Catoctin clarion. [volume] (Mechanicstown, Md.) 1871-1940, 1907-07-04
HOW THE RICH LIVE
The Most Expensive City In the World,
By CLEVELAND MOFfETT.

By CLEVELAND MOFFETT.
Newport Is the most expensive
city in the world; it's twice as ex-
pensive as New York." declares a
sriend of mine, who pays $4,000 a
season for the rent of his cottage.
To be sure this cottage is a hand
some stone house in attractive
grounds, perhaps the costliest Of
those that are rented regularly vary
ing from $4,000 to $1,000 for the
three or four months is an ordinary
affair in Newport, and occasionally
when one of the millionaire villas is
to let-one of those splendid places
by the sea, with stables and green
houses and the glamour of impOs-
ing names, "We've taken Granite
Point, my dear. from the Edgar J. IS"
then the price is $4,000 or $15,-
900 from June to September. And
people glad to pay 1t!
A Dollar Foot For Land.
AS matter of fact, $4,000 Is a
small enough sum to pay when one
considers what the owner has al
ready paid for the land the house
and the grounds. suppose no sum-
mer city in the world can show such
lavish expenditure in SO small an
area. for fashionable Newport, or
the heart of 1t, is comprised within
two or three square miles at one
corner of little island
Over all the rest of this island you
may pick up land for song, but
here on this southwestern point you
will pay, roughly speaking, one dol
lar square foot. which means $43,-
600 an acre; and none of these show
places occupies less than one acre,
while most of thcm have four or
five and a few have ten or twelve.
So the unimproved land alone repre-
sents a small fortune Git was farm
land thirty years ago in the Ocnre
Point region, now worth millions)
cost half a million or a quarter of n
million each, and some full million
real palaces--with another million
inside in furniture and objects of
art The simple stone wall around
one of these million-dollar places (it
belongs to L. J. Berwind) cost $780,
600. Its gates and carvings kept
the stonecuttcrs busy for a year. Sig
nificant is 1t not? 100000 for a
stone wall,
Trees at Nine Hundred Per.
And here | may point ont the ex-
traordinary way in which Newport's
bare lawns have been transformed
into shaded parks, with rows of an
cestral beeches and cedars, one
would say, all grown to order over
night by the fiat of Money wills it.
Here, for instance. is a fine horse
chestnut, its branches spread sixty
feet and your extended arms scarcely
compass its girth. Surely, you say,
this tree has stood here for genera
tions. Not at all; 1t has stood here
for two or three months. And the
same is true Of those naples down
the driveway and of that rare old
tulip tree by the hedge. and of yon-
der group of sturdy red ccdars One
year ago the naples were growing
twenty miles away, the horse chest
nat thirty miles away, and the tulip
tree fifty miles away. Then the order
came that these trees must shade
and beautify this lawn and frame
q picture of the sea for the piazza
people. SO two gangs of Italians
were sent forth with picks and shov-
els, and under each chosen tree
they dug two tunnels, leaving the
roots in a great ball Of solid earth.
Then they skidded it up on heavy
timbers and moved it on rollers, and
made it fast on a special truck, and
hitched on thirty horses-for the
weight was thirty tons-and thus
mile after mile they dragged it here
and planted it, and the time con-
sumed was six weeks, and the cost
was nine hundred dollars for that
one tree!
vi SoulDS, IL Noolo 400 w Aho'S
smaller trees. Three or four hun
dred dollars apiece will give you a
modest grove; but even SO, with
acres to cover, it is clear that your
bill for shade may run far into the
thousands. And there arc forty
places in Newport U have it from
the leading forisD where the rum
ming expenses of gardens, green
houses, trees, lawns, hedges, etc,
amount to $4,000 or $4,000 a year,
and several places where these ex-
penses are much more than that
one place In particular where half a
million has been spent on the
grounds and where twenty men are
required for the mere details of
landscape gardening.
Florists Must Live.
1t might be supposed that, with eX-
tensive greenhouses to draw upon,
the mistress of one of these hand
some places would have flowers in
abundance for all occasions, but such
Is not the case The greenhouses
merely supply the family's daily
needs, and a florist is called upon
for elaborate dinners, balls and fetes.
So that fashionable family will
easily spend thousand dollars a
month in the season simply on flow
ers for small dinners, such as are
given say once a week. A thousand
dollars does not go far when your
guests sit under canopies of Ameri-
can Beauty roses, spreading over the
table like apple trees in full bloom,
and when the tables themselves are
beds of lilies and gardenias. Nor