The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-01-29
AN ARMY OF
 MEN AT WORK Carrying Out Plans of Late E. H. Hartman IN THE RAMAPO HILLS Work Has Been Going on for Years and No Date for Its Completion Has Been Set up to
 the Present 6slt
 
IN THE RAMAPO HILLS
From the New York Herald.

From the New York Herald.
 Up at Arden-Arden in the forest-Ar- den of the Ramapo range-a colony of 600 worlkmen, landscape gardeners and carvers of wood and stone employed upon the estate ce Mrs. E. H. Hartman, gre rejoicing oyer the completion of an- other year of profitable and congenial work. Mrs. Hartman and her daughter, Miss Mary, to whom her father commit ted the completion of his plans, and MT. Charles T. Ford, her active assistant. are happy that their plans are another year nearer to completion, the ideal home projected in the busy leisure of the rail- road magnate, year nearer realization.
 More than 600 men are at work on the estate and have been at work, virtually without intermission, for four years, di- viding a pay roll of s20,000 week. When will their task be finished? Easier to ask than to answer. In October, 1909 when Mrs. Hartman announced her intention to carry out in their fullest detail her husbands plans on the estate. 1t was said, on the authority of MT. Ford, that two or three years work remained to be done. If he were asked, after more than a twelve month of steady labor how much longer the job would take he would probably have refuge in similar express sion of dubiousness.
 Will it ever be done? To an active mind like MT. Harrimans there was no satisfaction in repose. He was happiest while there was still something to be done, something to be brought to a high CT state of perfection. His heirs, who are charged with the fulfillment of his plans, have inherited something of his restless disposition In the vast range of LOCO acres of mountain and forest there will always be something calling for a fresh endeavor and new enterprise.
 Still, 600 men working 300 days in a year for four years-720,0O0 days work backed by unlimited capital and directed with supreme skill and energy must have made an impression, even upon d0,O00 acres of wilderness.
 An Impression Made
 An impression has been made, which | is perceptible even to the uncritical eye | of the layman To such an eye a great | part of MT. Harriman's plans appears to have been completely realized Stand | ing on one of the terraces surrounding | Tower Hill the observer may see the | great park of forest and mountain and | lake and river in something like the form | which offered itself to the imagination | of the projector It was a wilderness when he first saw it and it is a wilder ness still, but now the wilderness has been subdued to the forms drafted by art and modern science. Roads and culverts and bridges, scientifically constructed, have taken the place of the rude noun tain trails of the olden time, when the wilderness was a wilderness indeed un- trodden save by the foot of the hunter and woodsman. At nearer hand, Italian gardens and formal parks and pools and statues wear the garb of completion.
 @t.1 Hill and viewpoint of the estate, is meas uraoly completed. In this and that apart ment artists and artificers are still at work, and will be for months to come upon carvings, frescoes and pictures There are habitable rooms and quarters lacking nothing but the softening touch of time. The family stayed later than ever this season in their mountain home and the chill of late autumn left them untouched. Week by week and almost day by day, it seemed more homelike.
 Not a Palace, But a House
 It was not a palace, but a "house'' that MT. Hartman planned. Upon this he always insisted. It was to be a house in which every comfort and luxury that science could devise would add to its completeness, but still 1t was to be q house and not a palace. It's monumental features were to be subordinated to 'homeliness'' and comfort. Its beauties were to be blended with those of the landseape
 In setting less grander the Hartman house might seem a palace, but in the heart of the Ramapo range nature alone is grand.
 For miles in every direction the woods and mountains extend.
 Lest any of the delights of a luxuri- ous life should be lacking on the estate, MT. Hartman built upon Forest lake an Adirondack camp, which is now com plete and perfect in all its appointments The camp. for all it's wilderness, is in plain view from the loggia of the house and is one of the attractive features of a landscape which it would not be easy to match east or west.
 The panorama from the roof is even