The Music Room
The Music Conservatory on the Southwest corner of the cottage is unique to Alexander House, with its grand windows and two entrances through French doors. In the center of the room sits a walnut Haddorff baby grand piano built in the 1930s. These pianos are renowned for their clarity and power of tone and are used every year for fetes and celebrations. The lighting above the piano is a reproduction of original Tiffany stained glass fixtures that were once situated throughout the cottage. A pair of Girandoles with ornate brass, Carrara marble, and hand-cut crystal prisms in a floral motif from the early 18th century sits on the front corners of the piano with two metronomes, one from 1900 and the other midcentury in the center is a cast marble statue of Cupid and Psyche.
On top of the piano is a large Masonic Bible with a compass and square, a nod to Prince Mikhail's deep association with Mason Lodges, as well as a violin that was in his family. At the foot of the piano is an ornate cast brass music stand from the late 1800's. In the southeast corner is a late 18th-century music shelf with a small collection of Victorian bisque figures housing the sheet music played by the family. On the wall is a cast brass Victorian thermometer.
In the northeast corner sits an antique walnut Victorian etagere. On its shelves are examples of 18th-century handpainted bisque and porcelain figurines and vases of cased, opalescent, satin, and applied glass. The walls have cast brass hand-cut prismed 19th-century candle sconces, with a large gold framed French oil of Psyche and Cupid painted in 1900: two 20th-century cane-sided fruitwood chairs and an 18th-century chess table. Under the chess table sits a late 19th-century cast brass and painted decorative Urn. In the southern corner is an early 1800s brass ecclesiastical candle stand converted to electricity in 1900. While over on the north corner sits a round 1800s claw foot curio cabinet. On top of the currio sits a collection of 19th-century American brilliant cut glass collection with pieces of Bryce Walker & Co. Hand & Bar Early American Pressed Glass.
The curio is filled with Amberina, Cranberry, Rubinia, hobnail, and other Victorian serving pieces and novelties. On the north wall hangs an oval-signed charcoal portrait of Ole Bull (Bornemann), a Norwegian virtuoso violinist and composer who had his violins made by a family friend of Prince Mikhails. Also on the wall hangs a sizeable lithograph of Great Composers circa 1880.
