A Measured Word: House

"The house determines the day-to-day, hour-to-hour, minute-to-minute quality, colour, atmosphere, pace of one's life; it is the framework of what one does, of what one can do, and of one's relations with people." Leonard Woolf

As I refurbish an old home, I have been thinking about houses and reading about them, too. Although I don't completely agree with Virginia Woolf's husband, I do think a house is a framework within which we build a home, including all the memories assembled within its walls through the artifacts collected under its roof, the people invited within its walls, the experiences created in its rooms.

I had the opportunity of a lifetime to stay with my family and another family of friends in the Payne Mansion for two nights last weekend.

As the only guests in the 42,000 square foot mansion, the entire experience felt rather like the PBS Masterpiece series Downton Abbey.

Payne Mansion is situated on the Hudson River in the area where the Roosevelts, Vanderbilts, and Rockefellers all had summer houses.

The staff pampered us and allowed us to explore the entire house inside and out to our heart's content.

Every material used to build and decorate the house in the Beaux-Arts architectural style of the time around 1911 was brought from Europe and constructed to resemble an Italian Palazzo.

The weather was perfect every day and I enjoyed every minute, photographing numerous architectural details.

Everywhere I looked I found a visual feast of artistic delights like a wrought iron shell door handle

and ornately carved columns

and elaborate gold leafed plaster work

and unique sconces on carved wood paneling

and original and reproduction artwork in every room.

Of course, now valued at 65 million dollars, a house of this caliber is really more a museum than a home, and I struggled to see how the owners ever felt anything but loneliness within its walls.