Go up the driveway, across the portico with its Corinthian columns and through the eleven-foot-tall doors that are mounted on pivots. The entrance hall has a floor of Siena marble, Gobelin tapestries and a twenty-foot-high ceiling.
Turn right into the Gold Room, a mirrored ballroom with gilded moldings and a marble fireplace with large bronze figures on either side of the mantel, representing youth and old age. Beyond this, on the southeast corner of the house, is the Gothic Room, with stained glass windows and elaborately carved paneling, mantelpiece and window frames.
Walk down the gallery back into the entrance hall and to the left of the front door is the dining room, with its red marble walls and painting of Louis XIV. The bronze dining chairs are so heavy they required servants to move them--diners couldn't do it on their own. Two doors down from the dining room, on the northeast corner of the house, is the Rococo Library. Head back down the gallery and walk up the main stairs. Stop at the landing to look at William and Alva's separate studies.
Proceed to the top of the stairs to William's relatively austere Louis XVI bedroom. To the left of that is Alva's Louis XV bedroom, with its peach damask wallpaper. It's the largest room on this floor. Two doors down on the left is the Jacobean bedroom of Consuelo Vanderbilt, the daughter Alva forced into a marriage with the Duke of Marlborough, a cousin of Winston Churchill. The rest of this floor is devoted to family, guest and servants' bedrooms.
Exit the house and see the Chinese teahouse, constructed between 1912 and 1914, on the east lawn overlooking the ocean.
