numerous affairs in which
he was interested that his headquarters should be in or near New York.
In addition to this he had for long wanted a home of his very own, and
so located that he could have his family and his friends constantly
about him. Some years, however, elapsed between this dream and its
realization. In 1903 he took the first step by purchasing a farm
situated in the Westchester Hills, five miles from Mount Kisco, New
York. He began by building a lake at the foot of the hill on which the
home was to stand, then a water-tower, and finally the house itself.
The plans to the minutest detail had been laid out on the lawn at
Marion and, as the architect himself said, there was nothing left for
him to do but to design the cellar.

Richard and his wife moved into their new home in July, 1905, and
called it Crossroads Farm, keeping the original name of the place. In
later years Richard added various adjoining parcels of land to his
first purchase, and the property eventually included nearly three
hundred acres. The house itself was very large, very comfortable, and
there were many guest-rooms which every week-end for long were filled
by the jolliest of house-parties. In his novel "The Blind Spot,"
Justus Miles Forman gives the following very charming picture of the
place:

"It was a broad terrace paved with red brick that was stained and a
little mossy, so that it looked much older than it had any right to,
and along its outer border there were bay-trees set in big Italian
terracotta jars; but the bay-trees were placed far apart so that they
should not mask the view, and that was wise, for it was a fine view.
It is rugged country in that part of Westchester County--like a choppy
sea: all broken, twisted ridges, and abrupt little hills, and piled-up
boulders, and hollow, cup-like depressions among them. The Grey house
sat, as it were, upon the lip of a cup, and from the southward terrace
you looked across a mile or two of hollow bottom, with a little lake at
your feet, to sloping pastures where there were cattle browsing, and to
the far, high hills beyond.

"There was no magnificence about the outlook--nothing to make you catch
your breath; but it was a good view with plenty of elbow room and no
sign of a neighbor--no huddling--only the water of the little lake, the
brown November hillsides, and the clean blue sky above. The distant
cattle looked like scenic cattle painted on their green-bronze pasture