A Luxury Home

A Luxury Home. . , According to the childhood recollections of Smith Coffee Daniell IV-the grandson of the original owners the home consisted of 23 rooms. The raised basement contained a dairy room, doctor's office, school room, and commissary. The two residential floors held a library, and several parlors were decorated with red draperies. The home featured 25 fireplaces with marble mantels. A rainwater storage tank in the attic supplied the interior bathrooms with running water, a rare amenity in the mid-19th century. The expense to build and furnish the home was approximately $115,000 by the time it was finished in 1861. , The columns are of brick masonry construction originally covered by a natural cement stucco to create the paneled bases and whitewashed column fluting in the Corinthian order of architecture. Over the years, as the columns stood in the weather, large areas of stucco fell away, revealing the structural brick underneath and causing it to be damaged by the elements. Each Corinthian order column capital is made of decorative pieces of cast iron attached to a thin cast iron bell-shaped base. Although these have no maker's marks to document where they were made, they were probably shipped to the site down the Mississippi River from iron manufacturers in St. Louis or Cincinnati. A sturdy below-ground brick chainwall connects the columns to each other and has allowed them to stand since 1890 without the lateral support normally provided by floor and roof beams.