We Inspect the New House
I went through the new Radigan house on Fifth Avenue the other day, and I must say that not in years have I had so delightful an adventure as that trip through my friends' fairy-palace. The phrase fairy-palace is used not to imply beauty, but the marvel of its building, for it might be said to have arisen in a night. But Coppe & Coppe are masterful architects. They hold the time record for a twenty-seven-story office building, and with artists like these, Radigan's money, and a cousin who is a walking delegate, wonders can be accomplished. The mansion to-day is practically finished, except for the lightning-rods on the tower, which rises from the western front, an exact copy of those truncated ones of Notre Dame.
We strolled up in the afternoon, the Radigans, Miss Veal, and myself, and on the way picked up J. Madison Mudison, who was walking off a little stag dinner of the night before, and seemed rather depressed. As we passed Seventieth Street we got the first view of the new house and crossed the street to get the best effects. Mrs. Radigan, with much pride, pointed out the exterior beauties of the structure. With the gardens, it occupies an entire block, save for a row of apartment houses on the Madison Avenue end, and I must confess that the bare backs of these plebeian structures, with their laundry work floating in the breeze, do not make an agreeable setting; but Mrs. Radigan said that that objection would soon be done away with, as the upward trend of trade would eventually replace the flats with fine office buildings. So we tried to rub them from our eyes and see only the splendid edifice that was glistening in the afternoon sun.
Mrs. Radigan was beaming. As mistress of such a home she had a good right.
"Mr. Coppe assures me that it is perfect," she said, when we had stood for some minutes in mute admiration. "He declares that it is his firm's she-dove."
"Mr. Coppe tells me," she went on, "that the front is just like Ver-sales, the palace of the Lewises, Lewis cattorze, Lewis cans, and Lewis seeze. The tower is like that of Notre Dayme exactly, only red to match the front." Mrs. Radigan had assumed something of the air of a sight-seeing automobile lecturer, and fearing that her strident tones would collect a crowd I began to move ahead with Miss Veal. Then I caught a few words more and loath to lose so lucid a treatise on architecture, paused to catch this: "Mr. Coppe says a building must always express something. You observe how he has carried out the idea. Look along the north end of the second story and you will see a window with six classic columns outside. That is John's study."
Meaning, of course, I pondered, that the Greeks always had columns outside their study windows. The tower, then, was meant to indicate that John was a vestryman in St. Edward's, and the French front below that his wife was a leader of the fashion. I was curious to know what the back of the house expressed and was graciously informed that Mr. Coppe said that it was not a reproduction, but had been inspired by the Villa Medici in Rome.