Some additional thoughts about this house. The photo is from the Google Street View taken sometime last year. The exterior of the house hasn't changed much at all in the nearly 100 years since it was built. The front door has been painted gray, but it appears to be the original oak plank door, 2" thick, very heavy. The carriage lights on either side of the front door were added when the house was renovated after my sister's husband's grandmother's estate sold it c. 1962.
The floor plan, which you can barely make out, is of the house in Scarsdale. The one built in Sacramento was nearly the same, but there were some slight differences.
The upper floor plan is the first floor. You entered into a large terra cotta tile floored entrance hall. To the left, in the Sacramento house but not the one in Scarsdale, was a powder room, very tiny but adequate for doing one's business. It took up a small portion of the fireplace recess in the floor plan.
You went up a step into the main part of the house, specifically into the stair hall. From there you could turn to the right and go under the stairs into the butler's pantry, turn left into the living room, or go straight into the dining room, passing by the stair landing. There was also an entrance into the pantry from the stair landing.
The living room entrance was framed with a heavy fumed oak archway. Fumed oak is very dark. In the plan it looks like there is a step down into the living room, but in the house in California there was no step down. The room was approximately 27' x 16' not counting the bay window which probably added another three feet in length. The ceiling was 20' above the floor. There were three french doors leading to a long screened loggia. The fireplace was in a corner opposite the french doors, in a deep recess. On either side of the entry arch were built in bookcases, also fumed oak. The room was heated with radiators which were built in to the walls, one under the window on the wall where the fireplace was, and two others between the french doors. Each radiator had a wrought iron grille.
There was a Sarouk rug filling most of the dark-stained oak floor. The draperies were heavy wine red velvet, and the ones at the bay window and near the fireplace were hung on wrought iron rods. A Steinway "3/4 grand" piano was in the corner beside the bay window.
I remember three double branch electric candle sconces and two single branch ones, all in wrought iron with gilded leaf decoration. With all of them on, the room was dimly lit. It looked quite medieval, even chapel-like.
