I had the pleasure recently of planning a trellis room for Mrs. Ormond-Smith’s house at Center Island, New York.  Here indeed is a garden room with a proper environment.  It is as beautiful as a room very well can be within, and its great arched windows frame vistas of trees and water which take their place as a part of the room, ever changing landscapes that are always captivating.  This trellis room is beautifully proportioned, and large enough to hold four long sofas and many chairs and tables of wicker and painted wood.  The grouping of the sofas and the long tables made to fit between them is most interesting.  These tables are extremely narrow and just the length of the sofas, and are built after the idea of Mrs. Armour’s garden room desk, with flower boxes sunk in the ends.  The backs of two sofas are placed against the long sides of the table, which holds a reading lamp and books in addition to its masses of flowers at the ends.  Two such groups divide the room into three smaller rooms, as you can see by the illustration.  Small tables and chairs are pulled up to the sofas, making conversation centers, or comfortable places for reading.

The trellis work covers the spaces between windows and doors, and follows the contour of the arches.  The ceiling is bordered with the trellis, and from a great square of it in the center a lamp is suspended.  The wall panels are broken by appliques that suggest the bounty of summer, flowers and leaves and vines in wrought and painted iron.  There are pedestals surmounted by marbles against some of the panels, and a carved bracket supporting a magnificent bust high on one of the wider panels.  The room is classic in its fine balance and its architectural formality, and modern in its luxurious comfort and its refreshing color.  Surely there could be no pleasanter room for whiling away a summer day.

XIX

VILLA TRIANON

The story of the Villa Trianon is a fairy-tale come true.  It came true because we believed in it—­many fairy stories are ready and waiting to come true if only people will believe in them long enough.

For many years Elizabeth Marbury and I had spent our summers in that charming French town, Versailles, before we had any hope of realizing a home of our own there.  We loved the place, with its glamour of romance and history, and we prowled around the old gardens and explored the old houses, and dreamed dreams and saw visions.

One old house that particularly interested us was the villa that had once been the home of the Duc de Nemours, son of Louis Philippe.  It was situated directly on the famous Park of Versailles which is, as everyone knows, one of the most beautiful parks in all the world.  The villa had not been lived in since the occupancy of de Nemours.  Before the villa came to de Nemours it had been a part of the royal property that was portioned out to Mesdames de France, the disagreeable daughters of Louis XV.  You will remember how disagreeable they were to Marie Antoinette, and what a burden they made her life.  I wish our house had belonged to more romantic people; Madame du Barry or Madame de Pompadour would have suited me better!