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"Reinterpreting the Classics\nAn Idyll in the Dominican Republic Draws on Poetic Precedents\nA cupola sits atop the entrance, which has arched doorways on axis with a tropical garden.\nAn elevated portico spans the rear of the grand salon, a centrally located, freestanding structure.\nA stone table and pots mingle with wicker furnishings on the portico of the grand salon. \"It's the main porch of the main building, the primary outdoor public living space,\" Robertson says. The locally mined coral stone was also used for the columns, piers, walls and floor.\nFor the grand salon, she created a pair of hexagonal mirrors and an octagonal table. The two inlaid rosewood tables are from the 17th century. Scalamandr\u00E9 floral armchair and sofa pillow fabric.\nBecause the grand salon is detached from the rest of the residence\u2014the house, loggia and crescent garden form a horseshoe around it\u2014light streams in the mahogany-framed windows and doors from all sides. George IV wood vessel, left, from Christie's. Rosecore carpet.\nA private seating area in the loggia\u2014\"the circulatory spine of the house,\" notes Robertson, and from which the bedrooms are accessed\u2014is bounded by stone arches. \"A quarry that had long been closed was reopened for this project,\" he explains.\nThe day room, says the architect, \"was conceived as the place in the compound where daytime meals would be served or card games could be played\u2014a second, less formal living/dining area.\" George III dining chairs offset the stone console, walls and flooring.\nAn arm of the residence terminates in the master suite, which is dominated by a mahogany four-poster.\nOne of the few areas of the house without arches, \"the day room anchors the east end of the crescent, a reciprocal pavilion to the master suite at the west,\" the architect points out. The 19,000-square-foot house also contains six guest suites, each of which has a private porch.\nVisible from the day room is a vine-covered pergola located near the pool and not far from the beach. Lush plantings by landscape designer Deborah Nevins are interspersed with \"brick walks, bordered in stone, that separate carpets of manicured lawn,\" Robertson says.\nThe pool stretches out beyond the immense, gabled portico of the grand salon. \"With the gardens and crescent framing it and providing a backdrop, the salon building is the centerpiece of the table, surrounded, literally and figuratively, by guests,\" comments Robertson."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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