, on the
Deer Path road.
| In the house and the 900 acres of
wooded prairie surrounding 1t are being
prepared charm and beauty that some
times parallel, but more often surpass,
what the little girl has read about In
| her fairy tales. The moat and all are
there, even the bridge, which, If 1t isn't
drawbridge, is imposing and beautiful
| in architecture and outlines. and with
| possibly some modern mechanism more
wonderful than that of the drawbridge
concealed within it's concrete. 1t is so
high that the view of the prairie and the
sunset and the far off town-even visitors
coming up the winding road through the
park in their chug-chug cars-can be seen
by the little girl when she comes out to
scan her domain in the same way that
the princesses of old came out to the
bridges near their castles.
Besides the river, broad, rippling and
far prettier than moat, there will be
crystal lakes, a whole chain of them sur
rounding the little girls house, and a
railroad train that will flash out through
the trees for a minute in the sight of one
of her windows and be swiftly swallowed
up again by her own forests. There will
be winding drive of many miles through
which the chug-chug auto cars will come,
and there will be five great pillared
porches or loggias, with columns and fac
ings as white as alabaster, surrounding
the mansion itself.
Completed Within Year
There are thousand other things that
are in detail like the palaces of fairy
tales, and even then the half has not been
told. In just year from now the en-
chantment that is working 1t all will be
lifted and the little princess will enter
the fairy palace to live. Now she Is a
bit too little to realize all the wonder
full things that are being prepared for
her. Every time / come out here I
get new kind of sand pile to play in
and a beautiful new colored brick to take
home with me-" she said, running wild
and brown one day last spring as she
climbed up from out of the masonry and
tugged along pretty colored brick up
to the motor car.
1t is just because of such health CIV
ing delights as sand piles and all their
accompaniments of running wild and liv-
ing an endlessly healthful, outdoor life
that Ogden Armour has persisted in an
undertaking in many ways at variance
with his well known simple tastes.
II don't believe he ever would have gone
on with it, at any rate on such great
scale, If it had not been for Lolita" Is
common talk among the Armour friends.
And small wonder, for did not Mrs. Ar
mour climb UP on the masonry one day
when the foundations were first finished
and declare that it was too big?
| 1t is well known that Mrs. Armour her
self is against anything that makes for
complexity of living II would like to live
in fiat" she said to a friend one day,
where 1 could stand in the front door
and look out of the back. AS it is, with
the house we already have, when l ask
the butler to do anything he says, oh,
that is the parlormaid's duty, madam,
and when / ask the parlormaid she says,
THAT belongs to the first housemaid' The
first housemaid tries to pass 1t off on the
second, and the second says 1t is the up
stairs girls work, and so 1t goes, until the
fact is that the most comfort / get Is
when we are in our little fiat over in
Paris"
With these sentiments and experience it
Is no wonder that Lolita s mother declared
that 1t was altogether too big when she
climbed up to look at the masonry, for
when it is done, by going to one end of
the great hall there is such connection
of hall and rooms that view may be had
directly through one straight space of 500
feet.
The next time she looked over the
masonry, however, the tiled arches were
up to hold the floors, and it didn't look SO
big. And then she and Lolita got to COM
ing out last winter to watch the work
grow, until finally the family reversed the
do oy,1 .a,,f fror N,, o,,t
at the farm, only coming in Friday after
Moons in time for a concert. Each new
detail of plan and execution was watched
eagerly, and the house and grounds began
to be pictured as the beautiful estate it
would become some day for Lolita
AS 1t Is, the new house is planned upon
scale which shall last not only for
Lolita but for the little girls grandchil-
dren and for generations beyond that. 1t
is so cleverly designed, both as to archi-
lecture and landscape features, that 1t will
grip hold of the prairie landscape as part
of 1t. So harmonious is its planning that
so long as the masonry shall stand there
will be no need of change-because when
it is finished there will be no room for
Improvement; at least this is the ideal of
those who are working on 1t.
1T should be, and probably will be,
typical of the western civilization in
architecture and landscape, with the en-
trance and all other features in harmony
with the partly wooded prairie which rolls
away from 1t at slightly downward
slope upon all Sides" was the way this
idea was expressed by the landscape
gardener who had charge of the laying
out of the grounds.
| 1t is to this end that the 100000 will
| be spent for the art, brains and technical
| skill that will work out the fitting of
| purely American home to a typical west
ern spot and scenery in way that shall
be beautiful. permanent and of an en-
| folding quality, in part only comprehend
BILE to the mind either trained or intuitive
in art" Such is the perception of the
real joy and real purchasing power of
money and of the beauties of the new Ar
mour estate to which the hearer is raised
after talk with its architect, Arthur
Heun, and of its new landscape gardener,
Jens Jensen of the park commissioners
| No wonder thinks the hearer, little Lo-
lita reduces the glories of her new castle
and wooded estate to "a new sand pile to
4 play in and a lovely new colored brick"
| Similar as to etymology is the view of her
| father Ogden Armour himself