NAVAL LIFE IN MANSION

Lake Wakatip Mail, Issue 3718, 9 November 1926, Page 2

NAVAL LIFE IN MANSION

LORD LOUIS MOUHTBATTEN’S CABIN BEDROOM “Naval life at horn*. is the idea of many novelties which Lord Louis Moinilbatten has introduced into the fittings and decorations of his mansion in Park lane, London. Lord Louis Mouuthatten —who married the great heiress, Miss Edwiua Ashley, and is, of course, the great friend and naval colleague of the Prince of Wales—has found novel methods of carrying his love of the Navy into his own home.

Even when ashore Lord Louis does Ids best to recreate the atmosphere ho loves, and his bedroom in Brook House, Park lane, is an exact reproduction of an officer’s cabin on a warship.

Even the minutest details have been copied and ingenious devices employed to strengthen the illusion. No windows, hut two portholes give access to the outer world, and on the opposite wall of the well hole into which they open has been painted a sunlit naval scene, with ships, small native hqats, and a harbor background. By clever lighting devices this panorama either appears as bathed in sunlight or in moonlight, and when the latter is the case the ships twinkle signals with Hashing lamps, and lighted buoys mark the ocean passage. In a glass case near to Lord Louis’s hunk the uniform and decorations of Ids father—Prince Louis of Battenbcrg, who was head of the Navy when war broke out—are displayed. The bathroom belonging to this apartment has also been subjected to imaginative treatment. Painted panels make the walls appear like marine tanks, in which strange monsters swim to and fro, whilst on the surface of the ocean In the frieze above their heads ships again play their part. Almost the whole of this work was designed and carried out by ex-service officers and men.

In addition to Ids novel ideas of house decoration, Lord Louis has shown himself to he a clever inventor, and lias produced an ingenious little device known as the “ morning call indicator,” which, when fixed to a bedroom door, will prevent either the rude disturbance of your morning slumbers or their over-indulgence. This device is also being sold and the profits devoted, by the inventor to charity.