| Show OUR EXTRAVAGANCE Luxurious Living in the National Capital SOME FAMOUS ENTERTAINERS A Look at the Goreeons Booms In Which home of Our Millionaire Statesmen Will Dine Tills Winter WASHINGTON Nov 24 1591Special correspondence of THE SUNDAY HERALD The Congress which meets in a few days is full of poor men Fourfifths of the newly elected members have nothing but their salaries and the semiAl lianco men were chosen because their farms were mortgaged Senator Kyle has heretofore considered himself well paid at a thousand dollars a year and Senator Peffer was working for t25 a week when he had the luck to jump into Senator Ingalls 5000 job It is said that Item of Nebraska never made over 500 a year in in his life and most of the Alliance men expect ex-pect to clear more this year than they ever have before They have been trotting over Washington looking for cheap boardinghouses boarding-houses and the criticisms of the high prices of board and lodging are angry and loud It used to be a Congressman could live I in Washington on 3000 a year When Congress first met the members were wet I paid at six dollars a day and in 1S15 tho nation considered it a big salary grab when they Increased their pay to 1500 a year Now they get 5000 and find themselves poorer than their forefathers were at 1500 prices were never so dear in Washington as now A Congressman cannot get a ro Bpectable tenroom house for less than S100 a month and market prices have doubled since the beginning of the last Congress A CITY OF TILE KICH Washington is fast becoming a city of the rich It Is a town of millionaires who have come here to spend their money A poor Senator has no chance to entertain on his salary and the cost of dinners and recep tions is enormous The prospects are that the coming season will be more gay and extravagant than ever Many now houses have been built and some of the wealthier citizens are adding great wings to their old houses for the purpose of entertaining The matter of dining rooms alone is becoming an Important feature of Washington life and the diningroom is now one of the largest and most beautiful of the statesmans house Senator Stanford rents a house at Washington but he has added to this at his own expense a wing comprising a diningroom which has cost in the neighborhood of 10000 and which though simple in its construction for the wants of a hundred millionaire is a fair type of the tendency of the times in this direction The diningroom is now being furnished for the winter The wall and ceiling decorations have been completed Numbers of elegant oil paintings have been hunt in it and the floor alone remains to ba GI 3 S stained and polished It is an immense room You could crowd a good sized two story house inside of it and you could turn the biggest Broadway dray loaded with barrels around in it without touching the walls It is over fifty feet long and more than twenty feet wide and it has a great swelling baywindow in the aide of it which looks out upon Seventeenth street and from the recesses of which you can got a view of Farragut square The ceiling is I judge about fifteen feet high It is painted a delicate del-icate cream which warms into pink dusted with gold as it meets the side walls of pale blue and silver These side walls are of a beautiful imported paper of silver flowers on this pale blue ground and the general effect ef-fect of thejroom is aomost harmonious one There is nothing gaudy or extravagant in its make up The chandeliers are of brass and the globes upon them did not cost I venture more than fifty cents apiece though they harmonize perfectly and are beautiful The fire place in the end of tho diningroom is of wood painted a rioh cream and on the right and the left of this facing the door are two beautiful statues of ° bite marble of Paris and Achilles These wtand on pedestals ped-estals of black marble and thoycatch your eye as you enter the room The pictures on the walls are fine oil paintings and most of them were sent on from California for the room Senator Stanford has not seethe n see-the room as yet and ho gave orders for its construction before he loft Washington for California SENATOR STANFORDS DINNERS There are many diningrooms in Washington Wash-ington which have cost more than that ol Senator Stanfords but I doubt if there are any which will be so effective or in such good taste Stanford is a rich man but he does not believe in extravagance nor in the gaudy display of his wealth Ho has the best of everything but he wastes nothing He is very charitable and very free with his money but his tastes are simple and he spends but little money for mere show The dining table in this diningroom is of plain mahogany and you might find one equally as fine looking In the house of any wellto do merchant The chairs are of a simple pattern cushioned with red leather and I would cost I judge less than 10 apiece Tho table is very small for so large a room but it is plenty big enough for the Senators family and he has a plan for enlarging it a t will so that it will accommodate as large a number of guests as can bo served in the White House diningroom This enlarging eg will be done by means of folding leaves n f white pine which have been stained to the color of mahogany These loaves are mad of boards about fourteen inches wide and about five feet long and they are so put together to-gether that they can be screwed to framework o frame-work and placed right over the small dining table and then being supported at the ends by temporary logs they form a new dining table resting on and over the old Th ge table cloth will come to the floor and on such a table Senator Stanford can entertain fiftytwo guests at dinner at one time Bj this additional table or cover being made o f sets of folding leaves ho can make it a s large or as small as he pleases and can hay his table to suit his company An interesting thing In connection with the new dining room is the butlers pantry This runs along the side of tho room and iso is i so constructed that it would be the deligh of any housewife It Is about twentyfiv e feet long and twelve feet wide and it nail shelves of white pine as beautifully mad as those of the library and enough in num ber to hold the dishes of a good sized chin store There are two dumbwalters which go from the kitchens below to this pantry and in one side of it there is a sink for the washing of dishes which is as big as the largest footbath and which has a drainIng hnarri all around it BO that the tvhola ia QS big as the top of a babys crib This drain ng board is of stained pine and everything connected with the room is as clean and as neat as a pin Some of the finest dinners in Washington are given by Senator Stanford Ho does not give a great many nor does he entertain many people at a time The first dinner that President Harrison took outside the White House was at Stanfords table At this time the whole country was ransacked for novelties and though it was February Senator Stanford had some rare California cherries to placo before his guests These were gotten by express and the great part of the fruits and the wine used at the Senators Sen-ators tables como from California Flowers Flow-ers and greens are sent across the continent and floral pieces are made up there and are shipped hero with sponges attached to them and with directions to express messengers mes-sengers to water them on the way All 01 the nuts that the Senator uses como from his own farms and he serves California olives to his guests They come from South California and are sent in kegs They are of the choicest variety of course It is the same with the wines Many of those served at his table come from his own vineyards and though he always has one or two foreign for-eign wines at a dinner he believes in tho use of home products and he is making great improvements in fruit and vine culture cul-ture Not long ago ho brought two of the most noted champagne makers of France to California and he employs them there in making champagne These men are study ing the California grapes and are devoting themselves to the production of a fine California Cali-fornia champagne SOME NOTED DINING ROOMS Mr John R McLean is building an immense im-mense dining room at the back of his big Washington house facing McPhersons square This dining room is just opposite Chambsrllns restaurant and it will be I judge as big as Stanfords It has a largo bay window in the side and will be beautifully beauti-fully lighted Another big dining room will be that of Senator Eugene Hale or rather of Mrs Zilch Chandlorfor I am told that the big house which has been built on the corner of Sixteenth and K streets bo longs to Senator Hales motherinlaw This houae will probably be open this win tor The decorators are now in it It I s the biggest house in Washington and probably prob-ably the most expensive one It must cove a quarter of an acre and it has enough windows for a big female seminary It is a great oblong colonial building of cream brick and drab stone with a semicircular entrance in the middle facing Sixteen h street This entrance has beautiful decorations decor-ations in the way of stone columns and the whole house is tasteful to an extreme I t cannot have cost less than 100000 and looks as though it might have cost several times this amount A little further up Sixteenth street from this house is Scotts Circle a little back from which on Rhode Island avenue Vice President Morton lives Hero is another r big dining room which Mr Morton bull especially for his Washington dinners It was finished at the opening of the last Congress Con-gress and it has cost much more than the dining room of Senator Stanford It wa stated at the time it was built that it cost something like 540000 It has a ceiling o f panelled oak which meets the side walls in i an archshaped cove and below which ris ing from the floor is a high wainscoting The plaster between these Is decorated i a red and the designs for it l and for tho oak carving wore made especially for the Vice President The mantelpiece in the Stan ford dining room could not bo built should think for less than 100 That In Vico President Mortons must have cost at leas 1000 It is of carved oak with a great mirror over it and it has a fireplace in I which you could roast an ox The bay window win-dow at the side of the dining room is anther an-ther feature It Is made of enormous hoots of plate glass and of Mosaic glass which were especially made for Mr Morton Mor-ton for this purpose The floor is inlaid in patterns and the culinary arrangements of the establishment are like those of a hotel The kitchen is walled with tiles of white china and the ashes are carried out of tho house by a small railway DINING ROOMS OF MAHOGANY Some of the best dining rooms of Wash ngton are those of private citizens The house of Mr John Hay the author of the Life of Lincoln is one of the finest at the capital Its interior decorations are In the finest of carved woods The hall is in South American white mahogany and at the right of this as you enter the front door just opposite a great fireplace is a dining room of red mahogany This is panelled and wainscoted In this wood and the wainscoting contains blocks big enough to make the most beautiful office desk you have ever seen Great mahogany rafters cross each other over your head and the supports of these are carved columns of mahogany Out of a red mahogany alcove you look through plate glass windows out upon Sixteenth street and Lafayette park and at the end of the room facing the door there Is a great fireplace as big as that In Senator Palmers 12000 Jose cabin near Detroit De-troit which is surrounded by a mantel wonderful in its carving and which has inglenooks at the sides where you can sit and toast your foot before the coals Senator Sawyer has a beautiful dining room In his big brown stone house in Connecticut Con-necticut avenue It Is like that of John Hay in that it is inlaid with mahogany panels but it has a frieze of paintings in oil in which oupids and pea fowls are play Ing together above tho bald head of tho Senator as he eats The coiling is beauti fully panelled and the room is decorated with rare bits of fine china and plate It is lighted with lamps of crystal and wrought silver and its hangings were of peacock blue during a part of the time that the Senator Sen-ator has entertained in it Mrs Senator Hearsts dining room will not be open this winter as she is in mourn ing It was finished last year and it is a beauty The room is finished In the style of Dutch renia sauce and the wood work is i of well smoked old oak The ceiling is pan ailed and the walls are covered with stamped leather The dining table is twentysix feet longor it may be extended to that length and the whole of the apartment apart-ment is sombre In the extreme In addi tion to this there is a supper room in the basement for use during receptions and this is fnrnlshed In California red wood and i Its flooris of fine Mosaic ROOMS WITH HISTORIES Many of the big dining rooms of Wash I ington are rooms with histories The walls within which PostmasterGeneral Wana maker washes down his beefsteak with ice water and cold tea have held all the belles and beaux of Washington for a generation It was in it that Tillie Frelinghuysen and her father entertained President Arthur when the gossip was that the President was to marry the daughter of his secretary of state It had distinguished owners before Frelinghuysen bought it and Secretary Whitney made it the social centre of the Cleveland administration It was ho who gave the room Its decorations which it has to a largo extent today Ho made the wood work of ebony black and hung its walls with brocaded satin of a rich old red He had gorgeous tapestries hung on the walls and his sideboard sparkled with all vera His tables were loaded with cham pagne to a greater extent than Mr Wana makers ore loaded with Appolinaris and N his receptions were gayer and his dinners i equal if not superior to those of Postmas orGoneral Wanamaker Just across Lafayette square within atones a-tones throw of the White House in an Idfashioned mansion of the color of Jersey ream lives Don Cameron of Pennsyl ania His house is the old Taylor man sion and its dining room has entertained all of the statesmen and diplomats back to the days of Henry Clay General Winfield Scott was dined in it and Daniol Webster often stuck his legs under its mahogany Just next to it is Blaines house which was a famous place of entertainment when ommodpro Rogers owned itand the dining room which Blaine uses for his diplomatic dinners was used by Secretary Seward vhen ho was at the head of the state department de-partment under Lincoln The dining rooms room-s on the ground floor and its walls are hung with crimson tapestry and the side oard > is of old oak The chairs are upholstered uphol-stered in red leather and with Blaine at the head of the table the dinners are always a success Daniel Webster gave his big dinners within a stones throw of where Blaine now holds forth Ho lived beyond his means and though he did his own market ing he was always in debt The house he had while ho was secretary of state was ho Corcoran mansion on the north side of Lafayette square and Mr Coroorans autograph letters showed that Webster borrowed largely from him FOSTER AND SHERMAN Secretary Foster has roncled the house which Senator Payne occupied just opposite the Portland Flats on Vermont avenue a beautiful lawn The secretary Is rich and he will probably entertain considerably this winter Just below him lives Senator McMillan of Michigan in a house which he paid 80000 for and which is beautifully finished in every respoct All of the justices jus-tices of the supreme court are entertainers and the dining room of the supreme court justice is more Important to him than his parlor Senator Evarts had a beautiful dining room in his house on the corner of Sixteenth and K streets and he gave many stag dinners in it He is noted as an entertainer ff enter-tainer and during his term as secretary oi state he spent four times as much as his salary in keeping up his table John Sherman Sher-man has a very plain dining room in his K street house Like Senator Stanford he gets all his preserves from his countrv home and he gives many dinners and good ones FRANK G CAKPBNTER |
