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THE OLD WASHINGTON IRVING HOUSE
from one room to another like the old, old house one
associates with far-away places and old times.
The little entrance hall was worse than a question,
it was a problem, but I finally solved it. The floor
was paved with little hexagon-shaped tiles of a won-
derful old red. A door made of little square panes
of mirrors was placed where it would deceive the old
hall into thinking itself a spacious thing. The walls
were covered with a green-and-white-stripe wall-paper
that looked as old as Rip Van Winkle. This is the
same ribbon-grass paper that I afterward used in the
Colony Club hallway. The woodwork was painted
a soft gray-green. Finally, I had my collection of
faded French costume prints set flat against the top of
the wall as a frieze. The hall was so very narrow
that as you went up stairs you could actually examine
the old prints in detail. Another little thing: I
covered the handrail of the stairs with a soft gray-
green velvet of the same tone as the woodwork, and the
effect was so very good and the touch of it so very nice
that many of my friends straightway adopted the idea.
But I am placing the cart before the horse! I
should talk of the shell of the house before the con-
tents, should n't I? It is hard to talk of this particular
house as a thing apart from its furnishings, however,
for every bit of paneling, every lighting-fixture, the
placing of each mirror, was worked out so that the
shell of the house and its furnishings might be in per-
fect harmony.
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