In the Winter Garden. Statue, Hautmann.
Passing in at the North Lodge, visitors are generally conducted through the kitchen and fruit gardens, the vineries, hothouses, and conservatories, to a sloping lawn facing the Winter Garden and north front of the house, from which point a charming scene presents itself. “Before us,” says a recent writer, “in a setting of old forest trees, cedars, aged thorns, clumps of azaleas, and rhododendrons, rises, as if evoked by a magician’s wand, a range of fantastic palaces of glass, their many sheeny domes and pinnacles sparkling like diamond facets in the noonday sun, and their contours and traceried outlines of graceful arabesques backed and thrown into relief by the deep red brick-work of the towers, gables, and campaniles of the hall.”
In the Winter Garden. Statue of Hymen, Byrtrom.
On the left is an aviary of gold and silver pheasants, screening a part of the offices. The area covered by the Winter Garden is one hundred feet square. Within the decorations are Renaissance, of a light and elegant character. Four main alleys converge under the great mosque dome, beneath which is a fountain supported on a rockery of ferns by four dolphins, and surmounted by a marble statue of the “Nymph of the Lily.”
In the Winter Garden. Nymph at her Toilet, Haudmauer.
From the central alley numerous aisles diverge to an outer one, circumscribing the building. The roof is supported by light iron columns covered with fuchsias and beautiful creepers, with wire baskets of flowers suspended overhead. Parterres of rare exotics, and large majolica vases filled with flowers, occupy the grand space. At the corners and in other parts are life-sized statues: mirrors and other appliances add to the beauty of the whole. The south side opens to the Billiard, Morning, and Withdrawing Rooms. Aviaries of singing-birds are placed at intervals throughout the garden, and in the corridor leading to the Palm-house are a fern-grotto and fountain. The whole, it should be specially noted, may be lit with gas.