Democratic Sentinel, Volume 17, Number 40, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 October 1893 — AN ERA OF LUXURY. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

AN ERA OF LUXURY.

Men of Wealth Building MUllon-Doil*> Mansions and Yachts. Despite Russell Sage's assertion that the rich men of New York are being made poor by the stringency in the money market, wealth is being lavishly spent just now for new homes for men of millions, as well as for other luxuries. Half a dozen pleasure yachts, costing $250,000 each, have recently been launched and the rich men of to-day appear to have entered on an era of luxury unparalleled in this or any other country for centuries. It is in building mansions and summer houses, especially, that New York’s men of wealth are striving to outdo one another. The most remarkable of these is that under way in the Adirondacks for W. Seward Webb, a relative by marriage of the Vanderbilts, third vice president of the New York Central Railroad and principal stockholder in the Wagner Palace Car Company. Dr. Webb built the new railroad through the Adirondacks

and acquired a beautiful estate in that region. Dr. Webb is still a young man and started in life practically penniless. The cost of the (structure which he proposes to erect (will be at least $1,500,000. This palatial castle will cover very nearly half an acre of ground and will be built of granite. There will be numerous turrets, and the fortification style of architecture will be carried out in the upper part of the mammoth structure. Tapestries and silks, mosaics and woods from foreign lands will be used regardless ol expense in this mammoth country home. It will be filled with curios and bric-a-brac from many countries, and the picture gallery will be enriched by many old masters. This house will have 107 rooms. It will take three years to build it. Among the other magnificent homes, either contemplated or already in process of erection, are those of Cornelius Vanderbilt and Collis P. Huntington, on Fifth avenue, New York, to cost about a million each; the Fifth avenue home of Charles T. Yerkes, the Chicago cable king; a million-dollar summer palace for Herman Oelrichs at Newport, and also magnificent cottages at the same place for Cornelius Vanderbilt and Ogden Goelet. A single celling in Vanderbilt’s New York palace, painted by a French artist, cost $50,000.

SEWARD WEBB’S PROPOSED CASTLE.