Democratic Sentinel, Volume 17, Number 50, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 December 1893 — PALATIAL STABLES. [ARTICLE]

PALATIAL STABLES.

The most costly stables in Amerioa, and, with few exceptions, in the world, are situated at Newport. Oliver Hazard Perry Belmont ha 9 just finished on the short street known as Lakeview avenue, near Bellevue avenue, a house for his horses and carriages which in its completed state has, made short work of SIOO,OOO. The barn is described by the New York Times as a gorgeous structure of light brown stone. It is three stories high, with a mansard roof. Because of the peouliar color of the stone used in the construction the stable has been facetiously called “the pasteboard barn,” although it is thoroughly fireproof. Each horse has an unusually large box stall, framed in oak and floored with ooncrete. In the rear of the stable is an arohway, under which the horses and carriages enter. The stable is not only a home for horses. Mr. Belmont has fitted up on the upper floor a luxurious suite of rooms. There are his bachelor apartments, where he entertains a few single-hearted club men. There are billiard and pool tables, and a larder that excites the longing of many a gourmet. There is also a bathing tank, which is filled with cool water in summer and hot water in winter. Ogden Goelet’s stable at Newport is a rambling affair in the Queen Anne style, and is nearly 300 feet long. The stable is of brick, with rich embellishments, and looks more like an old English lodge of large size than a house for Mr. Goclet’s norses. Ex-Governor George Peabody Wetmore has a palace for his horses. The stable is totally unlike Mr. Belmont’s but nearly as elegant, and in a tower of fifty feet height is an electric clock, controlled by wire from this city. Newporters set their watches by this clock. The stable is of brick, light stone and slate. W. Fitz Hugh Whitehouse goes ahead of Ex-Governor Wetmore by having in a clock tower over his stable a complete set of chimes which ring the notes of a gospel hymn or a simply, familiar lay at the hours and at the halt hours. On the first day of every spring, when, after an old-time custom at Newport, every bell in the city rings in the vernal equinox, the chimes in the clock tower over the Whitehoute stable keep the air in the neighborhood reverberant with the oftrepeated repertory of their tunes. William K. Vanderbilt’s stable is in marked contrast tc- his marble mansion. The stable is of wood and is immense in size, but inartistic in form and color.