Chapter 82 Flowers
“Thank you Mister Mason for the tour.” Isaac told the foreman who’s men built the V’Nova Wexler family manor. It was all done to Isaac’s specifications. The foreman had been surprised when Isaac had originally spoken with him. It was unusual for a client to be able to sketch out an entire blueprint, in an afternoon, right in front of him. Isaac’s attention to detail and seeming innate ability to spot structural weaknesses had taken the foreman off guard. Isaac had planned out each arch and cross brace needed to share the structural load of the building as he went. Every now and then, Isaac had stopped and went back to a previous floor or section of the blueprint to add another structural support. It was all so incredibly well done that Mister Mason’s architect friend couldn’t find a single thing wrong with it, in fact, he had said that Isaac had reinforced more than necessary in a few areas. When Mister Mason had brought it up with Isaac later on, Isaac had informed him that those rooms were where he intended to have a piano and a safe put in.
“I could not trust this to anyone else, now could I?” Mister Mason replied. “Please, Lord Wexler, Lady V’Nova, this way.” The foreman said and directed them through the front gate. The front gate was wrought iron and wide enough for two people to walk comfortably side by side through it. It was set into a red brick archway. The archway was ten feet high and surrounded on either side with a four foot high brick wall that framed the front yard. The brick wall was also a planter for Scarlet Quince flowering bushes. The bushes hadn’t been planted yet because they would need regular care by a gardener. The entire area, where the bushes would be planted, was cast in a soft yellow glow that was very familiar to the duo. It was the same glow that was in Sera’s garden, though to a lesser extent, and inside the Adventurous Tastes to allow the indoor and outdoor plants to grow underground.
They walked through the gate and into the front yard. There was a dark gray cobblestone walkway that led in a straight line from the street to their front door fifteen feet away. The yard itself was seeded with wild violets in rich soil that would revitalize the plants even if they sustained minor damage. The yard was cast in a slightly brighter light on either side of the walkway but the walkway itself was left to bathe in the remnants of scattered light from the surrounding plant beds. The walls that stretched across the front of the property, by the road, turned inwards as they made contact with the adjacent properties twenty feet to either side of the edge of the front gate. This left the interior dimensions of their front yard at two sections of seventeen by fifteen with the walkway separating them, without encroaching into their space.
“It is large enough to seat guests for tea while surrounded by pleasant flowers.” Mister Mason told them. “I loved the design as soon as you showed it to me. Do you mind if I use it in the future?”
“No, I don’t-” Isaac cut himself off as he thought about the future. “Actually, it would be best if you did not. Once people realize who, what, I am and that I designed this, it would be everywhere and when a design is everywhere, it loses its uniqueness.”
“Ah, quite the foresight.” Mister Mason complimented him. “I will do as you ask, Lord Wexler, and attempt to maintain this property’s uniqueness as much as possible. I cannot promise anything from my contemporaries however.”
Isaac nodded. “I know.” He replied and looked up at the front of his and Lenna’s house.
The front of the building was a vertical face two stories high with a low wall blocking off the flat roof that doubled as a patio. The building itself was made of a dark stone that was almost as black as charcoal, but still retained some of the blueish gray expected of granite. The front double doors were made of oak and stained with an extravagant but muted lavender purple that would match the wild violets once they bloomed. The door was framed in dark red mahogany that would match the Scarlet Quinces. The glass used in the windows set two thirds of the way up both doors as well as the six windows facing the street were completely reflective from the outside due to a special treatment on their exterior surfaces. There was a low step up from the walkway to the pad in front of the front door. Technically it wasn’t needed because there was no rain underground but Isaac had wanted it for two reasons: The first was that the lack of a step up just felt wrong and the second was that he wanted people to have to work, even just a little, just to enter his home. It was a subtle statement meant to subconsciously remind people that they were quite literally stepping up in the world if they were entering his manor.
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“It looks even better than I imagined.” Lenna commented as she took it all in.
“It is very well done, on the outside, I will reserve my judgment until we have seen every inch of it.” Isaac replied. “Please, Mister Mason, continue with the tour.”
Isaac and Lenna spent the next two hours walking through every inch of their eleven thousand square foot home. They made sure each of the six main and six servant bedrooms were up to Isaac’s standard. The kitchen was large enough for two or even three cooks to work at the same time without rubbing elbows and the dining hall was large enough to seat twenty comfortably. Just inside the front door there was a room on either side that served as a place to remove armor or dirty clothes and shoes. Each one was private, allowing for modesty regardless of the state of the individual or how much they needed to change before they were clean enough to enter the rest of the building. The room just inside was a sitting room where a piano, two couches, a small table, a pair of benches along the side wall, and a violin stand would be placed. The rest of the rooms were as expected of any large house, there were bathrooms, powder rooms, and toilet closets scattered around in key locations and a modest library with an attached office and study. All of that was just the first two floors and the shrunken third floor.
There were three roof accesses to the manor, one in the front to overlook the street from the patio above the lawn and entreeway, one in the back to allow for a mostly private teatime surrounded by potted plants on another patio that was nestled between their manor and the workshop that was built directly behind it, and one to the topmost roof that permanently had a series of tables set up for teatime overlooking the city as a whole. If one counted the sitting room then Isaac had planned out a grand total of four and two halves areas for informal meals, meetings, and meditations. “Save for the front area split by the walkway, each of the other areas are set for differing degrees of privacy and seriousness.” Lenna commented.
Isaac shook his head. “No, even the front is split like that for more than just by obsession with symmetry.” Isaac replied. “If when you walk in the gate the tea is set up on the right, then it is expected to continue inside once the refreshments are finished, or the small talk is over. If it is set on the left, then it is assumed that once tea is over everyone will leave.”
“How so?” Lenna questioned.
“Most people are right handed and thus tend to gravitate towards the right side at all times, but specifically in times of excitement or stress. Given that fact, they will subconsciously intuit the seating as I have just explained.” Isaac explained. “The front is for basking in the flowers and/or for greeting those that we do not want inside. That is why it is split down the middle with the walkway.”
“My mother would love you if she wasn’t so set in her ways.” Lenna commented.
“I can see why the duchess does as well.” Mister Mason added with a jovial smile. He was slightly overweight which proved exactly how much he tended to help on the construction sight and exactly how well his business was doing. “She is known quite well for her masterful work in social and political circles so when I received a request from her personally for this, I jumped at the chance. I was already in town for maintenance on some of my father’s old buildings but I would have teleported here from across the world if it meant having the privilege of working with you on this. It is a lucky thing that I did not have to.”
“Yes.” Isaac said with a nod. Isaac had nothing against the foreman who made their manor but sometimes his incessant asskissing got old. Isaac found that it was best to just ignore the bootlicking entirely and just pick out the bit that actually mattered in the man’s speech. “We have seen everywhere that most would regularly visit, now, show me the basement.”