Pink Room

NPS Photo

The Pink Room has been a guest room since James and Rebecca Roosevelt first occupied the house in 1867. The rosewood furniture in the Rococo Revival style, pupular in the mid-ninteenth century, and the large framed prints could be original to the earlier house. This may have be the furniture James and Rebecca purchased for this house after all was lost in the fire that destroyed Mount Hope. Rebecca recorded in her diary on May 11, 1867, "Went to Kinball's [in New York City] and orderd a set of bedroom furniture." Among the more famous guests who occupied this room are King George VI of England, Sir Winston Churchill, and Madame Chiang Kai Shek. During the years the Roosevelts' daughter Anna lived in the house, she occupied this room.

 

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Furnishings of Note

 

The Return from Hawking

This popular print, published in the London Illustrated Weekly, may have come from Sara Roosevelt's childhood home, Algonac. The group portrays Lord Francis Egerton (afterwards the Earl of Ellesmere) with his mother and father. The original painting by Sir Edwin Henry Landseer, from which this print is derived, was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1837 (a much larger composition that included additional figures). Lord Ellesemere was a guest at Hyde Park when James Roosevelt was still living and observed this print of his father and grandparents while staying at this house.

 

Black Forest Mantel Clock

"Black Forest" is a term that refers to the naturalistic, detailed, and fine carving represented in this mantle clock depicting three dogs bringing down a stag. It is a product of the popular Swiss wood carving industry that developed in the early nineteenth century. These works were featured at all of the major nineteenth-century expositions—The Great Exhibition of London (1851); the Centennial Exhibition of Philadelphia (1876); the Chicago Worlds Fair (1893); and the Exposition Universelle, Paris (1900). Black Forest carvings became a symbol of luxury and wealth, often found in Royal collections and elite collector’s homes.

 

Pair of Doulton Lambeth Faience Vases

These vases were made in 1878 at the English pottery established by John Doulton at Lambeth, London. The Doulton pottery was known chiefly for utilitarian stoneware and earthenware until about 1871, when students of the Lambeth School of Art began decorating Doulton salt-glazed stoneware, among the first noteworthy examples of artist-pottery in England.