Maybeck's modesty is genuine, but he deserves more credit than he gives
himself. I quote him because his point is worth emphasizing. The highest
beauty can be attained by simple means. If all our architects could see
that, we should have less straining for effect, less over doneness, and
more harmony and significance in our buildings. The people can and do
appreciate this kind of beauty. It was surely inspiration that made it
possible for Maybeck to produce this masterpiece.

Sweeping in a great arc around the western shore of the lagoon, the
Palace, in the architect's view, is merely a background for the water,
the trees and the plants on the terraced walls and pergolas. Certainly
it is a beautiful setting to a beautiful scene. So perfectly are the
Palace and its foreground fitted to each other that the structure looks
as though it might have stood there for twenty centuries, a
well-preserved Roman villa, while generations of trees grew, and
decayed, and were reproduced around its base.

The great detached colonnade, with its central rotunda, is the climax of
the entire structure. It is backed up and given solidity by the walls of
the gallery behind it, 1,100 feet long. These walls, unbroken save for
the entrances, are relieved and beautified by shrubbery set on a terrace
halfway between the ground and the eaves. (p. 113.) At the extremities
of the double colonnade, and spaced regularly along it, are groups of
four columns, each crowned with a great box designed for flowers and
vines. Unfortunately, the architect's plan to place growing plants in
these receptacles was vetoed because of the cost. The weeping women at
the corners, by Ulric Ellerhusen, expressive of the melancholy felt on
leaving a great art collection, were intended to be only half seen
through drooping vines. On the water side of the rotunda, a novel effect