The Gallery

Entering The Gentleman Soldier, one is greeted by an assault on the senses. The main door rests within a neo-classical surround and domed pediment adapted from the headquarters of Napoleon's Imperial Guard. As one passes across the marble entry floor, the view is of grey walls and rich black carpeting interrupted by insets of piano finished black hardwood that stretch back through the varied rooms of the gallery. Columns, architraves, and moldings in stark white accent the elegant space. On the walls, watercolors, oil paintings and antique maps are sparingly hung between stands of museum quality swords, armor, uniforms and antique firearms, dating from the late medieval period to the end of WWI.

Through a doorway, one can glimpse a case full of Orders and Decorations from around the world, many made by famous jewelers of the nineteenth century. Atop another case is a helmet surmounted by a silver eagle - once worn by the Kaiser's Garde du Corps; yet another display features a gilded helmet wrapped with jaguar skin, worn by a dragoon officer of Napoleon III. Embroidered uniforms, silver and gold accents and objects d'art fashioned from rare woods have been placed with care. In a smaller, almost hidden, room, a round Federal mirror reflects walls covered in a French panoramic wallpaper (also seen in the Treaty Room of the White House) an array of handcrafted model sailing ships and historic naval artifacts. Bookcases in the same room contain select rare books and manuscripts.

In this award winning design environment, people seeking the historic, the rare and the beautiful have found a place unlike any other at The Gentleman Soldier.