New U. S. Embassy

New U.S. Embassy

On July 4, with the Stars and Stripes and the French Tricolor fluttering from a thousand poles, the new U. S. Embassy on the Avenue d'Iena (Paris) was formally opened.

Ambassador Myron T. Herrick purchased the building--built in 1887 at a cost of over $1,000,000 by President Grevy of France for a home--on his own responsibility for $200,000. The following month, Congress voted the requisite appropriation, but had not Mr. Herrirk acted as he did, the finest embassy building in Paris might have been lost to the U. S.

The entrance hall is marble. At one end is a large marble staircase leading to the upper floors, which contain nine bed and bath rooms, private sitting-rooms and servants' quarters. To the left is the Ambassador's study and beyond are the domestic offices. To the right is an oak drawing-room and a Louis XVI drawing-room, 50 feet long, ending in a winter garden adorned with palms.

For the decoration of the Embassy, Mrs. Whitelaw Reid donated a portrait of Benjamin Franklin; Ogden Mills, a portrait of George Washington; Sir Joseph Duveen, British art collector married to an American, rare tapestries; Mrs. Charles B. Alexander, a pair of carved wooden candelabra; the Cincinnati Society of Pennsylvania, an engraving of Benjamin Franklin; Miss Janet Scudder, a bronze fountain.