A haunting recollection from my childhood is my first visit to Sagamore Hill. Going through Theodore Roosevelt's old house with my elementary school class on a gray, rainy day, it felt as if every shingle and floorboard was aware of our trespassing.
The entry hall was as dark as a dungeon. The shockingly huge water buffalo head over the fireplace and the hollowed-out elephant foot used for an umbrella stand made the house feel like the creepy Addams Family mansion on TV.
Even today, as I have come to admire this place, beautiful and elegant are not the first words that come to mind to describe it. But this house is powerful in its own gloomy way.
In a conventional Colonial-style house, the facade is symmetrical, every window matches the next and all is expected, predictable. Sagamore Hill is asymmetrical, full of surprises.
If it feels like the Addams Family, this is hardly because of the exterior details. The wide porch is welcoming, with hefty low railings and high-backed rockers, wrapping around to the southwest to a beautiful view of an open field. Sculpted next to the windows are beautiful sunflower-shaped brickwork medallions. The transoms above the windows are filled with superb stained-glass panels, each one unique.
But then, the extra-wide front door opens into an entry hall that is dark and solemn, thanks to heavy wood paneling, a beamed ceiling and the fireplace with the buffalo head.
Next to the dining room door stands a huge, exotic metal gong, which once announced dinnertime. The staircase dominates the hall in ominous black carved wood. The grotesque oversized newel post is almost sinister. The stairs and upstairs hall are so dark that it seems as if you have to feel your way along.
The drawing room, to the left of the entry hall, has large windows and lots of light; with its Ethan Allen-style furniture, it is the only room that seems welcoming by today's standards. But then there are the white polar-bear-skin rugs that add the creepy touch that we also feel in the much darker library to the right of the entry hall. This was President Roosevelt's office from 1902 to 1908, when this was the summer White House. It's crammed with bookshelves,
pictures, memorabilia -- and a lion-skin rug with large fangs.
Most theatrical is the North Room, with a dramatic entrance flanked by 6-foot-long elephant tusks on a platform four steps higher than the sunken floor. Camagon wood paneling and a medieval-style vaulted ceiling provide an impressive setting for TR's biggest hunting trophies. Leopard skins and heads of antelope and other magnificent beasts are everywhere, with two great bison heads over the fireplaces.
Roosevelt was an enthusiastic outdoorsman and a major conservationist who, as president, created nearly 230 million acres of national parks, national forests and wildlife refuges.
His robust spirit has permeated every corner of the North Room. In fact, we can think of the whole house as an exuberant celebration of wilderness and nature. Why it also feels so creepy is an interesting question to ponder when you get back to the graceful grounds outside.
Laura Montllor is a principal of Montllor Box Architects in Port Washington, which specializes in residential renovations.
