Belgrade Lakes, Maine.

August 31st.

My dear Mr Hill:

No doubt we will hear from you on this boat, but in the meantime we thought it better to go ahead and write to you, instead of waiting until we heard. (By this time of course you have my letter, regarding work on Dance Hall, etc.)

On thinking the whole thing over carefully, particularly after we had tried to design some sort of an interior for the study and locker room, we came to the conclusion that it might be very much better to go right ahead with the big house, letting the study wait until the last. Then, if this work could be gone right ahead on, the upper bedrooms on the north end of the house, which will eventually be mine and my husbands bedrooms, could be used this winter as a temporary study and spare bedroom. We would live in the little house (called in the deeds the Dance Hall) this winter as we had planned, and of course as you said in your letter you will start them working on that first of a 11.

The idea about the work to be started immediately on the big house is this: follow plans exactly as submitted, except do not alter front hall (entence room) or upstairs chambers, or add kitchen wing at present. As these two rooms are one above the other, and wing would be added to them, their changes and the addition could be done in the spring: and that would give us the entire rest of the house as in the plan. Bathroom connections could of course be run to these parts for use later. By doing this, we would be able get the big house in livable state by this winter.

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My husband particularly wanted me to ask you to get estimates
up to him as soon as possible. Of course, with the Dance Hall,
as we understood this is not necessary, and you will start them
right in as soon as the place is ours. But these are the estimates
that he suggested: Estimate for large house complete, as in your
plan, with porch over front of house, kitchen wing, etc - an
estimate of plans exactly as you submitted them to us: XXX also
another estimate, of house without wing, as I outlined in former
paragraph: and third, estimate of work on study, as per your
plan. He then feels that he can decide more accurately, and may
even decide, though I am against this, to rent another house
and have the entire work put through this winter. He would of
course have to have the estimates changed, but later, when it
came to deciding where we want porch, etc. If by this time you
have been able to work out a plan with Mr Fisk's facade, and the
original interior, it would be best to get an estimate on that.

I find I have little time to get this off, so will
write more after hearing from you. In regard to Wharf, we feel
bulkhead as you outlined it will prove to be too expensive, and
that we may be able to manage it with a small or one for the
present.

Trusting that the above hastily written outline is
clear, and that you will do all you can to have estimates
rushed through - so that we will have an idea at least if it
will cost eight or eighteen thousand!

Sincerely,

Belgrade Lakes, Me.

Oct. 10 th.

Dear Mr Hill:

As far as I can make out, both from your cable and
from your letter of Oct. 3rd, which we received about two days
ago, you must have written us a letter which has been lost in the
mail. In your letter you say that you spoke about the roof having
to be fixed, and, unless you mean some casual remarks which you
dropped last spring when we were looking at the place, that is
the first we have heard of it. I trust that your next letter,
which will probably arrive tomorrow or Wednesday, will make it all
plain. You see, we sent you a letter in which we explained that
it would be necessary for us to get some idea of what things
would cost. My husband is in the midst of settling up his
father's estate, which consists mostly of real estate, and he felt
that before he left the States he should have some idea of how
much cash he would need this winter for the place. This also
explains his anxiety at not hearing anything at all, and his
cable. A lost letter will explain all this - but the Rates are
hard to let such an important letter get lost!

In yours of Oct 3rd, you say" I though my letter made clear
the inadvisability of asking estimates three of four ways." This
is a little vague to us - probably because of the missing letter -
-- but as time is passing so quickly, and as apparently it is not
possible to get estimates - or at least would be more of an ex-
pense if we did,- we have decided on the following plan, which we
submit for your approval:

2

We will let the studio and study go for this year - or for
the present, at least, also the kitchen wing on the big house. If
you are sure that Burlind is a good and practical man, and also
an honest one, we will start in work at once on the big house, with-
out estimate. The roof - the eves laths - can be fixed at once,
and from that proceed to the ~~fixing up~~ alterations as you have
drawn them up, except that we shall not add the kitchen wing, and
shall have the _welcoming arms_ on the front of the house, instead
of the upper porch. Of course, this means that the entrance hall,
where the _powder room_, etc, was to be, shall be left for the
present one large room, as it is. The rooms over this, which
were to be the children's bedroom, will be as in your plan, ex-
cept for a change which I was going to suggest anyhow, even if we
had the wing put on. (I will outline this on a separate page.)
Everything else will proceed as in your blue prints. However, I
realize that putting the _welcoming arms_ rather than the porch, is
going to make some changes in the windows necessary, but I am
sure you can arrange that all right. And as we intend to
comd down the middle of Onyxbox, and as he will not be working on
estimate, no doubt this part of the repairs can be left until
after we get there - as there will be a lot else to do.

In this way, if it is possible to get you man right to work
on this, the big house should be in shape before too long. It
will provide a perfectly good home for us, with plenty of room
for study, etc, right in the house, for the time being. Then,
probably after we go in the spring, we can have you go ahead with
the study-studio, and wing. Of course, whether this was done
next spring or the year after, it would be done according to your
plans and under your contract. At the same time, in this way, we
are able to get the place into fair shape - and not involve ourselves

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in unforeseen expense. As my husband said, it is after all better to get the main things done first. It is of course our mistake that we did not realize this before: but then we did not realize that the study-studio was going to cost so much. . . it made us realize that probably study@studio, cottage, bulkhead, and various odds and ends would cost so much that we might not be able to go ahead with the big house this year, and we have decided that the big house is the most important after all. By this method we can get some sort of a line on how much things will be, and not involve ourselves in too much expense all at once.

This brings me to the bulkhead. My husbands idea is to start right in enjoying life at Spithead, and so, not only for the protection of the house, but for a safe place for his two boats, he want to get the wharf and bulkhead done as soon as possible. (He also wants a cement tennis-courts put in as soon as we get there, can Burlind do that?) We had an estimate of last year from Motyer on the bulkhead, that is for rebuilding it as it was, which was either five or six hundred pounds, cannot be sure until I get back to Bermuda. As I said in my letter - to which the answer - was lost - we felt that your tentative plans might involve a lot of money, and we asked you to draw plans for one not so extensive. If I remember rightly I went into some detail about it, so shall not repeat myself here. The point is, will you get something started about it right away, so that work on that can also be started? Would it not be possible to begin immediately to repair the old bulkhead, which would provide a place for boats, and at the same time follow out the plan you had in mind? This is quite important, and we hope you will go into it in full in your next letter. . . I dare say that Burlind could do the bulkhead also, couldn't he. We will leave it to you whether to get an es-

4.

timate or not.

It seems to me that the above is all perfectly practical and clear, and if, after reading it over carefully, you see no reason why things cannot go ahead as I have outlined, will you cable us, deferred rates, that things will go ahead along these lines? Perhaps you had better cable us anyhow, as there has been so much delay. Cables cannot be sent collect, but I will try settle with you when we arrive. And in regard to the bulkhead, will you write us in full, so that work can also be started on that as soon as possible?

There are a few things I wanted to tell you about for the cottage, and and including them on a separate page, as in that way there is less confusion.

Trustung that we will hear from you soon, and with all best wishes from us both,

Sincerely,

P.S.

We will be at Belgrade Lakes, (Cable, Agusta Me) Until October 17th. After that address is:

Eugene O'Neill
care American Play Co.
33 West 42nd Street, N.Y.C.

cable address after that date:

Eugene O'Neill,
care Amplayco, New York.

My Dear Mr Hill:

Your letter received today in reply to the cable
we sent you last week. It does not seem to answer anything much
that we asked you, nor does it repeat what you must have written
in a lost letter about the roof. About this matter we are absolutely
in the dark.

However, you have no doubt by now received my last letter
asking you to go ahead with the big house, and how. We are expecting
a cable in reply. It has certainly been unsatisfactory doing all
this by correspondence; I hope that when we get there things will
be a little more smoothly. We are sorry to have had to chop the
work up this way, and if Mr O'Neill could have had estimates, as
he asked for, and expected, it might have been quite possible to
go ahead with the entire thing as in you plans this year. By esti-
mates we mean estimates from sur oral, or at least two or three
contractors, which we understood was the way that it was done. Then,
as I explained to you in my long letter of a month ago, we could get
some idea of how much things would be. If you could have even
had estimates made for us on the complete plans, as I suggested,
it would not have meant that we would have had to have accepted
them, but it would have meant that we would have had some idea.
In regard to what I wrote you about the estimate on the study and
office, and our position, you seem to have very much misunderstood.
My complaint was that Mr Berlinds estimate was very high - all out
of proportion - and at that rate, with that scale of expenses
we did not wish to go ahead as planned. I did not mean that we

could not afford this year to do anything to the place except the
cottage.

Also in none of your letter have you made any reference to the
wharf, about which we particularly asked.

As you will see from my last letter, we are deferring completelly
to your ideas in having you go ahead with out estimate on the big
house, and in your choice of Berlind as a contractor, although the
price he put upon the studio work makes one feel a little that he
is not as familiar with Bermuda conditions as he might be, and
therefor is adding a very wide margin in order to be on the safe
side. However, you know more about it that we do. Owing to your
not being able to have more contractors estimate on the place, and
give us some idea of how much it was to be, we must however, limit
ourselves in some way: and the leaving off of the wing and studio
seem to be the only way that is possible at present.

Now about the roof. We had Motyer send two men up last year
before we made an offer on the place, cut a hole in the ceiling,
and make a thorough examination. He stated that there was nothing
wrong with the roof, with the exception of some little work that had
to be done about the gutters, in fact he went into it thoroughly
with us on the place. In your letter today you indicate give
the impression that the roof will be a big item. Will you please
write me by next mail regarding this?

In the meantime we will no doubt hear from you in reply to
my last letter.

Sincerely,

PRESERVATION PHOTOCOPY: ORIGINAL MATERIAL RESTRICTED

Spithead, Bermuda,

June 21, 1927.

Dear Mr. Hill,

It was my intention to answer your letter
of the 14th before this, but I have been so busy on a
new play that there has been no opportunity.

To take up your letter in detail, the point
about the ten thousand dollar limit we set before work
began is that I had to let the work keep on after that
limit had been reached because so great a part of the
work which you thought could be done within that amount
had not been finished. It still isn't finished although
I have already paid out - leaving the tennis court out
of it, which I estimate to have cost over fifteen hund-
dred dollars although you thought it would not go over
eight hundred - close to thirteen thousand dollars.

I concede your point about the drawings
themselves calling for the payment of your commission
whether the actual building operation is prosecuted or
not - that is, of course, if the drawings have been
definitely and finally accepted by the people ordering
them and are complete in every detail. In the present
instance your plan for the studio was definitely accepted
by me and so was Burland's estimate on the work although
I felt, and feel even more strongly now, that it is far
too high. But never mind that. The point is that I did
agree to go ahead with the work, until our plans changed,
and that I am sending you a check for your commission
on it herewith.

The plan for the wing too was accepted -
but there are still many details that Mrs. O'Neill
wants to go over with you. As soon as this is done -
and it can be done in one talk with her - I will natur-
ally pay you this commission too. But not necessarily
on the basis of Burland's estimate. (I take it the
estimate of $615.00 is his) I want the estimates of
the other contractors on this work too, and your agree-
ment with me requires you to obtain such estimates. And
I want other estimates because Burland's work on Spithead
has been neither so satisfactory nor so reasonable - to
put it mildly! - in cost as to convince me we can't do
better elsewhere. The lowest estimate we can get on
the wing is what I want. And, by the way, when did you
get this estimate? It is the first Mrs. O'Neill or I
have ever heard of it. I didn't even know one had been
made.

As to the jetty. I must entirely disagree
with you. Cost was mentioned right from the start. You
must have forgotten. It had to be. My whole idea for
a jetty was always dependent upon cost and not one of

PRESERVATION PHOTOCOPY: ORIGINAL MATERIAL RESTRICTED
Mr. Hill 2

your plans - I never saw but two of them - was ever even
considered by me except with the proviso that it must
not cost more than a certain sum. I told you distinctly
last spring at Bellevue that Hardy, with Molyer at the
time, had come out with a diver and made an estimate of
three thousand dollars for completely rebuilding the
original jetty and that I did not want any work to be
done that would cost much more than that. I said the
same thing when you came to Belgrade Lakes. And in a
carbon copy of a letter dated October 10, written to you
by Mrs. O'Neill, your tentative plans were too expensive
and we asked you to draw less expensive plans, quoting
Hardy's estimate as a basis for your consideration.
And in your letter of October 24 you speak of Mrs.
O'Neill's having written you on August 31st that "The
wharf or bulkhead is too expensive as outlined." As
for the estimate Burland got from Lawrence, I always
said I was not prepared to go ahead on such a cost basis.
It was for this reason I finally set a definite limit of
four thousand and asked you to draw a plan that could be
carried out within this sum - the revised scheme which I
have never seen that you gave to W. B. Smith. Mr. Smith,
by the way, does not agree with you that yours was a
smaller scheme than his as to cost. He said that yours
on account of the curves involved would be more expen-
sive than his, and his would cost nearly eighteen thou-
and dollars. He told Mrs. O'Neill this the last day he was
here.

The regular wharf builders may be busy and
prices up, as you say, but it's my present experience
that the irregulars who are doing the work on repairing
the old jetty here are cheaper and work harder and better
under Johnson's supervision than Burland's crew ever did
under Page. They all disliked Page - and loathed as soon
as his back was turned, as I noted time and again all
winter.

But again I want to repeat what I said at
the close of my last letter - that I want you to be sat-
isfied. There is no real point of disagreement between
us outside of the jetty, except that Mrs. O'Neill wants
to go over the plans for the wing with you and that we
want either bids submitted for the work. As for the
jetty, why can't you, as soon as the work of rehabilita-
ting the old one is completed, make me a plan based on
it which can be done within my limit and, so will be ac-
ceptable to me? It seems to me this is the fair thing.
I am not trying to save the few dollars difference in
your commission this would mean, but I do want to get
what I want before I pay for it.

Sincerely yours,

Mr. Frederick F. Hill
Somerset Bridge

My dear Mr. Hill,

Your reply to my letter of June 21st does not seem to cover the points in question. You go into some detail about the roof, and also about the fact that you are not a begin-ner, or a "small town architect". If you will re-read my letter, you will see that I refer neither to the roof, nor to your reputation. It stands for granted that when I am planning my permanent home I would go to an architect whom I consider reputable and also efficient.

You refer again to the amount which was to have been spent, repeating what you said before, but adding that Mrs. O'Neill mentioned $12,000 as amount to be spent this year. Obviously, if you will look over her correspondence, you will see that this amount mentioned by her included the wharf as well as the remodeling which we wanted to do this year. Also, there was never any intention, as you state in your letter, of our including the bulkhead in the original $10,000 which we wanted to spend on the house.

However, the argument on how much should or should not have been put into remodeling the house is best dropped. It does not seem to have any legal bearing on the subject. It seems to me that the matter simplifies itself down to this:

You have been paid in full for plans and work done on the house to date, and for plans for the study, the above amounting to A

I agree to pay you for the plan of the wing, but want the change made to which Mrs. O'Neill referred in her letter of October tenth.

Burland's work not being satisfactory, I want you to get
other estimates on this wing. Your agreement states that you get
"estimates" not an estimate. You suggest that I do this. I feel
that this is not my work, but yours, for which you are being paid.
Mr. Hutchings, or Mr. Motyer, or others, will no doubt estimate
on your blueprint for the wing, in spite of the statement in your
letter of 20 that Burland and Hathaway are the only two contrac-
tors in Bermuda who fill your requirements for Bermuda work.

The other point under debate is the fact that you want a
fee of 6% on a so-called £1200 estimate made by Burland following
out a drawing made by you. I think you, to me quite fair, must
agree that Burland never made any working estimate, but that the sum
mentioned was a guess made by the diver, Lawrence, after two visits
here (for which I paid him) during which he simply looked over the
dock. No measurements or soundings were taken. If any detailed
estimate on paper was ever made we never saw it, nor was it ever
submitted.

In regard to the amount we wanted to spend on the wharf,
Mrs. O'Neill in x letter after letter says that she feels your
plans would prove too expensive, and that we could not go ahead
with them as they were.

After telling you that Burland's idea of $1200 was far more
than we wanted to pay, I put $4000 as an absolute limit on future
plans or estimates, and I am willing to pay you for the three
plans made by you 6% on the above amount. I think this more than
fair, particularly as the wharf we are now building, which is a
lot more expensive than the plans we are to get built, is costing me less
than that.

Your plans, as you will recall, were made without any

1. Eve lathes put on wrong on space on south of house (Page's job)

2. Cap of small sunken court outside billiard room put on wrong by Page had to be taken off and rebuilt.

Shutter

3. /Doors into above court hung wrong. Skutt A new jamb will have to be built in order to have them set against the side of the house.

4. Door from billiard room to dining room hung on wrong side, so know breaks glass of outer door.

5. Balcony mason work done wrong so that it leaks from bedroom floor into study below with every rain. An expert mason has looked at this and we are having it fixed at present at our own expense.

6. Fire place in north-west bedroom after being completely finished and walls plastered and washed had to be torn out and rebuilt. Whole left side of n.w. bedroom had to be torn out and replastered because badly done.

7. Fire place in billiard room, so far as I know left to Page's design, was a good imitation of a New York set fireplace. (see photograph) and had to be torn out and rebuilt, to conform with other fireplaces in the house.

8. Closet door in bedroom placed nearer fireplace than plan shows, spoiling proportion of room.

9. Small court, outside billiard room, so badly built that there is a regular fish pond there with every rain. At our expense Burland attempted to rectify this by putting in a drain which does not help matters much. It is perfectly obvious that the drainage should have been taken care of before the cement was laid. Both billiard room and dining room are constantly being flooded because of this.

10. Painting of tennis court botched. (This item I have refused to pay for).

11. Work done so far on cedar beams in billiard room done cheaply and badly.

12. Plaster in bedrooms put on with fresh lime under Page's direction so that large holes are appearing all over the surface.

13. Wash in bedrooms and study peeled off so badly that we had to get a local mason/to treat the walls, so that they are now all right.

14. In small cottage the areaway under the arch drained all winter into the storeroom so that the place was continually muddy and dirty. Johnson in a half a day's work rectified this error so that the areaway even during the rain is now free from water.

15. Also two doors in cottage leaked so badly I finally had to call in an outside carpenter to fix them.

16. Plastering in dining room will have to be completely done over to hide gouging made where electric wires were put in after the work had been completed. Ditto billiard room walls marked up from same method of procedure. Upper hall walls spoiled from same reason. closed up and fixed.

17. Walls and plastered before plumber was called in so that when he came to do his work the walls had to be opened up again. These latter faults are due to the fact that work was not properly managed, the plumbing and electric light wiring should have been done before any plastering or finishing of walls. They can be demonstrated to anyone interested in condition of walls.

direction, (I presume) and thrown out in the woodpile after being broken up. Mrs. O'N. looking over the book of Bermuda houses happened to see a photograph of a mantel similar to the one taken out of Spithead, and on what she thought was a very hopeless chance, had the gardener search thru the pile of lumber, where he finally found a part of the mantel. After scraping thru several coats of paint it was discovered to be old cedar. It then took two men a day to search thru the large piles of old lumber before they finally located the two other parts of the mantel. It took a cabinet maker several days to put it together again, finally revealing a very beautiful hand-bevelled old cedar mantel. It seems incredible that an architect who has been in old Bda. houses and is supposed to have a knowledge of that period should have made this colossal mistake.

XXXXXXXXXX

Mr. and Mrs. Meithex

Mrs. O'N. and I both relied on your judgment about these details, When we told you that we wanted the house kept as much in the old Bda. style as possible.

XXXXXXXXXX

Mr. and Mrs. Meithex

XXXXXXXXXX

I have gone into the above incident rather fully; the details that can be added to it are that we then on investigation discovered that most of the sash, beams, and considerable of the woodwork in Spithead, particularly upstairs in the living room is old cedar, and though our original disappointment on being told by you that Spithead did not have cedar woodwork was overcome (?) we find ourselves XXXXXXXXXXX with much work to be done before we can get back to the old Bermuda effect. E.g. pieces of cypress and pine have been let into the front of old cedar window ledges, necessitating the tearing out of plaster etc. Other woods have been used upstairs for woodwork etc. in rooms now revealed as being largely cedar trim, and old cedar planks etc. have been used by Page in places where they do not show and for patching, where other