Acadia Plantation painting of Lord Byron. The furniture in this room is the finest antiques in the house. Against the wall is a Maryland sideboard, Sheraton in style. A corner cabinet nearby is made of mahogany and pine. It was 18th century Chippendale and comes from the estate of Lord Thomas Fairfax of Virginia. The dining table is designed from two card tables and is Victorian mahogany. The rug on which the dining table and chairs is a turn of the century one. In the kitchen and breakfast area, most of the furniture originated from New England. Against the back wall is
Metamorphic library steps ceilings and floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. The topmost shelves were difficult to reach, so movable library steps or library stairs were created as a form of domestic furniture. During the second half of the 18th century a succession of talented German-born cabinet-makers passed through the French courts. Jean-François Oeben, Jean-Henri Riesener and David Roentgen had successively introduced the courts of Louis XV and Louis XVI to a wide range of finely made and exquisitely finished mechanical furniture. The ingenuity of these cabinet-makers, especially David Roentgen who became master cabinet-maker to Marie Antoinette, led to a fascination for "meubles à surprises" ('surprise furniture').