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III
THE OLD WASHINGTON IRVING HOUSE
I HAVE always lived in enchanting houses. Prob-
ably when another woman would be dreaming
of love affairs, I dream of the delightful houses
I have lived in. And just as the woman who dreams
of many lovers finds one dream a little dearer than all
the rest, so one of my houses has been dearer to me
than all the others.
This favorite love of mine is the old Washington
Irving house in New York, the quaint mansion that
gave historic Irving Place its name. For twenty years
my friend, Elizabeth Marbury, and I made this old
house our home. Two years ago we reluctantly gave
up the old house and moved into a more modern one-
also transformed from old into new-on East Fifty-
fifth Street. We have also a delightful old house
in France, the Villa Trianon, at Versailles, where we
spend our summers. So you see we have had the rare
experience of transforming three mistreated old houses
into very delightful homes.
When we found this old house, so many years ago,
we were very young, and it is amusing now to think
of its evolution. We had so many dreams, so many
theories, and we tried them all out on the old house.
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