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Entrance to the Mansion

Magnificent glass doors with black wrought iron frames open onto the Great Hall of the mansion. To the right of the entryway, windows stretch from floor to ceiling and lead the visitor to broad oak stairs with intricately hand carved bannisters and an elaborate balcony that overlooks the first floor.


Left of the Great Hall is the school's Chapel, once the Geist's ballroom and the scene of many lavish parties. At formal functions, guests would dance from the ballroom into the Great Hall and out on to the Terrace.

From the Geist Library, which housed many rare and handsome volumes, the visitor then moved into a solarium complete with marble fountain and floor-to-ceiling mirrors. The solarium and the library are used today as classrooms and offices for the English Department.

The thirty-six room mansion includes a large kitchen, servants' quarters and a dining room with dark oak paneling and parquet floors. A billiard room now serves as a conference room.

The second floor consisted of the family's airy, spacious bedroom suites. The bathrooms feature imported hand-painted Italian tiles chosen by the Geists to resemble the Old Roman style baths. Mr. Geist hired Italian tilesetters to install the handsome ceramics. Today the second floor is used primarily by the Foreign Languages Department of the Academy.

The broad oak stairs continue to the third floor, which once housed guests' suites and servants quarters.

Clarence Geist chose American sculptor William Millarc to design the Great Hall, the fireplaces, the stone railings, the fountains and the statuary in the two lily ponds. The wrought iron used throughout the estate was made in France.

The mansion is a magnificent architectural structure, worthy of the viewer's close scrutiny to discover its intrinsic beauty in stone, wood, glass and metal. Each discovery helps to heighten an appreciation of this fascinating building.

Clarence Geist named his estate Launfal, after Sir James Russell Lowell's "The Vision of Sir Launfal." Inscribed above the lintel of the terrace door is the following quatrain:
"Not what we give, but what we share; For the gift without the giver is bare; Who gives himself with his alms feeds three, Himself, his hungering neighbor and me."
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