MR ROCKEFELLER AS ARCHITECT

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 7929, 12 October 1911, Page 7

MR ROCKEFELLER AS ARCHITECT

■Mr J. D. Rockefeller, tho Standard Oil King, said recently that golf at seventytwo renewed hia youth, and he felt that many pleasant years in his country homo in the Pooantico Hills, near New York, Wero reserved for him. With the energy, resourcefulness and interest of a young man, he has (says tho New York correspondent of the “ Daily Telegraph ") lately been planning to improve his house, and has sanctioned remodelling involving an expenditure of .£200,000, and requiring two years for completion. With characteristic hustle the scaffolds have been erected, and Mr and . Mrs Rockefeller' for tho next two years must worry along in another house on the estate, which, although small by comparison, is a princely abode,, and cost .£IOO,OOO. The Japanese tea-garden, imported from Tokio,. and the beautiful marble Temple of Love from Italy, and the other attractions of the Rockefeller estate, are preserved intact as before.

Tho Oil King’s desire to add ten guest rooms to hia home is alone responsible for the present £200,000 improvement. Mr Rockefeller, unlike several millionaires 1 could name, is not a morose and irritable septuagenarian, but a man brimful of interest In life, whose chief hobby, apart from golf, is to devote a large portion of hia enormous income to tho investigation of tho cure and causes of disease, education, and tho social advancement of his fellow man. His ingenuity is proved by the model ho had - constructed lately of a new wing to his residence. This model he made of wood, and placed upon a turntable, on the spot where he intended to build. Ingeniously arranged mechanism made it possible for MrRockefeller, when seated in this box-like affair, to 'turn it about 1 by means of levers. After much experimenting he composed a time-table. This was the result of many days spent in tho temporary structure. By the time the table was completed Mr Rockefeller learned when the sun would shine in.each room. When he had completed his caluclations he turned the time-table over to the architects, and told them to “go ahead." The time-table was based upon Mr Rockefeller’s rfiaily 'scheme of life. For instance, ho wanted light in the diningroom in the morning and at noon. Tho only time he insisted upon having light in his office was between 2 and 3 o’clock in the. afternoon. He wanted bis own bedroom dark between 3 and 4 o’clock in the afternoon, the hour in which he takes his daily nap after completion of his business in the office. When the architects received Mr Rockefeller’s time-table they "went ahead” with the building and construction.