Full text of "Architectural styles for country houses, the characteristics and merits of various types of architecture as set forth by enthusiastic advocates"

See other formats

Eilham & Hopkins, architects

The entrance gateway of a new house designed along true New England Colonial
lines — the home of B. F. Pitman, Longwood. Mass.

ARCHITECTURAL STYLES

FOR
COUNTRY HOUSES

THE CHARACTERISTICS AND MERITS OF
VARIOUS TYPES OF ARCHITECTURE AS SET
FORTH BY ENTHUSIASTIC ADVOCATES

EDITED BY

HENRY H. SAYLOR

NEW YORK

McBRIDE, NAST & COMPANY
1912

FOR THE LAYMAN

Contents

PAGE

INTRODUCTION . i

By the Editor

THE COLONIAL HOUSE . . 7

By Frank E. Wallis

MODERN ENGLISH PLASTER HOUSES . . . . • . .23

By J. Lovell Little, Jr.

THE Swiss CHALET TYPE . . .37

By Louis J. Stellman

ITALIAN ADAPTATIONS .......... 47

By Louis Boynton

TUDOR HOUSES ............ 57

By R. Clipston Sturgis

THE SPANISH MISSION TYPE 67

By George C. Baum

THE HALF-TIMBER HOUSE . 77

By Allen W. Jackson

THE DUTCH COLONIAL HOUSE . . ... . . 89

By Ay mar Embury, II

A STYLE OF THE WESTERN PLAINS . ... . . 101

By Hugh M. G. Garden

THE NORTHERN TRADITION 115

By Alfred Morton Githens

Introduction

Among the multitude of perplexing problems that will
face the builder of a home, especially if he be one who is un-
willing to accept a mere box out of a mold, not the least
troublesome will be the selection of an architectural style.
As he visits the new homes of his friends his mind is keenly
receptive to the impressions made by each distinctive style —
or lack of it.

In this modern adaptation of the Colonial he feels that he
has reached at last the acme of charm — what could be more
hospitable, dignified and expressive of the spirit of America?
Could anything be more satisfying than the treatment of
that stairway, outlined by its mahogany rail and exquisitely
molded white balusters? But in the ardor of his newly ac-
quired conviction he visits a half-timber house, the architect
of which has observed in conscientious detail the best English
tradition. Perhaps, after all, the Colonial house was a bit
stiff and formal — there is an indefinable charm in the ir-
regularity of plan, in the quiet library, paneled to the ceiling
in dark waxed oak. Surely this is more homelike. Then a
friend tells him of the work that is being designed by the so-
called " Chicago School," into which the dry bones of past

2 ARCHITECTURAL STYLES FOR COUNTRY HOUSES

civilizations and peoples long dead have not been dragged — •
work that stands upon its own legs and draws its inspiration
from the natural evolution of modern methods and ma-
terials as influenced by the character of the country itself,
bringing to these homes of the West the long horizontal
lines dictated by the vast reaches of the prairies.

Our friend who was about to build decides that the sub-
ject will bear deeper investigation, and postpones the execu-
tion of working drawings. It is an excellent thing, for most
of us build but once, unfortunately, and the errors we fall
into in haste we shall live to repent at leisure. While the
failure to include back stairs may cause us temporary in-
convenience, and may in time be remedied, the style of our
house will abide with us for the rest of our days, and if we
have chosen unwisely in our haste there is nothing about the
whole structure that may become so insistently repellent.

There is a bright side to this matter, however, which I
hasten to present. The man who has studied this question
of style and weighed the arguments, pro and con, with the
care their importance deserves, may make his choice with a
fair assurance that he is not only on the right road, but that
the farther he travels it the more interesting and attractive
it will become. He is constantly finding new interest in the
architectural style he has adapted as being best suited to
his needs and desires — so much so that the road ahead is too
attractive to allow him for a moment to turn back in the

INTRODUCTION 8

thought that he may have chosen the wrong way at the fork-
ing.

It is with the aim of making easier the choice of an archi-
tectural style for the country house that these chapters have
been written. It has seemed the best and most forceful
style to follow in a way the debate, allowing the case of each
style to be presented as strongly as an enthusiastic advocate
could devise. It need hardly be said that it is no easy task
to persuade an architect to argue for any one style as against
all others, for no architect really believes that one style will
be the proper one to select under all conditions. For the
purpose of getting all the facts before the reader, however,
the role of the enthusiastic advocate has been courteously as-
sumed by the contributors, to whom my own hearty thanks,
and I trust those of the reader as well, are hereby given.

These arguments have appeared at irregular intervals in
House and Garden and it is believed that their assembled
publication in this more enduring form can scarcely fail to
be of real interest and value to the man who would build
wisely and well.

HENRY H. SAYLOR

The Colonial House
By

Frank E. Wallis

J. Acker Hays & Chas. W. Hoadley, architects

The Hoadley homestead at Englewood, N. J. — where the architects have held very
closely to the letter as well as the spirit of Colonial detail

Harry B. Russell, architect

A corner of the dining-room — formerly the kitchen — in the remodeled farmhouse
home of Harry B. Russell, Pocasset, Mass.

The Colonial House

THERE are basically but two fundamental types of
architecture, and all the numerous sub-styles are va-
riations of these two. They are the Classic with its
child, the Renaissance, and that marvelous expression of
national and ideal socialism, the Gotfiac, which has come to
be accepted essentially, though not necessarily, as church
architecture.

The Greeks invented the custom of undressing before re-
tiring, an invention of as much importance as the telephone.
When the Romans absorbed the Greeks, they took this
most domestic of habits, the night dress or undress, and it
developed the private side of Roman life to a very great
degree, giving the Roman homes a new spirit of domesticity
and privacy with architecture to correspond — courts, semi-
private and private, surrounded by rooms for the members
of the family.

And later, when the unspeakable Turk took over unto
himself the city of Constantinople, in the middle of the fif-
teenth century, he forced the later Greek with his ancient
culture westward again to Italy, and this migration added
a new inspiration to the jaded minds of the architects of

8 ARCHITECTURAL STYLES FOR COUNTRY HOUSES

Europe, at that time exhausted by excesses in the use of the
flamboyant type of Gothic. So we have the Renaissance
and another impetus to the development of refined architec-
ture along classic lines.

France discovered the Renaissance in Italy about the
time of Francis I and developed it amazingly in the cha-

First and second floor plans, the home of Mr. Joseph Y. Jeanes, Villa Nova, Pa.
Charles Barton Keen, architect-

teaux. But the French were not then a domestic type of
people, and their palatial chateaux can mean little to the
home-builders of America; whereas the Englishman built
for his wife and family, and later, when colonizing, wife,
baby, axe and gun were with him. So that his interpreta-
tion of the Renaissance is a fine expression of dignity,
truth and domestic virtue. This is the Georgian or Colon-

THE COLONIAL HOUSE

ial, the only type for our kind and for our children. The
Englishman had got it from the French and the Italian,
but he inoculated it with the spirit of the hearth, and made it
his forever. During the reign of the bourgeois Georges in
England, the people themselves set the pace in style devel-
opment. These kings were uneducated, coarse-grained and
foreigners — and, because of this, exercised no influence over

Floor plans of the Hoadley homestead, Englewood, N. J.
J. Acker Hays and Charles W. Hoadley, architects

the development of the style then being analyzed and used
by such men as Christopher Wren, Chambers and Jones.
These men studied in France and Italy, and the works of
Palladio, Vignola and the other Italian worthies became
household tomes. The Roman and Grecian orders were
studied and applied with a freedom that was truly British.
England is full of the results — doorways, over-mantels,
cornices and what not, but, best of all, the planning of the
homes of this period reached the highest point in domestic
architecture. Utilitarianism and Art were happily married,

10 ARCHITECTURAL STYLES FOR COUNTRY HOUSES

and My Lady received in a real reception-room. The din-
ing-room and withdrawing-room and the parlor took their
proper places, and performed their natural functions. My
Lady's boudoir was as domestic and proper, let us hope, in
every sense, as the kitchen and butteries.

This style and this period belong to us — we call it Colon-
ial— and, as we study it, we can see the human qualities
sticking out of it everywhere.

For a gentleman of taste, for a lady of discernment, the
Colonial is the only fitting environment. In it there is no
deceit or sham. It will ring true throughout your time,
and, if properly developed and studied, the style will grow
and take to itself new dignities and new beauties, as it comes
through new interpreters. It was in this way that the
quaint, local characteristics of the Colonial we know, grew
through the idiosyncrasies of the architects or joiners of
that time. They studied the old authorities for the law,
and when they became pastmasters of these laws they used
their own individual invention as they jolly well pleased.

The limitations of the time also had much to do in creating
sub-types. For example, it was impossible to make glass
in large sheets, so we have small panes as a characteristic of
the style. They were limited also in pigments, using most
frequently reds or yellows, though the charming, home-lov-
ing atmosphere of most of the work of this period is better
expressed in the white.

McKim, Mead 16 White, architects
"Sherrewogue," St. James, Long Island

The Paddock house at Portsmouth, Mass., impressive in the

splendid dignity of its window treatment and the

plain brick walls

THE COLONIAL HOUSE 11

I venture to say that most of you who read this have, at
some time or other, dreamed of retiring for your mellow
dotage to some old white clapboarded house, set a little back
from the street, with elms shading the front, a fence of
square pickets, cut along the top in sweeping curves, and
a swinging gate, chained and balanced in its swing with an
old cannon ball. Hollyhocks, petunias, verbenas and old-
fashioned pinks border the herring-bone brick walk up to
the portico — a pediment portico or one with upper balcony,
it matters little. You insist, however, on having the fluted
Doric or Corinthian columns, with flat pilasters against the
wall framing the arched doorway — an elliptic arch, please,
with radiating divisions in iron and little lead roses at the
intersections.

Will you have a brass knocker or do you prefer a cut-
glass door-knob, with the wire running to the back of the
beflowered hall and ending in a coil of wire and large brass
bell? Let's have both. And then, as we enter, we are de-
lighted with the sweet incense of the rose jar, which seems
to come from every corner; and then the delicate Adam hat
table, presided over by the old gilt mirror with the curved
and broken pediment, and the flamboyant eagle seems to
reflect our pleasure. I often wondered, as a boy, why that
eagle looked so happy and yet never moved.

Then there must be the staircase with the double twist in
the newel post, the dark mahogany hand-rail — such a de-

12 ARCHITECTURAL STYLES FOR COUNTRY HOUSES

lightful sliding place, a charming portrait of a lady with
head-dress and cashmere shawl, a sampler or so, and the
stern forbidding old gentleman with his forefingers stuck
in the breast of his high-necked coat. We might continue
to My Lady's chamber floor, or wander through the dining-
room, open up the slatted shutters for a little light, so that
we may see the conch shells on either side of a befluted man-
tel, china dogs, white with iridescent black spots, and always
staring straight ahead at the other dog on the opposite end
of the mantel. I always thought the old ship model, with
its stiff American flag on the poop, rather frightened them
and kept them apart.

Come into the library. We don't care much for the par-
lor. In the house of dreams this room is going to be opened
up at all times, and not only for weddings and funerals.
But we must not miss the library; books behind glass doors
reaching to the ceiling, in Chippendale cabinets of mahog-
any, and leather — smelly book leather — • and we must have
a Franklin stove with brass balls and spread eagles — but
we do really want that sort of thing. Now please tell me
why *— or shall I repeat what I have already said? That
type of house represents dignity, education, cultivation and
home, as no other style devised by man can do. It is the
apogee of civilized domestic architecture. Your kiddies
will grow up here with respect for the truth and an admira-
tion for gentle cultivation. You the mother and you the

THE COLONIAL HOUSE IS

father will go about your several duties with the assurance
of being properly garbed for all occasions, and you will
welcome the coming and sigh with the parting guest. Is
this not your dream?

The man's house — his castle — where his kiddies have
the measles, and his daughter marries (not in the parlor),
and his son grows to college years, and carries away with his
grit, along with his sister, the memory of home. Imagine,
if you dare, this being done with that monstrosity, the so-
called, misnamed " Mission " with its wooden walls, wire
lath and stucco.

I cannot think of any other fit style for a house, except
Elizabethan, which has much of the classic — enough to save
it, and the Tudor, which also leans in a most suggestive
manner toward the same influence. There is, of course,
nothing in the way of a French domestic style — and what
have you left?

There are two dominating types of the classic in this
country, though they overlap and slip the one into the other
in the most interesting manner. Each district or township
has its peculiarities. The two predominant factors were
the Puritan or Roundhead (a synonym for hard-head) and
the Cavalier or gentry of England. The influence of the
Dutch is slight and the type of William Penn differed lit-
tle from his neighbor of New England. In the extreme
north and south were the Latins, who had little influence.

14 ARCHITECTURAL STYLES FOR COUNTRY HOUSES

While the Latins were brilliant, they did not have the stay-
ing qualities of the Anglo-Saxon.

We have, therefore, the two types with the local varia-
tions and traditions of caste and religion as influences. Re-
member, also^ that the element of trade, which settled the
coast and the rivers, helped to combine the ship carver or
joiner with the landsman, and that prosperity, which always
comes because of trade, allowed this type to develop faster
towards a more finished product. They were travelers also,
and, of course, took advantage of their opportunities.

New England is, or was, primarily Massachusetts and
the smaller states along the Sound. The best examples of
our style in the north are within a radius of one hundred
miles of the city of Boston, though I have found most beau-
tiful examples of Christopher Wren churches and of squire's
houses, with delightful detail, in the remote towns of north-
ern New England. And, of course, when we examine the
Berkshdres, we find evidence of wealth and culture also.
Long Island got some of this New England influence,
though we will discover a subtle change taking place in New
York State — an influence which is traceable to the rem-
nants of the Dutch temperament. This extends through-
out Jersey, and loses itself in another shade in Pennsylvania.
The Philadelphians had the same separate and distinct color
that we have found among the Boston people. The
Swedes, Quakers and Shakers, and what-nots of that sort,

In New England the materials used were clapboards and shingles, in
contrast to the brickwork of the South

A real Colonial garden in "Oak Hill," Peabody, Mass.

THE COLONIAL HOUSE 15

have left local colorings throughout Delaware, West Penn-
sylvania and South Jersey. Then we begin to slip softly
into another distinct area before we reach the Virginian or
the Cavalier gentleman. Baltimore and its environs is some-
thing of the South, a little bit of New England, Jacobite
and Roundhead. And then the delightful atmosphere of
the Middle South, the tobacco-producing and slave-using
country, with its feudal lords and great plantations.

The people are mostly of the same breed as the Northern-
ers, but with gentler blood, and a more continued and inti-
mate association with the progress going on in the mother
country; people educated more in the fancies of life, possi-
bly, than in the facts, as were the more austere type of the
North, but still English and loyal to the Crown.

The Colonial gentlemen used brick for the walls, with the
Flemish bond, a " header " and " stretcher," a method of
bonding intended for a two-brick-thick wall, as the header
properly ties and appears on both faces. These headers
frequently being used as arch brick, coming near the fire in
the kiln, were darker and were laid with wide joints, which
was not an affectation, shell lime not finely ground calling
for a coarse mixture in the mortar. At the levels where
floor beams are supported by the wall, you will notice a pro-
jection or band, and in the gables, a twisted scrap of iron,
which ties through the brickwork into the framing and pre-
vents spreading.

16 ARCHITECTURAL STYLES FOR COUNTRY HOUSES

While brick walls were the most substantial, of course,
of the many materials used, local conditions governed the
selection to a great extent. Oftentimes these brick came
over as ballast. In districts where stone was plentiful,
quarries were opened up, the stones laid with the same wide
joints, and, in some cases, plastered over the entire surface.
In lumber districts, of course, you naturally find the use of
wood in the form of clapboards or shingles.

The gambrel-roof type is early, and slowly disappeared
in the more distinguished forms of hip and gable roof,
though this form of roof allows more space and head room
in the attic for the storage of hat boxes, wedding gowns,
beds and what not. And, by the way, the combination of
a rainy day, a Colonial attic, and the neighbor's children,
will create a memory that time can never efface. The Se-
cret Drawer in Graham's " Golden Age " has the spirit.
Read it.

These old people believed in the use of plain wall sur-
faces for the exterior, with the embellishments provided at
the proper supporting points. First came correct propor-
tion, then the making of the entrance doorway, ornamented
as a focal center. The cornice with the classic forms of dec-
oration received equal attention, and with a Palladian round-
arch and mullion window, lighting the stair landing or sec-
ond-story hallway, and the careful consideration of the
dormer windows, you have the entire secret. In the South

THE COLONIAL HOUSE 17

we find the colonnade extending through two stories, of
stately columns capped with Corinthian or Ionic capitals,
and supporting a projecting roof and pediment. This
form varies, as you may, if you wish, pilaster the face of the
wall, breaking the cornice, and increasing its beauties at the
points of support. You should* not be hampered by prece-
dent, however. Knowing the laws of style and proportion,
and with an appreciation of the human, you may play —
and, as a matter of growth, you should. Study the local
atmosphere, and design, as did the old chaps. The combi-
nation of line and mass and variation of detail and orna-
ment are not exhausted by any means.

As to the interior: give the family a large room on the
left of the hall, with a real fireplace and a paneled mantel
to the corniced ceiling, cupboards concealed in the wood-
work, for the surplus poker and wood-box; a low dado or
a high wainscot, careful selection of the details of the trim
and the wall coverings, comfortable davenport and strong-
legged table for the home lessons.

On the opposite side, the reception or music room in the
cool style of the brothers Adam; beyond, in the wing, the
library or dining-room, with the proper appurtenances
thereof — light, air and ease of communication, proper
orientation, and the usual consideration given to these utili-
tarian motives by any conscientious and studious practi-
tioner.

From your large family room on the left you may have
French windows opening on a brick-paved terrace, with the
supporting columns, or pilasters, and a second-story projec-
tion, or not, as you choose; steps to the box-bordered and
grass-pathed rose garden; crimson ramblers at the porch
and the wild pink rose on the border of the garden, where
considered wildness begins.

Throw away the grape arbor, disdain the formal garden,
eliminate the water pool with the green frog, forget the
sun-dial, close up the attic, decorate your walls with " ar-
tistic " burlaps, furnish the house with that most distressing
type of furniture, the bilious-green Mission, and you will
find yourself far removed from refinement, from truth and
from all the evidence of cultivated human sentiment. Un-
der these conditions, you must, of course, give up your
dainty table napery and cut glass or bits of old china.
Your old silver must be put away, packed in a Mission
wood-box, with affected hammered iron straps and handles.
Lovely, isn't it?

Can you find any type that, equally with the Colonial,
will set off My Lady's house-gowns on the second floor, and
her dinner gowns on the first, or that will better suit the
austere lines of man's evening clothes? The housemaids
themselves are influenced in their manners and service, and
can you not realize how the kiddies absorb unconsciously a
keener appreciation of the finer things of life? Again, and

Local characteristics appear, such as
the "Germantown Hood"

A Mclntire garden arch in the Fierce-
Nichols garden

A 1745 doorway on the Peabody A beautifully carved doorway in the
house, Danvers, Mass. Oliver house, Salem

THE COLONIAL HOUSE 19

finally, the axiom — please say it for me! — the Colonial
type typifies the gentlest, the purest and the most human of
all domestic styles.

The cost of production has some bearing on the subject,
with the continued cost of maintenance — and here again
the Colonial leads as the most economical on first cost and
continued care. In house building, brains are the cheapest
commodity on the market and the most necessary part of
the details of construction. You may see for yourself, if
you wish, that a rectangle with plain surfaces, with wings
or with the entire house confined under one roof, is the more
economical thing to do, as compared with angles, bays,
turns and quirks, which cost labor, waste material in the
building, and add to the cost of maintenance in repairs in
the many other styles. And, in the planning, if you will
study for direct perpendicular bearings, for spans, without
cozy corners — a la Mission — and without inserts or out-
serts, you may, when once begun, proceed with wall and
floor timbers, without stopping the labor for adjustments,
and for a new method or material.

When once carefully laid out, a house of this style should
proceed continuously without break, or continued consulta-
tions with foreman or contractor. You need less labor, and
less raw material of different sorts. In consequence, the
road is straight and the cost per cubic foot is less.

A revival of the classic forms in the designing of our fed-

20 ARCHITECTURAL STYLES FOR COUNTRY HOUSES

eral buildings has taken place in the last few years, and the
style is being widely adopted for local public and semi-pub-
lic institutions, much to the betterment of our cities and
towns. This is merely proving my assertion that the
classic styles are the most expressive of our national life.
Out of them, undoubtedly, the " American style " of the fu-
ture will be evolved, as it was in the case of the Colonial in
earlier times. I believe a new and better era in architecture
is with us. In domestic building we are slower to return to
those excellent classic models of which we should be so
proud, but a Colonial revival — not a faddish copying, but
a sincere and studied acceptance of our most precious archi-
tectural heritage — as a thing to be hopefully and prayer-
fully looked forward to.

The
Modern English Plaster Houses

J. Love 1 1 Little, Jr.

G. C. Harding, architect

The Jacques house, Lenox, Mass., illustrates the harmonious way in
which this type blends into the surrounding foliage

Charles A.. Platt, architect

The Henry Howard residence in Brookline, Mass., combines the

Colonial fence and classic doorway with the general

mass of an English house

V •*•>

"-»'>

. *

>v w

Modern English Plaster Houses

WHEN I was asked to write one of a series of argu-
ments, each advocating a particular style of ar-
chitecture for the country or suburban home, I
protested. I said it was foolish to try to prove that one
style or another is the only one in which to build a house.
The word style loomed large in the foreground; horrid
with all its arbitrary importance, and exceedingly independ-
ent and pompous on account of the adulation and attention
which it is always receiving from the public. I started to
explain to the editor that style is a growth, a long painful
process of evolution; brought about by the life of the peo-
ple that has developed and perfected it, and not an arbi-
trary attribute to be bought and sold. You know the argu-
ment; for no doubt you have cornered an architect and
asked him some poser about style, and he has retired behind
this well worn armor; but I gave it up and said — well,
never mind what I said, but I accepted the invitation to
argue for a style.

I was not only to argue for a style but I was to present
an enthusiastic argument. So at this stage in the game I
was committed to do something that I didn't believe in do-

24 ARCHITECTURAL STYLES FOR COUNTRY HOUSES

ing, and do it enthusiastically at that. I was to stand up
and say, " You must build your house in this style or not
at all." I was to be uncompromising in favor of a certain
fashion. I had begged the editor to let me " hedge " a lit-

First floor plan, the home of Howard Van Doren Shaw, architect,
Lake Forest, 111.

tie, and I wrote him some very sound truths on tolerance,
but he scorned them.

Then he told me that I should present the case for the
Modern English Plaster House. He knew I liked the mod-
ern English house and he played to my weakness. I still
pretended to be disgusted, but I no longer worried, for I
saw a great light, and I hope now to show why I felt that
my troubles were over.

In " A Dictionary of Architecture and Building " by

MODERN ENGLISH PLASTER HOUSES 25

Russell Sturgis, there are two definitions of " Style " in the
following order of importance.

" I. Character; the sum of many peculiarities, as when
it is said that a building is in a spirited style. By extension,
significance, individuality ; especially in a good sense and im-

Second floor plan, the home of Howard Van Doren Shaw, architect,
Lake Forest, III.

puted as a merit, as in the expression * Such a building has
style/

" II. A peculiar type of building, or ornament, or the
like, and constituting a strongly marked and easily distin-
guished group or epoch in the history of art "

There is more of this second definition, but this is enough
to show its meaning; it is a type, a fashion. I might have
added to the sentence quoted, " such as the American Co-
lonial Architecture," by way of further explanation.

26 ARCHITECTURAL STYLES FOR COUNTRY HOUSES

But turn to the first definition and read it again, carefully.
It is a big, broad definition. You will find three words
worthy of note: " Character," " Significance," " Individual-
ity " — qualities well worth finding in a house.

I am going to try to point out the value of these qualities,
and to show you that the modern English house, with all
its faults (and to an American these are not a few), com-
bines these three qualities to a greater extent than do the
average houses of our own and other countries. Finally, I
should like you to consider how similar are our own needs and
tastes when we want a home.

Character in house architecture means that the building
inside and out shall have domestic qualities and suggest,
more than all, a home.

Significance I understand to be the successful harmonizing
of the needs of the client with the natural setting of the
house; in other words, it is the logical solution of the prob-
lem, that brings peace and comfort to the occupants of the
house, and gives an outsider the pleasure that one has in
any well balanced view or picture.

Individuality is more or less the result of character and
significance, and is greatly influenced by the relation of the
architect.

Now Colonial houses have character; no one will deny
that; and very charming it is, but it is the character of the
past. In his definition of the Colonial, Russell Sturgis says

Charles A. Platt, architect

Does this English dining-room of an American country home lack any quality of
home refinement? Does it not show character, individuality and significance?

C. R. Ashbee, architect

The dining-room in an English country home remodeled from a fourteenth century

Norman chapel

.23

c
W

MODERN ENGLISH PLASTER HOUSES 27

in part that it is the architecture of the Colonies, " especially
in American use, that which prevailed in the British settle-
ments in America previous to 1776, and by extension and be-
cause the style cannot be distinctly separated into chronolog-
ical periods, as late as the beginning of the present century,"
etc.

There are many times that a client comes to one and asks to
have a Colonial house, for it is justly a popular type of
American domestic architecture. The architect must set
about to adapt the Colonial type to modern and special re-
quirements. The difficulty is perhaps best illustrated in the
preceding chapter devoted to the Colonial style, where the
author pictures the house and its rooms. What does he do?
He draws a delightful picture of days and customs gone by
and places " My Ladiy " in a lovely frame. But " My
Lady " is not a modern American woman. No doubt she
still exists, and, when a specimen of her is found, give her
the Colonial house by all means without a question. She will
want it, she will be fitted to care for it ; in short, to give it to
her is the solution of the problem in this particular case.

Colonial house architecture to-day lacks significance, ex-
cept in special cases. That is the truth of the matter. It is
the architecture of a more aristocratic time, the architecture
of men and women who lived more formally and with less
of American independence than we do to-day. It isn't demo-
cratic, as we are democratic and as even the average English-

28 ARCHITECTURAL STYLES FOR COUNTRY HOUSES

man is democratic. Take for example the informal out-of-
door life, with its varied sports and occupations, shared alike
by the whole family. This kind of life is being h'ved by an
ever-increasing number of people in this country, and it is
producing a different style of architecture than that which
prevailed a century ago.

Where can you find any close relationship between this
very vital characteristic of our modern life and the life of
Colonial days? The whole scheme of life was more formal.
The modern problem of domestic service did not present
itself. The great families in the South and in the North had
their slaves, their trained servants, and even in the average
household there remained some traditions of English formal-
ity, of aristocratic rather than democratic life. To-day 'in
most households life is entirely different. The younger gen-
erations have much more independence and it is the era of in-
dividual development. To-day our children conform less to
any formal routine of the household than at any other time
in our history. They and their friends share with us the
informal life of work and play at home. There is a great
movement towards the country and, whether large or small,
American suburban and country houses reflect the trend of
our life.

All this makes for a new type of house; a house with at
least one large living-room that typifies the life of the house-
hold. There is no other one room in the house that can eco-

C. E. Mallows, architect

"Significance is the logical solution of the problem, that brings peace and comfort to

the occupants of the house and gives an outsider the pleasure that one has

in any well-balanced view or picture."

MODERN ENGLISH PLASTER HOUSES 29

nomically balance this in size, and it is this one fact that is
largely responsible for the gradual growth of a type of house
that is comparatively new to us.

No, the Colonial style is not significant to-day. The plan
with its central hall and four corner rooms is economical, no
doubt, but it is the economy of the bargain counter, inasmuch
as one is getting more than one's money's worth of something
one doesn't want. The type must always be twisted and
turned to fit changed conditions, or the client must be molded
to fit the frame.

I have dwelt somewhat at length on the inadequacy of the
Colonial in itself because it is the most serious rival of the
style I am championing. It has tradition, dignity and
charm; it still has character and individuality to some extent,
but only occasionally does it have significance. Perhaps I
am too hard on this style, for I find myself trying at times
to qualify my statements, but please remember that I am
dealing with the subject in a general way and must treat it
generally. I must not dwell too long on the many delight-
ful examples of Colonial houses that I know. I must over-
look the fact that I was brought up in a Colonial house, and
I must stick to the point, which is that the modern English
house hits the nail on the head more often than any other
style of house.

I have just fallen a victim to the word " style " in its sense
of " a peculiar type of building," which leads me to state

30 'ARCHITECTURAL STYLES FOR COUNTRY HOUSES

here that I am not arguing for the Modern English Plaster
House, per se, but for the house with character, significance
and individuality, and I must now justify my statement that
the Modern English Plaster House has these qualities highly
developed.

First, to get the plaster part of my title settled. No
doubt the insertion of this word was a pitfall designed to
limit my field of examples, but I hope to make it serve a
useful turn.

" Plaster " is exterior plaster, stucco; a durable wall cover-
ing with a limited range of color possibilities, and a variety
of textures. It is comparatively inexpensive to put on, easily
and cheaply maintained, and forms a beautiful background
for vines and shrubs, harmonizing with all natural surround-
ings.

Wood is expensive, but it is still the cheapest building ma-
terial under average conditions in the East. It is cheapest
for the first cost of a house, but the upkeep of wood and
paint is no small item, and a material that after the first cost
will successfully stand our varied climatic changes at almost
no expense to the householder for repairs, is well worth seri-
ous consideration.

A wooden frame house, with exterior plastering on gal-
vanized wire lath, costs about three per cent, more than a
house shingled or clapboarded. This extra initial cost would
not go far towards keeping wood finish and paint in good

MODERN ENGLISH PLASTER HOUSES 31

repair. Then, too, plaster can be used to great advantage
as a covering for second-hand or old brick, a material that is
often easily and cheaply obtained. It can be applied to
houses of fireproof construction, such as brick, hollow tile, or
concrete. Added to practical reasons are artistic ones and
the greatest of these is simplicity. This should be, I think,
the key-note of the design of the average American suburban
or country house. A house that depends on its proportions,
on the spacing and arrangement of window openings in re-
lation to the walls in which they come, must have, perforce,
character and individuality. It must reflect on the outside
the arrangement of rooms inside. It must be logical, and if
it is it overcomes one of the great defects of our American
houses, namely, the attempt to appear something that they
are not. It is an American trait; you see it in the way our
servants dress; in the one-story shop with a shingled front
a story higher; and it is a vulgar trait that we seem to be
outgrowing, architecturally at least. In this country we
have countless examples of houses designed and placed with-
out regard to customs and surroundings; but with a " style "
carefully studied and historically correct. These houses lack
something above all else. They lack the quality of a home.
This quality is one which is preeminent in English houses.
It is apparent to the man who views them from the outside,
and it is even more apparent to him who stays for any length
of time in one of these houses. It is intensely true of Eng-

32 ARCHITECTURAL STYLES FOR COUNTRY HOUSES

lish houses that no matter how big the house, it is just as
domestic and home-like when almost empty as it is when full
of guests.

Slowly we are coming to a realization of the value of char-
acter, significance and individuality as expressed in our
houses. Not so often as formerly do we start with a pre-
conceived idea of the exterior of our house and then try to fit
our rooms into this shell.

Independence was the key-note of our national beginnings,
but it didn't extend to our house-building. Independence
in house-building has for a good many years been the key-
note of English domestic architecture. The Englishman
plans his house, arranges his rooms to suit himself, and if
he shows his independence in what we consider an absurd ar-
rangement of his dining-room and service rooms, it isn't
to the point, for what I want to show is that when he has
got what he thinks will make him a comfortable house, he
goes ahead, or his architect does, and produces an exterior
arrangement that in nine cases out of ten is thoroughly
charming.

If the charm of these English houses is often partly due to
the setting of trees, shrubs and vines, should that be used as
an argument against the design of the house? Not at all,
but rather let us consider that it is a further proof of skill,
for where is greater skill necessary than in designing in suet
simple forms that they harmonize with informal and natural

MODERN ENGLISH PLASTER HOUSES 33

arrangements of flowers and trees, in such a way as to seem
almost a part of the landscape.

The houses illustrated here, English and American, are
chosen at random, and are essentially types of average houses
such as the most of us might build. Some of them are as
distinctly English as others are American, hut they all have
character, significance and individuality. I have purposely
passed over many charming examples because they seemed
to owe their charm to some special feature of design or of
setting.

But the houses which are illustrated here seem to me to
place before you examples of the results obtainable if you
will start house-building unhampered by a " style." I hava
used again and again the words character, significance and
individuality, perhaps beyond the limits of your endurance,
but these qualities are the beginning and the end of a style.
Russell Sturgis says that they are style, and that is exactly
what I want to repeat to you. Look at the illustrations;
the houses are varied in type. Most of them are irregular in
plan and consequently in elevation. But the point I wish
to make is that they are not necessarily so. Look at the in-
teriors here shown, English and American. Do they seem
to lack the quality of home or of refinement?

Start unhampered by a " style." Plan and build a home.
Seek to express in your house your needs and your tastes,
and not an historical reproduction. Sentiment for the past,

84 ARCHITECTURAL STYLES FOR COUNTRY HOUSES

for traditions — yes indeed, lots of it. But reproduce in the
spirit of Colonial or any other type of architecture and not
in the form, and you will have what the modern English
house has more than the houses of any other country. It will
not matter what form the house takes or how closely it ap-
proximates what we call one or another style. It will have
character, significance and individuality and it will stand
for independence of thought on the part of both owner and
architect.

The Swiss Chalet Type
By

Louis J. Stellman

A modern Swiss chalet near Grisons which shows the recent use of stone and
concrete in connection with wood

a <u

The Swiss Chalet Type

ANY type of architecture which has a genuine appeal to
the public, must appeal to the heart as well as to the
mind. I have heard it said that the appeal of architec-
ture is through a combination of memory and symbolism:
that is, it either reminds one of something one has seen or
it stands for the traditions which the advancement of civili-
zation has developed.

If one accepts this, architecture is removed from the
sordidness of mere practicality and the commonplacery of
pure expediency. A structure must be both wholesome and
attractive ; it must serve our needs well and, at the same time,
remind us of something pleasant. In short the ideal house
must simultaneously protect the body and uplift the mind.

Perhaps this may seem unnecessarily long a prologue for
an appreciation of the Swiss chalet style in American archi-
tecture, but it is because this style satisfies so peculiarly my
demands in the above connection, that I have gone to some
pains in order to make them clear enough to serve as a work-
ing hypothesis.

There is about the Swiss chalet a rugged, honest pictur-
esqueness, a simple, candid strength that I find in no other

38 ARCHITECTURAL STYLES FOR COUNTRY HOUSES

type of habitation. Because of this impression, I mention
the sentimental consideration first. It seems to typify —
as plainly as a house can ever hope to represent a man — the
hardy, fearless, simple mountaineer — whose life is spent

First and second floor plans, the home of C. W. Robertson, Nordhoff, Cal.
Myron Hunt and Elmer Grey, architects

among the heights and broad vistas and who lives a simple
frugal, happy, sincere life.

It is too much to suppose that the Swiss chalet will become
extremely popular outside of its Alpine home. There is
too much complexity in the vastly predominant and popu-
lous lowlands to give it great vogue, too much tendency to
improve on nature instead of cooperate with it, to scatter
Swiss chalets through the land. And yet, in America, es-
pecially along the Western coast, the Swiss chalet is be-
coming more and more observed.

.SLi _:•.-.

THE SWISS CHALET TYPE 39

Probably there is no place outside of its native land where
the Swiss chalet may be more advantageously used than
along the Pacific coast hills, particularly those around San
Francisco Bay, where many interesting examples are to be
found.

Of course there is little snow in California except in the
extreme northern portions. This brings us to a considera-
tion of the fact that climate alone did not produce the Swiss
chalet. Perhaps, indirectly, it did, after all, for the Swiss
mountaineer is the product of the invigorating climate which
the Alps provide. But, out of his rugged, honest, sham-hat-
ing, art-loving heart and brain has come that picturesque
style of habitation which is as nearly distinctive as architec-
ture may be. His love of out-door life produced the broad
veranda (forerunner, undoubtedly, of the modern winter-
and-summer sleeping-porch), the wide eaves to protect this
veranda and the court below, where he sat of an evening with
his pipe. He courted the open at all times possible, this old
Tyrolese, and the Californian is in agreement with him, as
far as that goes.

But, more than all else, the Swiss chalet cooperates with
nature. How many times does one see a house that seems
a part of its general surroundings? Usually the surround-
ings are fitted to the house with the inevitable result that an
incongruity, more or less blatant, is produced.

Man cannot hope to compete with God as a landscape

40 ARCHITECTURAL STYLES FOR COUNTRY HOUSES

gardener or architect. The Swiss mountaineer felt this,
even if he did not know it. He made no attempt to terrace
the eternal hills, to create false and artificial plateaus upon
which to build a conventional dwelling. He made a part-
ner of Nature and worked to their mutual advantage. Out
of it came an architecture which, if primitive, was big, har-
monious and wholesome to a wonderful degree.

The original Swiss chalet does not seem to have been built
against a hillside. Apparently it was a crude log cabin, not
unlike the huts of our pioneer ancestors, erected by Alpine
cowherds for more or less temporary shelter. It differed
from the American log cabin in the mortising or notching
of the log ends and the rudimentary attempts to square and
dress the timbers. Out of this, undoubtedly, developed the
present elaborate system of dovetailing and fitting together
the timbers and framework of Swiss houses, a practically
nail-less construction scheme.

From the rough habitation of the cowherd was evolved the
village house, slightly more pretentious but still of the block-
house construction; and being adapted to the exigencies of
hillside construction, it was so modified as to present the pro-
genitor of what is now generally known as a chalet.

Following this came two evolutionary phases of building
development in Switzerland, characterized respectively as
the Standerwand or "stand-wall" and the Begal-bau or
masonry construction. The latter, however, is only an am-

THE SWISS CHALET TYPE 41

plification or elaboration of the former. One, if not both,
of these unquestionably inspired the steel-frame method of
modern construction.

The " stand-wall " style of construction differs from the
old block building and, for that matter, from most other
methods of building, ancient and modern, in that the frame
of the entire house is outlined by corner-posts and a skeleton
roof before the walls are built. The original chalet, there-
fore, was built from the ground up, one timber being laid
on top of another and dovetailed into a nice contact with
ends that protruded beyond the intersecting unions. The
second type of chalet was completed in outline and then
filled in, as to walls and roof, with wood, plaster, stone or a
kind of light brick, as fancy or necessity might indicate.

Here it may be pertinent to remark that the foregoing re-
fers to the characteristic holzbau or wood construction of
Switzerland. In a country so prolific in stone, however, it is
inevitable that the latter be used to some extent as building
material. Therefore the stone chalet is by no means a rare
or illegitimate type, and, contrary to the popular belief, a
chalet is not necessarily a wooden house. But the American
adaptation of Swiss Chalet architecture so closely adheres
to the popular conception that we may confine ourselves
largely to this very characteristic sort.

While on the subject of American adaptation, it is inter-
esting to note that the architects of this country seem so thor-

42 ARCHITECTURAL STYLES FOR COUNTRY HOUSES

oughly to have understood the motif of Swiss architecture.
Simplicity, strength, economy and picturesque harmony with
natural surroundings, mark the chalet in American architec-
ture even more perhaps than they do, nowadays, in Switzer-
land, where the bizarre influence of foreign builders has
added much intricate and fussy elaboration in the trimming
of houses. For instance, one sees on most Swiss houses of
this and several past generations, much " ginger-bread " or-
namentation. Porch roofs, cornices, doors, windows, often
the entire front of a chalet, will be encrusted with jig-sawn
fret, grill and scroll work, incorporating religious or family
mottoes, intricate designs and every sort of distracting embel-
lishment. It reminds one not a little of a wonderful wedding
cake or one of the marvelous performing clocks for which
Switzerland is famous. But under it all is the solid worth,
the wholesome, nourishing delicious product of the baker's
skill, the exact and reliable chronological instrument, the
house that satisfies body and soul.

It is this underlying theme that American architects have
exemplified in Swiss chalet adaptation. And, for the most
part, the chalet has retained its individuality to a great ex-
tent. A number of Western houses are exact copies of
existing Swiss chalets, notably the Reese house in Berkeley,
California, which was designed by Maybeck & White from
a small model of the Swiss prototype which Reese himself
brought across the ocean. It is, as will be seen by observing

Willis Polk, architect

An interior in Mr. Folk's own house, San Francisco, showing a clever
adaptation of the Swiss sawed-wood balusters

THE SWISS CHALET TYPE 4S

the accompanying illustration, of the old block-ban style,
with protruding timbers at the corners.

Alameda county, which includes Berkeley, Alameda, Pied-
mont and Oakland, and which abounds in hills, furnishes
many fine examples of Swiss chalet architecture and a much
larger number of less distinctive ones which are, nevertheless,
of more than passing interest and display quite perceptibly
their relationship to the architecture of the Tyrol. All of
these follow the initial style more than the later ones, prob-
ably because the former is original and more picturesque
than those which came after, and also because the redwood of
California is peculiarly adaptable to chalet building.

Especially is this true of interior furnishing. For interior
paneling there is nothing more attractive, all things con-
sidered, than redwood, and to the interior plans of American
chalets, architects have given fancy full play. It is a diffi-
cult matter to preserve the artistic simplicity of the Swiss
interior and yet to harmonize it with the requirements of
modern convenience. Yet this has been done by ro*ny build-
ers and has made the American chalet delightful both inside
and out.

In our money-governed world one must not forget the
matter of expense, which enters very largely into the building
plans of so many people. Economy was necessary to Swiss
people; consequently their architecture was of a style that
cost little. And the same is true in America. One can

44 ARCHITECTURAL STYLES FOR COUNTRY HOUSES

build a Swiss chalet for a third less money than it will cost to
erect a house of similar pretension in other styles. Of course
one may also put a great deal of money into a chalet, so that
it really satisfies all classes ; but to such as want an inexpen-
sive home that will be homelike and picturesque and will
not look cheap in that worst sense of striving for an ele-
gance one cannot afford, the Swiss chalet is, to my mind,
the ideal habitation. It is a happy, light-hearted style; it is
capable of an infinite variety of treatment without radical
departure from its central and fundamental principles of ad-
vantage and excellence; it is strong; it costs little and en-
dures. What more can one ask of architecture?

Italian Adaptations
By

Louis C. Eoynton

A. Durant Sneden, architect

Mr. Sneden's own home on the Shark River, N. J. The construction is

stucco on brick, with floors of reinforced concrete covered with

tile — a fireproof structure throughout

A large part of the charm centered in the smaller Italian villas is due
to a well considered lack of stiff symmetry

Italian Adaptations

LET us begin by frankly admitting that the style em-
ployed in the design of a house should be determined
by the special conditions of environment, by the ma-
terial used, and by the social and intellectual characteristics
of the people who are to occupy it.

For instance, it is often appropriate to build a camp in
Maine or in the Adirondacks of logs, and in its place this
seems the most fitting material and properly influences the
" style " or character of the building. However, while one
may admit this, it would not make a structure built of this
material with its resultant " style " seem especially appro-
priate or fitting on, say Fifth Avenue, New York. It is
difficult to imagine an architect who really designs his build-
ings saying, " Go to, let us now design a building in Tudor
Gothic or Dutch Colonial," without having first studied his
problem. No ; a design should grow from the conditions im-
posed by the site, the material to be used and the needs of
the owner and his family, and the style should be determined,
almost automatically, by these requirements.

Granting all this, there are still valid reasons why an
adaptation of the Italian Renaissance is the logical style to

48 ARCHITECTURAL STYLES FOR COUNTRY HOUSES

use in an increasingly large number of cases. Undoubtedly
all good design is the result of a frank use of the materials
employed; and any forcing of the materials is sure to result
either in a distorted design, or in what, I think, may fairly be
called " building scenery," that is to say, in constructing an
effect that looks like something different from what it is.

First * floor plan, "Casa del

Ponte," Rowayton, Conn.

Slee & Bryson, architects

For instance, building in frame with a covering of stucco
is, to my mind, distinctly disingenuous. Stucco represents
the idea of plaster on a backing of some form of masonry —
stone, brick, terra cotta, or what not, but never a cover for a
wood frame.

Now, there is one question which has to be considered in
building, and consequently in designing, every house; and
that is the question of materials. " Of what shall we build
our house? " is a question that has to be settled first of all for
every case. Frequently there are only two or three materials

ITALIAN ADAPTATIONS 49

that are to be had, without undue expense, and usually the
materials of the locality are the ones to use. Rightly used,
they will generally give results which seem harmonious and
fitting.

Of course, in this country the tradition is to build as much
as possible of wood. Formerly wood was the cheapest as

Second floor plan, "Ca^a del

Ponte," Rowayton, Conn.
Slee & Bryson, architects

2BC3ND FLOOR PLAN

T*CET

well as the quickest material to use, and the idea that wood is
cheap is so firmly ingrained that most people are surprised
to leam how little basis there is at the present time for this
belief.

For some years there has been a well marked and increas-
ing tendency among owners and architects to try to find some
substitute for frame construction. This is partly to be ex-
plained by the constant advance in the price of lumber and
the fact that the difference in the expense of building in
wood and some incombustible material is rapidly reaching

50 ARCHITECTURAL STYLES FOR COUNTRY HOUSES

the vanishing point; and partly by the growing conviction
that the risks of fire in a wooden house are too great. People
are realizing more and more fully that the extra expense of
building either fireproof houses, or houses where the walls
at least will resist fire, is more than justified by the added
security obtained. Furthermore, the reduced cost of main-
tenance in buildings that do not require frequent painting
is a factor that appeals more and more strongly to prospec-
tive builders, especially if they have had experience with the
constant drain for repairs brought about in even a well built
frame house.

Now, undoubtedly, the most economical and straightfor-
ward way of building in fireproof or semi-fireproof construc-
tion is to use straight, simple wall surfaces with the minimum
of breaks, and to stop the wall at an even height.

If the tops of the walls are protected from the action of
the weather by a projection of the roof, you have the maxi-
mum of efficiency with the minimum of effort and expense.
These conditions naturally suggest the sort of building so
prevalent in central Italy and especially in Florence.

In other words, they suggest the Italian type of building,
with its plain, simple wall surfaces, its long, horizontal pro-
jecting cornice or eaves, and the simple roofs which are so
characteristic of the type.

It may be said, and with some truth, that the Georgian or
Southern Colonial type fulfills these requirements equally

Slee <& Bryson, architects f,
In the living-room of "Casa del Ponte," an"Casa del Ponte." Red cedars take the

Italian house at Rowayton, Conn.

place of the cypresses of Italy

The Villa Bondi, Florence, shows the typical enclosed court which
might well furnish a precedent for American country homes

ITALIAN ADAPTATIONS 51

well. This may be true in some cases, but, as has been fre-
quently pointed out, the almost entire lack of flexibility in
the Colonial style makes it often difficult to use without
forcing a plan into a more or less arbitrary rectangle, and in
so doing distorting the natural requirements of the house.

Now, unlike the other Renaissance styles, and contrary
to the usual impression, the Italian work, except in the later
and more formal examples, is one of the freest, most flexible
styles ever developed. Even the most cursory inspection of
any of the well known works on Italian villas will convince
the doubting homebuilder of the absolute accuracy of this
statement.

During a somewhat prolonged stay in Italy, the present
writer made a practice of measuring and making drawings
of the most important, or at least the most interesting, build-
ings and details that came under his observation; and it
happened, not once, but so many times that it came to be
almost a commonplace, that some unexpected departure from
the normal, some unperceived variation from symmetry per-
haps, made a second visit necessary to check the measure-
ments. This almost invariably resulted in uncovering some
perfectly frank lack of balance which had been perpetrated
in so naive a way as to elude the eye of even a trained ob-
server.

One came to feel, after a while, that there was no such thing
as absolute symmetry in Italian work, and I firmly believe

62 ARCHITECTURAL STYLES FOR COUNTRY HOUSES

that a large part of the interest in this work is due to that
fact. That this subtle lack of obvious balance accounts in
some measure for the strange compelling charm of the style
seems no more than a reasonable deduction.

But it is in the Italian villas, which correspond most nearly
to our country houses, that one sees this quality carried to
an extreme that seems almost incredible. The general mass
of the houses is so simple and the effect so regular that the
mind scarcely grasps the fact that the windows are put in
where needed for use, and without any thought of absolute
symmetry, but with a wonderfully subtle sense of balance;
so that the effect of a rectangular fasade, with a strong
shadow from long, horizontal projecting eaves, is of a well
balanced symmetrical whole — an effect difficult to obtain

in any other style.

Of course objection is made that this is not an " indigen-
ous style." My own impression is that except for the pueblos
and the cliff-dwellings the only " indigenous style " is the
wigwam, but I do not feel myself entirely limited to this
precedent.

The fact is that our modern conditions, both material and
intellectual, are so far removed from even the Colonial farmer
that his kind of house does not fit, at least not without such
serious modification as to destroy its entity; whereas the ar-
chitecture of the Italian Renaissance is the result of an activ-
ity, both intellectual and material, which is measurably re-

llo wells & Stokes, architects

"Stormfleld," the home of the late Mark Twain, Redding Ridge, Conn.,
is an excellent example of Italian motives applied to American needs

Louis Boynton, architect

The Italian type provides as does no other for a loggia under the roof
which might be utilized in many ways

ITALIAN ADAPTATIONS 53

produced in our present conditions. And the indications
are very strong that we are entering upon a period of esthetic
renaissance which has a very vital impulse.

Both on the score of practical economy, therefore, of adapt-
ability to the materials, and as representing the intellectual
and esthetic status of the present generation, the Italian Ren-
aissance seems the most reasonable starting-point from which
to develop our domestic architecture, especially as regards
country house work.

Of course, it does not need saying that the fact that this
Italian style is not necessarily formal and symmetrical, does
not make it any the less well adapted to the most formal and
precise type of building.

While this type of house may be executed with equal pro-
priety in stone, marble, brick, or concrete blocks, it is pe-
culiarly adapted to a stucco treatment. In fact a very large
proportion of the buildings in Italy, even among the finest
examples, are built of stucco on a rubble stone wall. The
writer well recalls passing a Florentine palace near the Ric-
cardi in the company of an educated Italian. Something
was said about the building being of plaster and, surprise
being expressed, my companion, with the utmost sang froid,
took the end of his umbrella and broke off a good-sized piece
from what looked like a heavily rusticated stone. This,
however, should not be taken as an indorsement of the vicious
practice of imitating stone in stucco. There is no worse

54 ARCHITECTURAL STYLES FOR COUNTRY HOUSES

crime in the somewhat extended repertoire of an architect
than this same lack of frankness.

As a rule, a stucco house, unrelieved by decoration or or-
nament, has a cold and rather uninviting look, and it is, I
believe, for this reason that half-timber work has been so
often tried, unfortunately with almost uniform lack of suc-
cess. Now it is quite possible to use exterior color decora-
ment.

By using simple designs and quiet low-toned color, the
monotony of the plaster wall may be relieved. The method
of decoration is, of course, not uncommon in the north of
Italy and is found even as far south as Florence, and may be
perfectly well adapted to the conditions of our modern de-
sign.

Tudor Houses
By

R. Clipston Sturgis

Cope & Slewardson, architects
The Sims house near Philadelphia, Pa.

Mr. Chandler's house at Tuxedo, N. J. The Tudor brick house has

about it an air of solidity and permanence that cannot be had

with less enduring materials

Tudor Houses

SO much has already been written, and so ably written, on
the subject of domestic work in this country that there
remains but little to add, and the special field I am
asked to cover is so vague and so varied that I may perhaps
be excused if I try to present some general considerations
which may guide one in determining what his house should
be.

Most of us who build houses, in fact a very large propor-
tion, wish a home, and it is to the consideration of what a
home should be that I wish to call attention. Preeminently
a home should not only be homelike, but should look like a
home, and the house should seem at home in its surround-
ings. This would seem much like saying that a circle should
be round, except for the fact that although nearly every one
has an idea of a home which is accurate and well-defined,
and easily recognized, the idea is not always sufficiently
clear to be grasped by the imagination.

It is right that we should turn to England for our prec-
edence, for England is a country of homes, and in England
more than in any other country we recognize the fulfill-
ment of our ideals of what home life means. Of the Engj

58 ARCHITECTURAL STYLES FOR COUNTRY HOUSES

lish homes, the country home is the most characteristic and
the most appealing, for the English of all classes have al-
ways made the country their home. They love out-of-door
life and all connected with it, and they have done this for

First floor plan, a master's home, Groton School, Groton, Mass.
R. Clipston Sturgis, architect

centuries, and because they have done this for so long they
have become pastmasters in the art of creating homes.

If, then, we turn to English precedence for inspiration,
and try to find out the motives and spirit of the domestic
work of England, we should surely gain some knowledge
of what a home should be.

I think the prevailing character in all English domestic
work is sound common sense. They build for comfort, not
for show; they count the cost, and build economically.

TUDOR HOUSES 59

They love the country, and build so as to preserve its beau-
ties and not mar them when the necessary formality is intro-
duced. They plan for privacy, because privacy is of the
essence of home life, and, because they do all these things,
almost incidentally as it were, they build beautifully. I
say almost incidentally, because their most lovely work
seems almost unconsciously beautiful, as if it were a beauty
attained without effort.

The English house in suburbs or in country may be based
on Gothic traditions as they filtered through the Renais-
sance days of the Tudor times, or tinged with the Italian
spirit which grew side by side with Gothic, or touched by
the influence of Dutch brickwork, which helped to produce
the Georgian work, but in every case it will be homelike.
It will set well on the level amid its well kept grounds, or on
the terraced hillside, or in the pleasant valley.

It will have three divisions always more or less clearly
marked. The public part, entrances and the like, for the
family and for service; the master's part, both in house and
grounds; and the service part, also in house and grounds.
This is so obviously wise as a fundamental consideration that
it is strange to find it so often ignored here, but we may
comfort or excuse ourselves with the thought that they have
been building to suit conditions of country life for centuries,
and we but a short time.

With these three considerations in mind the owner will

60 ARCHITECTURAL STYLES FOR COUNTRY HOUSES

view his lot of land to determine what part he may spare
to the public, what to service, and what reserve for his wife
and children. The aspect, the natural features, view, trees,
and so on will largely determine these most important things,
and if they are settled right, many problems in the plan are
determined. The entrance to front door is here, and to the
service there, the dining-room is near the service portion,
the living-rooms command the private ground. Then the
main features of the plan determine themselves. In just
this way is it determined whether the regularity of a Classic
plan or the freedom of the Gothic fits best the conditions.
It seems to me useless to argue that one or the other is the
only way. Both have their uses, both are wholly appro-
priate and fitting at times. The style should grow naturally
from the demands of the special conditions, and neither is
necessarily exclusive of the others. The best Tudor and
Jacobean houses were planned with great formality of bal-
anced parts, and the later Georgian work was often very
free, and frankly unbalanced.

What is true of the plan is equally true of materials, al-

ways bearing in mind that what is honest and straightfor-
ward in construction is more likely to have the permanent
qualities of beauty than what is either false, imitative, or
ostentatious.

The English have always used honest, simple material —
generally local and economical material. With us local ma-

W. G. Rantoul, architect

English precedent does not necessarily enforce rigid limits. There

are some features here that suggest the transplanting of

the type to American soil

The Cabot house, Brookline, Mass., built to fit the site of a house

destroyed by fire. The English type was chosen on

account of its flexibility

TUDOR HOUSES 61

terial and economy have little to do with each other because
in New England, for example, it is cheaper to bring cut
stone from Indiana than to cut our obdurate granite. Nev-
ertheless, we disregard local opportunities altogether too
much, and rather pride ourselves on getting something our
neighbors have not. We have, however, no excuse for not
using honest material: wood, stone, brick, concrete, are all
in this class, and have their place and use. Wood is still
the cheapest material in first cost, but other more durable
and safe materials are rapidly nearing its cost. To cover
wood with stucco makes the frame house safer, and reduces
the surface that requires paint, but it has the air of pre-
tending to be more substantial than it really is. The Eng-
lish, Scotch or Italian "stuccoed houses are built of brick or
stone. It is, however, a somewhat harmless pretense, and
economy may well warrant it.

The stone house may be wholly charming or quite repel-
lant, depending largely on how simple it is and how largely
nature is allowed to beautify it (I am speaking of simple
homes now, not of cut-stone palaces) . Brick is the material
which more universally and longer than any other has stood
the test of time's judgment ; and of all bricks that which has
best stood the test is the common red brick with varied
colors and textures that are the natural product of the kiln.

During all its great period of brick building England has
set its stamp of approval on the red brick. Dutch influ-

ence introduced many interesting expressions of brickwork,
varied bonds, diapers, rubbed moldings in belt-courses and
chimneys, but through all the plain brick wall of good red
brick, well laid and well bonded, has held its place as a
method of building at once simple, beautiful and economical.
For this reason I believe strongly in the use of common
brick for our country houses.

There remains of the four I named, concrete. This is
practically a modern material, at all events all reinforced
forms of concrete. In appearance it is a stucco wall, with
some possibilities which the stucco has not, namely, a surface
as hard and durable as the best stones, which can be cut and
hammered as stone can be. More than that, it can be
treated in a unique way when- it is still green, for then a
brush and water will serve to give it texture and reveal the
interest of its component parts.

These four, then, are the simple materials, and because
wood is perishable and inflammable, and, of the other three,
brick is the most generally available material, I think it
should always be considered when the material of the house
is under discussion. There are few places in the country
where brick can even be imagined as out of place, because
there are few where clay and sand do not exist. Just as
brick may be always entitled to consideration so may Eng-
lish precedence be entitled to come first. Yet in this broad
and varied country it would be absurd to claim that Eng-

Cope <£ Stewardson, architects

The McManus house, St. Louis — built on English lines showing Georgian influence
but not bound by the formality one usually expects to find with that type

A house in Brookline, Mass. There is the possibility of an interesting

variation of texture in brickwork by the use of the

many available bonds

TUDOR HOUSES 68

lish precedent should always govern. The Spanish set their
stamp on the coast, and working along the lines of the Span-
ish Renaissance in material that was local and character-
istic, they produced a type that gave Mr. Bertram Goodhue
a chance to show how completely charming, and home-like
as well, the white, flat roofed concrete house might be.
(The Gillespie house at Santa Barbara, illustrated in the
following chapter. ) At first blush one would say this house
could look well only in that luxuriant setting, but 1 can
imagine it almost equally lovely and at home in some of the
reaches of the Maine coast, set amid cedar and fir, on the
hillside, springs feeding its fountains, and its outlook over
the sea. At first blush a Virginian red brick house might
seem out of place in California, but I can imagine one set
in the midst of an orchard, or surrounded by formal gar-
dens, looking as homelike as it does in England, and as much
in keeping with its surroundings.

The Spanish Mission Type

George C. Baum

Many of the houses that have the tile roof and characteristic arches of
the Mission type vary from it in other details

The arched doorways and gable ends are Mission characteristics; the
porch is an addition made necessary by the lack of an interior court

The Spanish Mission Type

THE words " Spanish Mission " bring to the mind but
one thought, — a group of buildings scattered over
Southern California. The buildings and the location
seem to be synonymous; the one suggests the other. In-
stantly the mind pictures a warm and sunny climate, a
group of palm and magnolia trees, in the shadow of which
nestles a low and rambling building, covered with vines and
rose bushes. Charming! we exclaim. Yes, charming be-
yond description. California, the land of sunshine and
roses, and, as Stoddard says of Southern California, " we
think of it, and love it, as the dreamland of the Spanish
Mission."

The Spanish missionaries coming up from Mexico were
the first to settle in California, having as their ambition the
conversion of the Indians. They begain their enterprise
with rude adobe huts, but as they became prosperous and
successful, these huts gave way to extensive buildings, con-
structed in the form of a quadrangle, surrounding an inner
court. The best examples can be seen in the remains of
Santa Barbara, San Juan Capistrano, San Fernando Rey,
Carmel, San Gabriel, San Luis Rey and San Miguel.

This mode of building around an open space, forming

an inner court or patio, was brought over with the Spaniards
from their native land.

It was just the style of building best adapted to their

• T*L<pon. "Pi An •-

3-Moont

Lo=>

The home of Edwin G. Hart, San Marino, CaL
Lester S. Moore, architect

needs, and frequently a number of patios were used as the
demands required.

Within these enclosures their cattle and herds were driven
at night for protection, where they were safe from the sav-
ages and wild beasts. These settlements were in reality

THE SPANISH MISSION TYPE 69

large ecclesiastical farms, with their cattle grazing on the
adjoining plains and the grain growing in the surrounding
fields. Here also the Indians were gathered and instructed
in the art of civilization, religion, trades and farming. Iso-
lated as they were in those days, it was necessary for each
Mission to provide for its own wants; therefore, rooms and
apartments of different kinds were set aside for their par-
ticular purposes, and all gathered together, as it were, under
one roof.

The most prominent portion of the building from the ex-
terior would be the church, with its dominating belfry, while
around it would be collected the bedrooms or cells for the
monks, the refectory, the kitchen, hospital, schoolrooms,
workshops and sundry buildings.

This is, in short, the history and description of the so-
called Spanish Mission style of architecture. These settle-
ments were made by Spanish religious orders engaged in
frontier work, and this class of men naturally would not
bring with them artists or architects, so they built with the
best talent and skill they had at their disposal, following the
examples familiar to them, such as appear in Spain and Mex-
ico. They naturally built simply and substantially, but in
that simplicity lies all their charm and beauty. Large,
plain wall spaces are characteristic of this type of building,
and when man finished his work, Nature started to embellish
it with her clinging vines and overhanging trees, transform-

70 ARCHITECTURAL STYLES FOR COUNTRY HOUSES

ing them all into a picture of charm and beauty. Any at-
tempt at gorgeous enrichment and elaboration would have
been fatal to the artistic and enchanting results.

The most characteristic points of this style of architecture
can be described as a low building with heavy walls of adobe
brick, covered with stucco; a low pitched roof, covered with
tile, and wide, projecting eaves, casting the deep shadow so
necessary in a sunny location; belfries, formed by the pro-
jecting of the walls above the roof, pierced with arched
openings to carry the bells, while the inner courts were sur-
rounded with arches, forming spacious and picturesque
cloisters. The windows on the first floor were frequently
enclosed with turned wooden grilles, a remnant of the iron
grilles of Spain, and used for protection. The walls were
of solid brick, covered with stucco, and have at times reached
a thickness of six feet. Floors were frequently covered
with large brick tiles, twelve inches square.

This style of architecture sounds very well, but how does
it apply to the average modern suburban home? For the
more northern climate where winds and storms predominate,
and where the cold is severe, this style is not at all practical.
There a building compact and sheltered is desirable, but
where the sunshine abounds, and where winter is of short
duration, this type of building is most fitting. In the South
the Spanish Mission is at its best, but the architectural treat-
ment when properly adapted to the conditions of the North,

THE SPANISH MISSION TYPE 71

gives a most pleasing and happy result. Other types of
buildings seem to have been the popular types to follow
for surburban homes, many of which have become monot-
onous, while the Spanish Mission has been overlooked.
This type is not splashy or elaborate, but can be enriched
in a quiet way to great advantage.

What are the requisites of a private residence or home?
In common, it could be described as a place for rest, a place
to eat and a place to sleep, a place for thought, and a place
to entertain one's friends. The question is, how best to ac-
complish this within reasonable means.

The Spanish Mission house has the advantage of being
easy and simple of construction, void of the complications
of building principles, as in many of the other styles fre-
quently adopted.

This simplicity does not detract from its beauty; but
when properly handled, simplicity can be relieved by the
grouping of motives and by the planting of trees and
shrubbery. The appearance of the building is one of quiet
and rest, refreshing to the eye; its stucco walls are cool
in summer, yet not oppressive in the winter. It has been
said, " nothing is so much to be desired as repose in form
and color," and the Spanish Mission gives it.

The interior can be arranged to suit any condition. The
tendency of the present day is to build the house reducing
the number of stories in height, thus eliminating the climb-

ing of stairs. A house spread out has the preference.
This gives the possibility of the inner court or patio, which
forms the center of the Spanish family life. These courts
are built with arches forming cloisters one story high, or as
supporting arches carrying a second story above.

In the center generally is a fountain, around which are
gathered potted plants and palms; here the family gathers
and friends are received and entertained. The normal
man, in his private life, hates publicity and craves retire-
ment.

Houses thus built present this to the best advantage, as
the interior of the building can be made very attractive and
livable. The exterior walls can be opened by use of arches
or posts, giving spacious porches for those who desire them.
In the larger courts, trees were planted, and rose bushes
were cultivated.

From the fountain often ran streams of water carried off
in open channels, around which flowers were planted.
These interior courts of the Spanish Missions were used
first as centers for protection, within which the monks were
safe and free from anxiety. Here they would congregate
in leisure hours and take their exercise. Then they began
to beautify the open space, which resulted in the adoption
of forms similar to the luxuriant and charming formal gar-
dens.

The writer does not advocate the Spanish Mission as the

THE SPANISH MISSION TYPE 73

best type of architecture to be followed universally, but this
argument is intended to show how it can be adapted, and
how appropriate it is to surburban life-
First and foremost we must build with the materials at
our disposal. We are entering upon a period of wood
famine. The lavish use of wood as in former days, must
be curtailed, and it will soon be out of the question as a
building material. We are by necessity rapidly advancing
to the concrete and cement age, following the footsteps of
the old world. Concrete is being used in buildings in this
country more to-day than ever before. It is easy of con-
struction when properly handled and does not require skilled
labor in its formation. Thus the expense is reduced. This
is a marked advantage, especially in the country where ma-
sons for stone and brick work are scarce and often must
be transported from the city. The outside face of the walls
is covered with cement or stucco, forming window and door
jambs, and, with the roofs of tile, the use of wood is re-
duced to a minimum. It is not necessary that the walls
be built of concrete for this style of building, as brick or
stone will answer the purpose in place of the concrete.
Tiled roofs are generally used. Where the floors are ex-
posed to the rain and moisture, as in porches and cloisters,
flat tiles are used. This flooring is good, and economical,
as it requires practically no attention.

More and more the desire is growing for baths and

74 ARCHITECTURAL STYLES FOR COUNTRY HOUSES

plunges. The " Roman bath " seems to be returning to
popular use. Where land can be used freely the bath can
be connected with the main house very conveniently in this
type of building, surrounding it with rooms or with a blank
wall as desired. In similar manner can be constructed the
stable or garage.

The old Mission and Mexican buildings were almost hid-
den by trees, and for those who appreciate landscape garden-
ing this type of building affords a splendid opportunity
for enrichment with planting.

This Mission style of architecture is not applicable to con-
gested city uses, where land is so valuable and height of
building is the ambition, but when applied to country
or suburban uses, what is more appropriate? What can
be more refreshing than after the labors of the day to leave
the city with its confusion and jumbled collection of all
kinds and styles of architecture, as seen in the average busi-
ness streets of all our cities, to come to the country home
with its quiet and rest?

The modern houses of red brick, the fanciful reproduc-
tion and imitations of castles and chateaux, often perched
in the most inappropriate positions, become irksome. In-
stead of this we come to the quiet and restful Mission with
its setting of trees, flowers, vines and gardens.

The Half-timber House

By
Allen W. Jackson

There is no place for absolute symmetry in half-timber work. Any
attempt to bring the two together is Kkely to fail

Much of the charm of old half-timber houses results from the use of
various materials in combination and in the looseness of con-
struction— notice, for instance, the uneven spacing
of the gable-end upright timbers

The Half-timber House

LET me warn the young architect about to dine out
that, while the first question asked of him may be
about the weather, the second will surely be " Why
don't architects invent a new style of architecture? "

There may be more than one answer as to why we do not
invent a new set of forms out of hand, but if it can be made
perfectly clear what an architectural style really is we are
provided at the same time with the answer to the question.
If it is thoroughly understood that an architectural " style "
is but a reflection of a certain type of civilization, is but a
mirror of the customs, manners, limitations and environ-
ment of a race, showing the slow, painful process of the
growth and development of a people, it ought to be apparent
why it is that " styles " are not invented in the study.

Even when it becomes no longer possible truthfully to re-
flect the manners and customs, the requirements and de-
sires of a people in the old inherited forms — even then we
may not talk of a new style, but of modifications of the cur-
rent one, the whole problem being one of growth. It is as
impossible for us wilfully to repudiate our architecture as
it would be our literature. A people's architecture fits

78 ARCHITECTURAL STYLES FOR COUNTRY HOUSES

them, and no one else can wear it. We may admire others,
but only our own is flesh of our flesh.

The particular style that we have been born into, devel-
oped by our forefathers through centuries, keeping pace

First floor plan, the home of George H. Lowe, Wellesley, Mass.
Allen W. Jackson, architect

with the slow, painful progress of the race, always a true
index of its contemporary condition, a perfect inarticulate
measure of its culture and refinement; this style, this grow-
ing embodiment in stone of a people's dreams and idealism,
keeping step down through the centuries with the upward
march of the race — this for us is the Gothic style of Eng-
land.

Stone and brick were the materials used for the impor-

characteristic motive — the flat
arch under a gable end

The overhang of the second story-
a characteristic of the old work

Half-timber work is best used as an accent for a gable or a bay here
and there against plain plaster surfaces

THE HALF-TIMBER HOUSE

tant work and plaster and timber for the farms and houses
of the gentry.

The Georgian style, also brought over to this country,
where we know it as the Colonial, was not an indigenous

- i

i
i

•crrn

Second floor plan, the home of George H. Lowe, Wellesley, Mass.
Allen W. Jackson, architect

manner of building ; it was but an imported fashion, an alien
style, as little at home in serving British institutions as one
would expect such a typically Italian product to be.

Even if we admit that long custom had served to imbue
these borrowed forms with something of the Anglo-Saxon
temperament, we still have the inherent unsuitableness of an
essentially monumental style of architecture forced to serve
intimate, and domestic uses. It is the Arab steed harnessed

80 ARCHITECTURAL STYLES FOR COUNTRY HOUSES

to the plow. Its simplicity and dignity are all very well,
but they are bound to a tyrannical symmetry, rigid and im-
mutable.

We all know the Colonial house, the front door in the
center flanked on either side by the paired windows above
and below ; each window the exact size of every other ; one-
half the front the mathematical counterpart of the other.
It may be there is a guest room on one corner and a bath-
room on the other, but it never appears on the surface. We
might have liked for comfort and convenience to have had
three windows on one side and two on the other, or perhaps
higher, or smaller, but it will do us but little good to carry
our request to this austere front.

Like the unlucky traveler in the bed of Procrustes, the
poor plan is made to fit by brute force, either by stretching
or lopping off.

Now it is an architectural maxim, that, without regard
for style, the elevations of a building shall express the plan ;
but how is it possible for the meanest and the most honored
rooms to be expressed on the exterior by the same thing —
the window, for instance? If one window is a truthful ex-
pression of the one room, how can it possibly be of the
other? Working in the derivatives of the Classic style as
applied to domestic work, not to be able to tell from the
outside, the bathroom from the parlor, the butler's pantry
from the ballroom, is a basic defect of style that forces

THE HALF-TIMBER HOUSE 81

many undersirable compromises that would be unnecessary
in a more flexible and less rigid system. There should not
be this conflict between the plan and its elevations by which
one must give way to the other, serious sacrifices having
to be made before the two can be coaxed into joining hands.

In this feud between Truth and Harmony, Utility stands
but a sorry chance.

As has been said, a primary necessity of good architec-
ture is that the elevations shall follow and grow from the
plan, that they shall express what they shield; they must be
the effect and never the cause. Beauty must wait on Use
and is only noble when it serves.

If, then, our exteriors will not subordinate themselves; if
they are not perfectly tractable and flexible, it is a weakness,
and this weakness is one that we think exists in the Classic
style, a weakness which never shows so plainly and dis-
astrously as in the manifold exigencies of modern house-
building. And it is in this very matter that the strength
of the true English work lies. The plaster and half -timber
houses, by ignoring symmetry (but never composition) gain
at the outset an immense freedom.

The plan may fulfill the most extraordinary requirements,
may house the most incongruous matters under one roof;
china closets may come next to chapels, pantries under bou-
doir, yet each have every requirement of light and space ex-
actly fulfilled, with their proper and fitting exterior ex-

pression. There is the best possible understanding between
the plan and elevation, the understanding that the plan is
master and the other must honor and obey.

The results in England, where it is best studied, are those
soft, beautiful houses, which affect us by their perfect re-
pose and harmony, rest and simplicity; no stress or striving
here, only peace and quiet. They take their place in the
landscape more like some work of Nature than of man, nes-
tling among the verdure almost like some larger plant, more
as if they grew than as if they were made. Rules of the
books, recipes from the schools, seem very thin and profitless
in their presence.

These buildings are not dependent on the paint shop or
the planing-mill ; they are brothers to the soil — what else
are the brick and mortar and rough-hewn timber? They
are not designed under an artificial rule derived from
nothing in nature. Then the adornment of these English
houses does not consist of motives invented for use on Greek
temples five hundred years before Christ. What detail and
ornament they have were invented painfully, lovingly, and
slowly through the centuries by the people themselves, im-
proving and bettering as they came up out of their darkness
of ignorance and poverty. Eloquent of a people's history,
those who live in these houses own them in a very real sense.

As for their use in this country, the utilitarian has no
complaint on that score, as they are perfectly suited to our

THE HALF-TIMBER HOUSE 83

climate. The plaster makes a warmer wall in winter and a
cooler one in summer than can be had with only wood.
When properly done it is very durable and there is no cost
of upkeep. It can be made thoroughly charming in color
itself and wonderfully harmonious among the surrounding
vegetation.

Of course in considering the modern work one must not
expect to find in it the charm and fascination which so de-
light us in the old English crofts and manors. It is an
exceedingly difficult thing to judge architecture per se, that
is to separate the architecture, the conscious design, entirely
from its setting, and pass judgment on it solely as an ar-
tistic composition, without regard to the accidental or for-
tuitous in its surroundings, or to those caressing marks by
which we may know that Father Time has passed that way.
This added beauty begins where the architect left off, but
he is too often given credit for the beauty that is of Nature
and not of man — the perfect result that neither may ob-
tain alone. The English cathedrals — were they so beauti-
ful, so noble, so satisfying, when the architect stood off and
looked at his finished work, their future history unborn and
timid Nature looking on from afar, not yet ready to run
up and cling about its base and storm its walls and find a
footfold in every cranny? I fear they were not so good
then, for every picture is helped by its frame.

Your architect prefers the cathedrals of France, standing

84 ARCHITECTURAL STYLES FOR COUNTRY HOUSES

in the midst of squalid villages, with the old houses circling
thick about the base, clinging to its very skirts. These
buildings are less appealing, less soft and beautiful, less pic-
turesque and charming, but they stand without adventitious
aid to proclaim and attest the greatness of their designers
and builders.

And then, to be reckoned with, in its very powerful but
extremely subtle appeal to the sensitive mind, is the potent
power of age. For time means history, and nothing is more
effective in making us feel the presence and reality of the
past, in recalling historic events than- buildings which saw
or may have even sheltered them. The power which such
works have of revivifying the former life which surged
about them and profoundly affecting and moving the im-
agination of the onlooker by the subtle aura that hangs about
and permeates them, is a force that must be carefully taken
into account and guarded against by him who would sit in
judgment on architectuure.

These pleasant emanations are, for the critic, illegitimate
and must first of all be exorcised, before he is fit to don the
ermine.

Let us therefore be a little careful before we are quite
sure that our admiration is wisely bestowed and that our
old buildings are really so much finer works than any we
produce to-day. Let us eliminate Mother Nature and her
accessories of verdure and decay, let us forget the singularly

THE HALF-TIMBER HOUSE 85

happy results she obtains by sagging our roofs and stain-
ing our walls, by blunting our edges and playing havoc gen-
erally with the specifications. It is all so delightful — but
it is not architecture.

In the same way let us banish Father Time from our
thoughts, with the rich pageant that follows in his train, and
try to discover only what it was our designer had in his
heart, what colored his thoughts, what guided his hand,
when he stood before his empty field with visions swarming
through his mind.

Let us look now at what this English half-timber work
was in its birthplace and what we make of it to-day. We
shall notice in looking over the illustrations chosen for re-
production that many of the buildings are not entirely done
in half-timber. Many of the most successful ones are those
that use it in connection with plain plaster or brick, the
black and white used as an accent, as a precious thing.

A particularly strong point of the English work is that
your Englishman will spend $100,000 and when he is
through will have a simple, quiet, modest cottage. We, on
the other hand, with half the money at our command, at once
try for a palace, Corinthian columns through three stories,
and plenty of carved stone. We build the cottage only
when we can afford nothing else. But it is pleasant to think
that this quiet simple work is becoming more common with
us every day. We are coming to recognize its picturesque-

86 ARCHITECTURAL STYLES FOR COUNTRY HOUSES

ness and adaptability to varying conditions of site, its home-
like quality and freedom from ostentation. All these con-
siderations act powerfully towards making it the one suitable
style for our country homes.

The Dutch Colonial House

Aymar Embury, II

The old tavern at Tappan, N. J., in which Major Andre was confined the night
before his execution — a landmark in the Dutch Colonial country

The Westervelt homestead, Cresskill, N. J., 1807. Where a piazza was introduced

the overhang of the roof was extended and supported by slender wooden

columns, square, octagonal or round

The Dutch Colonial House

BEFORE going into the subject of the merits of Dutch
architecture it may be well to define the meaning of
the term as it is commonly used. It refers not to the
architecture of Holland, but to the style which was built
up by the Dutch Colonists and which was developed not
only by them but by the French Huguenots and the Eng-
lish who later settled amongst them. The houses are en-
tirely different from those of Holland in material, in mass
and in detail. Here the houses are built of stone or of stone
in combination with plaster or clapboards, but brick was
very sparingly employed, except for the chimneys and the
enormous baking-ovens. In Holland, on the contrary, the
architecture was one almost entirely of brick; stone was
about as common as diamonds are here, and came in about
the same size pieces. The most characteristic feature of our
Colonial Dutch houses was the roof, and this again was of
a new type. Here either a long low sloping roof was em-
ployed or the gambrel type, so beautifully handled that the
terms " Dutch " and " gambrel " are synonymous.

The origin of this roof has been long a subject for dis-
pute. It is purely an American development, without any
European precedent, and its use must have arisen from some

90 ARCHITECTURAL STYLES FOR COUNTRY HOUSES

condition peculiar to this country. I believe this is to be
found in the fact that two-story houses in Colonial days
were heavily taxed, while one-story houses went free. The
early designers therefore endeavored to evade the law by
building a one-story house of two stories, and in order to

First floor plan, the home of St. G. Barber, Englewood, N. J.
Aymar Embury, II, architect

get the rooms in the second story as large as possible, the
roof was given a wider overhang and sloped very steeply.
But, since continuing the steep roof slopes on either side
of the house up to their intersection would be excessively
high, giving the house as seen from the end the shape of a
stingy piece of pie, after the builders had run it up high
enough to include the second story they covered over the
intermediate spaces with as flat a roof as possible.

THE DUTCH COLONIAL HOUSE

The wide overhangs, besides giving more space in the
second floor, had) another valid reason. The gable ends
were usually built of stone, since they were difficult to pro-
tect from the weather, but the front and rear walls, covered
by the wide roof, could be covered with plaster much more

Second floor plan, the home of St. G. Barber, Englewood, N. J.
Aymar Embury, II, architect

cheaply and with a maximum of effect. Yet while stone
for the ends and plaster for the front and rear was the
usual method of construction, it was by no means the only
one. Any or all of the materials above mentioned were used
in the same house, and it is by no means uncommon to see
four or even five in combination even in a very small build^
ing; the charm of the free design which was the inevitable

92 ARCHITECTURAL STYLES FOR COUNTRY HOUSES

result cannot be approached in any more stereotyped archi-
tecture.

The moldings and details employed were as individual as
the design. We find many of the porch columns, for ex-

PLAK-

The home of Jerome C. Bull, Tuckahoe, N. Y.
Aymar Embury, II, architect.

ample, hexagonal or octagonal in shape and crowned with
capitals the moldings of which are suggestive of both Greek
and Gothic origin. Other houses have the same varieties of
Renaissance columns which were used by the designers of
the New England and Southern Colonial. There was
nothing forced, nothing strained anywhere apparent, and
the result was the creation of an independent architectural

Aymar Embury, II, architect
The home of Jerome C. Bull, Tuckahoe, N. Y.

Aymar Embury, II, architect
The home of St. G. Barber, Englewood, N. J.

THE DUTCH COLONIAL HOUSE

style; and the only one which has been developed in the
United States.

Mr. Jackson in his chapter on half -timber houses has well
stated that the proper style to employ is that developed by

SECOND

The home of Jerome C. Bull, Tuckahoe, N. Y.
Aymar Embury, II, architect

the race which uses it, and he believes that we should there-
fore design our work following the English traditions. Yet
the proportion of the American people whose ancestry is
English is a comparatively small one, and English half -tim-
ber architecture is distinctly an importation in this country
and not a development. Mr. Wallis, like Mr. Jackson, also

94 ARCHITECTURAL STYLES FOR COUNTRY HOUSES

insists that the native style is the one which absolutely must
be employed. I thoroughly agree with both of them, and,
if we are all three right, the style to use is Dutch or nothing.

Colonial architecture is formal while the half -timber work
is informal; both have advantages, the former in its dignity,
and the latter in its flexibility. The Dutch work has the
advantages of both without the disadvantages of either.
If the symmetry of the Colonial house is disturbed its agree-
able qualities are lost, while the half -timber house executed
symmetrically becomes dry and tiresome in the extreme.
A house can be executed in any way you please in the Dutch
style. The central mass of the house may be flanked with
wings of equal size and similar fenestration, or the house
may ramble about, following the slopes of the ground and
avoiding big trees without any loss of charm. The first-
story rooms can be high, square and simple, or they can be
low and broken with deep-set windows, should that be the
type desired, and the " company " rooms can be of one kind
and the living-rooms of the other; and, best of all, both can
be combined into a single and harmonious whole without a
discordant note.

Dutch architecture, even in its most conventional form, is
extremely individual. Its designers have left us so many
precedents that in working in that style you never have the
least feeling that you must go look it up in a book and find
out if it was ever done in that way before. You are very

THE DUTCH COLONIAL HOUSE 96

sure that if it was never done, the only reason was because
the Dutch did not happen to think of it.

Mr. Wallis has said that the influence of Dutch Colonial
compared with that of the architectures of the north and
south of it has been negligible. This is to some extent true,
and it has been a matter of never-ending surprise to me that
the style is so little known or appreciated even here in New
York, within twenty miles of which we can find the most
exquisite small houses that were ever built. It is true that
we have no " mansions," nor are there any " villas," but we
have homes. If country life is worth anything at all it is
because the necessity for dress and convention is minimized,
and the enjoyment of country life depends upon outdoor
sports. Certainly nothing could be more ridiculous than
golf clothes in an " Adam room."

I grant that the style has its limitations; there never was
one that hadn't, but what I do most firmly believe is that
there is no other architecture so perfectly adapted to Ameri-
can conditions, so plastic in permitting adjustments of ex-
terior to plan, and so absolutely suited, aside from any sen-
timental reason, to small house architecture as is the Dutch
Colonial. A small house cannot be built two stories high
before the roof starts and not be too high for its width. It
is essential that the walls of a house should be wider than
their height and this can be attained in the small house only
by bringing the roof low. The Dutch, two hundred years

96 ARCHITECTURAL STYLES FOR COUNTRY HOUSES

ago, for purely practical reasons, discovered that the gam-
brel roof was the solution of the problem of getting the
iriost room in a low house; their solution is still correct.

The architecture of the first settlers in a country is apt
to be the most desirable to employ. Whether this is be-
cause of a reflex action of sentiment, or whether it is that
the old houses were built from materials taken from the
earth and fields around them — and there is something pe-
culiarly fitting in the use of local materials — cannot be eas-
ily known. The fact remains that the Dutch is the only h>
digenous architecture and certainly the most suitable. With
our complex modern conditions, the vast increase in the
wealth, not only of the very rich, but also of the well-to-do,
conditions in this country have somewhat chatoged. Our
race is no longer English, but cosmopolitan; its dominant
strain is English in political ideas only, our morals are of
home growth, our educational system has been adapted
from the German, our art is governed by French ideals.
We are cosmopolitan, and yet everything we have taken
from the old sources has been adapted and adjusted to our
needs until it has become stamped with our ideals. We are
reaching out and grasping for everything that is good, coin-
ing the world's gold to our use. That is precisely what was
done in house-building two hundred years ago by the set-
tlers in New York and New Jersey who developed Dutch
architecture. We all agree that a dwelling house should

The Board house, Paramus, N. J., is one of the finest old Dutch examples that
remains to inspire modern work

-s

-4->

•s

THE DUTCH COLONIAL HOUSE 97

look like a dwelling house and not like a museum or a cas-
tle; the only point of disagreement is as to what kind of a
looking thing a dwelling house is. In his effort to sustain
the domestic reputation of the Colonial style Mr. Wallis
has stated that the Greeks, whose architecture was a kind
of " missing link " ancestor of Colonial, invented the night-
shirt; can he deny that the Dutch discovered pajamas?
Even more than Colonial, the Dutch has that quality of in-
timacy which is at the root of successful work; and it has a
virility and sturdiness which makes it most suitable for mod-
ern work. English half -timber is frankly an importation,
often charming, it is true, but as unsuitable to the United
States as are thatched roofs. Colonial was the last cry of
an age when politeness was made a god, and is mannered
and conscious. The Dutch was sincere, expressive and vi-
tal ; strong and pleasing in mass, refined in detail and beau-
tifully fit, in both form and color, to the American land-
scape.

A Style of
the Western Plains

By
Hugh M. G. Garden

A perfect example of the "Western School" by its founder,
Louis H. Sullivan

Walter Burley (Griffin, architect

A suburban home that rests solidly on the ground by reason of its

broad stone base. Plain brick and plaster surfaces with stained

wooden strips secure the decorative effect

A Style of the Western Plains

I AM asked to contribute something on an unnamed style,
sometimes vaguely referred to as the product of the
Western or Chicago school — • it would be presumption
to appropriate to anything so tenuous the imposing title
" American Style." The reader who has followed the fore-
going chapters has perhaps noticed that each author insists
that the style chosen shall closely fit and express the local
conditions. He has been shown that the Englishman, the
Dutchman, the Italian of a bygone century, has each in his
way produced a style or type of building that fits our local
conditions and fits it better than any other style or type.
All the authorities, of course, cannot be right, but all may
be partly right, and I think that examination of the various
arguments will show that the qualities which recommend
each are broadly alike. The reader then is left where he
began, and it remains, after all, a matter of choice, with
similar arguments recommending different styles.

There is, however, a common gap in each argument. Let
us take, for instance, the argument by the advocate of the
Italian villa type. He says in effect that we for various
good reasons should build houses having broad, simple wall
surfaces, penetrated by openings which balance well, but

101

102 ARCHITECTURAL STYLES FOR COUNTRY HOUSES

need not of necessity be obviously symmetrical, and that for
the sake of unity we should have broad, overhanging eaves
and simple, low-sloping roofs. He then proceeds to show
that for reasons of economy such wall surfaces can be easily
and beautifully made in plaster. His deduction is that we
should therefore employ the Italian style which makes use
of all these things. If we grant that these things are de-
sirable and that they produce " style," a logical deduction
would be that we should have them; not necessarily that we
should have " Italian " buildings. If the result, after we
have employed them in our design, prove similar to the Ital-
ian villas, well and good, but it is important that the horse
be kept in front of the cart and that we strive for style in
the abstract, not for English or Dutch or Italian style, not
even for American style — consciously.

The real question is "What is Style?"— not " What
Style? " If we are successful in determining what this elu-
sive quality is, then the way to get it will be the next object
of our search and will be, perhaps, not difficult to find.

All arts are alike in that the common end and aim of each
is the weaving of a pattern. The pattern to be woven in
the designing of a house is one of forms, lines, colors and
textures; relating, repeating and contrasting one with the
other, creating rhythms, directions and accents. Without
these rhythms and accents, without the pattern, the work re-
mains mere building. Style is the relation of these rhythms

"The intricate interweaving of texture, form and color to produce a
pattern at once logical and interesting: that is style in architecture"

O G

I?!

A STYLE OF THE WESTERN PLAINS 103

and accents, one to the other, to create a pattern; the rela-
tion of form to form, color to color, texture to texture and
each to all creating one definite expression.

Style is synthetic, and the architect, taking rooms, halls
and staircases, arranges them in sequence according to their
use and importance ; and in the rearing of their walls, floors
and roofs, relates planes, solids, voids, lights, shadows, tex-
tures and colors so that each gives to each an added and en-
riched meaning and expression. A window designed essen-
tially as a device for letting light and air into a room he-
comes by reason of its proportion and placing, a shadow
in contrast to a plane of light, an accent or a note in at
rhythmic scale, a line of direction or a spot of decoration
according to its arrangement. The delicate adjustment
of part to part, each comely in itself, the intricate inter-
weaving of texture, form and color to produce a web
or pattern at once logical and interesting: that is style
in architecture. Simplicity of style is desirable if
we have a right understanding of the word. The simplicity
of the side of a grain elevator is not in itself admirable, but
the simplicity of a flower is lovely; that simplicity which at-
tains the highest degree of elegant and pregnant meaning
without obtrusion. Let us say an interesting simplicity.
In architecture there is a fatal tendency to consider style
an affair of columns, cornices, doorways, etc., of low roofs
and high roofs, of brick walls or plaster. A much more

104. ARCHITECTURAL STYLES FOR COUNTRY HOUSES

intelligent view-point is necessary if we are ever to outgrow
the hit-and-miss results that now make our streets a hodge-
podge of incongruities, each swearing at each. It is doubt-
ful if we shall ever again have any great uniformity of type
such as has in given places and times produced marked and
recognized styles. Altered conditions have altered our ar-
tistic ideals and expression. The development and growing
independence of the individual call for a more various ex-
pression, but it is not inconsistent to assume that a grow-
ing intelligence on the part of the individual will ultimately
result in an artistic expression richer in variety and still
possessing unity commensurate with an even development of
the individual unit. Such a style will be the outgrowth of
democracy.

To apply these definitions and principles to house build-
ing, let us consider an entire property as the home, part
under roof and part out-of-doors. If the property be lo-
cated on a street in close contact with others, privacy will
be sought, along with a certain formality consistent with the
straight lines of the street and of the property. If the es-
tate be large, privacy will be achieved by setting the living
spaces both of ground and house back from the public high-
ways. If the ground be susceptible to easy arrangement a
measurable formality will still be desirable, for a house is but
the background for human life, and to reclaim the ground
from the wild will be the first necessity to prepare it

A STYLE OF THE WESTERN PLAINS 105

for habitation. If the ground be rough and intractable the
architectural development will be less formal, less rigid, for
the essence of good design is that each part shall harmonize
with every other part, and the house is but a part of the
home, a part of the picture.

A formal Colonial house perched upon the rugged rocks
of the Maine coast is unsuited, in spite of the efforts of the
Colonial builders to put them there, for the spirit of the
house and of its setting are antagonistic. Contrast is a nec-
essary quality in artistic composition, but its complement is
harmony. Contrast and opposition are different words.

An appreciation of the " style " of the landscape is the
first essential in determining the style of your house, and
this style cannot be changed, for no matter how thoroughly
you transform the garden and immediate surroundings to
conform to the selected house style, there will still be a hedge
over which you will look into the unalterable face of Nature
as she is around you. The house must grow out of the
ground as naturally as the trees. The very color of the air
has a bearing on the style, particularly as to color. The
bright hot colors suitable to the tropics are a pain to the eye
in the gray-blue air of New England or Illinois, and when
the jsnows of winter spread a cold white background they
are unbearable.

It is as impossible to give a signed and sealed prescrip-
tion for the selection of a style for an American house as it is

106 ARCHITECTURAL STYLES FOR COUNTRY HOUSES

for the style of a portrait. A rough and rugged man must
be painted in a different way from a frail and delicate girl,
and the circumstances governing each house may change
its character as widely. The site, the relative importance
of the house, and the individuality of its occupants are po-
tent factors in the determination of its style. Dignity, ele-
gance, picturesqueness, simplicity and homeliness are not
determining factors of style but merely attributes. Kinds,
quality and availability of materials are details in the tech-
nique of architecture — not determining factors of style.

The illustrations shown are examples of houses having
the elusive quality called " style," without being necessarily
recognizable as essays in any of the historic styles. They
show some of the characteristics of what has been some-
times referred to as the Chicago School. They are suffi-
ciently unlike to raise, perhaps, some question as to just
what the Chicago School is, and the question is hard to an-
swer. They show, however, a common freedom from the
restraint of accepted academic formulas of design and a gen-
eral inclination on the part of their designers to build sim-
ply from local conditions, expressing logically the govern-
ing functions and developing the nature of the materials
employed in a manner simple and at the same time inter-
esting.

The chapter by Mr. Frank E. Wallis, " The Colonial
House," is so well written and is so largely true that it com-

Frank Lloyd Wright, architect

Detail of a house in which the horizonal lines are strongly accented in
every possible way to harmonize with the flat plains of the site

Walter Hurley Griffin, architect

A living-room in which the arrangement and treatment of the English
natural materials, free from applied decoration, tell the whole
story of architecture

A living-room in which the frank and straightforward treatment of
wood paneling takes the place of all decoration

A STYLE OF THE WESTERN PLAINS 107

pels our admiration and convinces us, at least, that a Colo-
nial house by Mr. Wallis would be very lovely indeed. He
deals some doughty knocks at what he calls " the so-called
misnamed Mission " style, yet even Mr. Wallis would not
advise Colonial for the hot and arid places whose local con-
ditions produced and made lovely the old Missions that we
still delight to see. It is the modern " Mission " style, the
importation, that Mr. Wallis resents, and when he raises
his little hammer, I, for one, wish more strength to his el-
bow. The old Missions were true to their time and place,
truly and beautifully built, and we still find them good.
The lesson is always the same — to build closely to the Lines
of need, of environment, is always to build truthfully and
nearly always beautifully. Failure to do so always results
in pretension, and generally in artistic chaos. The make-
believe is never truly or permanently beautiful. As surely
as a " Mission " house looks out of place in Massachusetts,
just so surely does a Colonial house look ridiculous in New
Mexico or Southern California.

The argument that Colonial is indigenous, American, and
therefore to be preferred for use to-day could not be better
presented than it is in the first chapter, nor could a fitter
argument against its too literal use be advanced than the
illustration facing page 7. This picture shows the living-
room of a remodeled farmhouse at Pocasset, Mass. It is
a beautiful room, perfectly typical of a Colonial farmhouse.

108 ARCHITECTURAL STYLES FOR COUNTRY HOUSES

It has the old-fashioned wide and high fireplace, with iron
crane suspending a large copper pot and tea-kettle. On the
chimney-breast hangs a powder-horn and in the corner of
the room an old flint-lock rifle. Beside the chimney rests
a mortar and pestle for grinding grains, on the wall a warm-
ing-pan and over one of the doors the model of a ship.
These, with a dozen other implements, including chairs, table
and clock, serve now to decorate the room, just as they prob-
ably did in the days when this house was occupied by its
builder. But in those days each item of what is now deco-
ration was then a living vital implement in the life within
that house. Does my lady of to-day boil the water and turn
the roast over this fire on this crane and roasting spit?
Does she grind her flour in this mortar, does she warm the
beds with this warming-pan, and does the lord of this manor
keep his rifle clean and his flint sharp and ready with pow-
der and ball to repel the prowling savage who threatens the
integrity of his scalp? I doubt it. Hidden away in the
basement is probably a furnace; in the kitchen a gas stove
and a sink, with hot and cold water; the grocer delivers the
flour already ground, and the policeman takes care of the
prowling redskins. This room then is a museum — not the
living-room of a family of to-day. There is no trace here
of the individuality of the present occupants ; this room bears
the imprint of the life of people long dead and gone, and
no other. And why should the present lady of this house

A STYLE OF THE WESTERN PLAINS 109

be denied her expression in her home? Because, gentle
reader, she does not belong in the Colonial picture ; she is of
to-day, and her living-room is of another day. This is art
for art's sake with a vengeance, and it is just stage-setting,
not architecture.

If you will look into any of the beautiful old creations
of the historic styles or periods, you will find that the sweet
and human qualities we now admire are entirely due to a
faithful and free interpretation of their needs and environ-
ment. We in our work to-day are ignoring this great prin-
ciple which is the life of architecture.

Mr. Wallis says, " I can think of no other style for a
house." Is he, then, to search only his memory? Every
creative artist is something of a prophet, a pioneer. Is it
not reasonable, then, for him to search also his consciousness
of the present and the future? The grape-arbor, the for-
mal garden, the water pool with the green frog, the dainty
napery, cut glass and old silverware, so much admired by
Mr. Wallis and by all of us, are not the exclusive accessories
of a Colonial house. But I do not argue against the Colonial
style or against any style, but only for the honest method
of design that produced those styles and which, if practiced
to-day, would produce something different but just as good
and certainly vastly closer to us and to our needs. The
influence of beautiful things and a beautiful home on peo-
ple, and especially upon children brought up amid such sur-

110 ARCHITECTURAL STYLES FOR COUNTRY HOUSES

roundings, is of incalculable benefit, but it is important that
this influence be founded upon a sound and logical base.
The sham and the make-believe in architecture do not fur-
nish such a base. Good traditions are excellent, but are the
generations to come to have nothing vital of ours to re-
member with gratitude, excepting the wonderful machines
which we have invented and disdained to use in our arts?
The truth is that our civilization grows more and more def-
inite by increasingly great strides, until the call for an ar-
tistic expression of it becomes imperative. We are no
longer content with the plan or domestic arrangements of
the Colonial house ; we have outgrown it. Our list of build-
ing materials is vastly richer, our machinery for working
materials is marvelously capable of newer and better uses
than the imitation of handwork to which we now endeavor
to restrict them. We have changed and improved our man-
ner of heating and lighting our houses. Every sanitary ar-
rangement has undergone change and development. In-
deed, our entire life to-day is so radically different from the
life of the Colonial builders that it would be strange indeed!
if their houses could in any way satisfy us except superfi-
cially for their prettiness, their scenery value. - -

What else is there, then? Certainly nothing ready-made
or easily made; nothing more than a right method of work-
ing. Any skilful architect knows when he is violating the
style traditions. It becomes his duty now to violate them

A STYLE OF THE WESTERN PLAINS 111

more radically, to examine more critically modern needs,
and to interpret them in terms of his art. I am unwilling
to believe that this is a great stumbling-block. Our paint-
ers, sculptors, musicians, writers and actors have passed it
long ago. Architecture is the only one of the arts which is
still struggling to escape from the Classic period.

"The Northern Tradition

Alfred Morton Git hens

Charles Barton Keen, architect
Two views of "Swarthmore Lodge," Bryn Mawr, Pa.

"There is nothing in these houses that is not a natural expression of

contruction. The stout stone columns are doubtless taken from

the old barns near Philadelphia, the pergola surely from

Italy . . . but each is perfectly fitted to its uses

"The Northern "Tradition

WHEN the editor asks the most fitting style for an
American country house — by which presumably
he means the style proper to the major part of the
United States, not South America or Southern California,
with their different materials and traditions — the self-evi-
dent answer seems to be, " That style which is the natural
expression of our building materials and constructive prob-
lems."

A house, after all, is an enclosure of walls with a roof
over it. Now, no matter what the material, walls are ver-
tical always, and windows and doors are merely holes in
them. But the roofs vary in character with the material
used, and seem to give the first broad impression. An
Eastern house, and one pictures high parapet walls and hid-
den behind them a flat, clay roof where the master walks in
the cool of the day; a house of the romance countries, Italy,
Spain or Southern France, and one sees gently sloping tile
roofs and broad eaves ; Northern France suggests the exces-
sively steep slate of Normandy farms or the chateaux of the
Loire; Germany and Britain, and whatever the so-called
" style," the roof-slope is neither steep like the Norman or
flat like the Southern, but a half-way pitch, generally end-

115

116 ARCHITECTURAL STYLES FOR COUNTRY HOUSES

ing in gabled walls. A child draws a house on his slate and
though one cannot tell whether it be " Gothic " or " Colo-
nial," still it never fails to show the roof-slope. Perhaps
the roof should be the standard of classification, that just
as a fossil-hunter ignores at first all other structure and
broadly classifies his skeletons by the tooth formation, so the

SifUDTllDD. (frfcjj) GAR.DEM .

IPw^l

I°aifc— -ji ||C- ij.

First floor plan. "Swarthmore Lodge," Bryn Mawr, Pa.
Charles Barton Keen and Frank Mead, architects.

philosopher-architect should look to his roofs for guidance
— the teeth of the house, as it were.

Roof-slope seemingly should be determined by the ma-
terials used. Tin we have apparently discarded; interlock-
ing tile is so expensive that for the immediate future it will
not be common enough to count in the average ; so the slope
must be determined by slate and shingles. Build the roof

THE NORTHERN TRADITION

117

flatter than thirty degrees, and rain and snow will drift
in; steeper than forty-five degrees or fifty, and space is
wasted and money with it ; narrow limits indeed — enough,
it seems, to form a dominant character.

If this argument is just, then the conclusions must have

etD "BOOM I ' BtP ROOM | JB£0. ROOM,

Second floor plan, "Swarthmore Lodge," Bryn Mawr, Pa.
Charles Barton Keen and Frank Mead, architects.

been reached long ago. They should be found crystallized
as a type in use ever since building with these materials be-
gan. Fads and fashions might assert themselves for awhile,
but after each there should be a recurrence to the type.

If we follow the history of country houses in a northern
country, England for example, as it is best known, we find
striking proofs of this surmise. The builder of the Middle

118 ARCHITECTURAL STYLES FOR COUNTRY HOUSES

Ages knew nothing of distant lands, had nothing to copy,
and therefore his houses should obey this natural law as to
slope without attempt at concealment, and so they do ; so do
the later houses without exception down to Elizabeth's time,

FIRST FLOOR

SECOND FLOOR.

A house at Villa Nova, Pa.
Charles Barton Keen, architect.

when certain men masked their roofs with high parapets, as
at Hatfield or Bramshill; a few years, and under King
James the fad is forgotten and the true tradition revives.
The high Renaissance comes with its artificiality and the type
is banished to the simpler houses of the countryside or the
colonies. These recognize the Classic Revival by veneering
a pilaster each side the entrance door, by inventing a sort of
pediment to put over them, by elaborating the eaves into a

THE NORTHERN TRADITION

119

cornice and perhaps adopting a more orderly arrangement
of windows, but otherwise the type is little altered.

Then why not this for the answer to the question — this
nameless basic type which one writer calls the " English Tra-

5ECQND FLOOR

A house at Woodmere, L. I.
Charles Barton Keen, architect.

dition," though it was the tradition equally of Scotland, of
Ireland, of the American colonies and, it seems, most north-
ern countries? Its characteristics are its roof -pitch, its
gables (for gables are simpler than hipped roofs framed to
slope back at the ends of the house) , the moderate overhang
of roof (for broad eaves shut out the sunlight which in the
north we need), and the importance given to chimneys.
Examples of it are the Tudor country houses, the simpler
of the Georgian, the Colonial of the northern states, barring
those houses showing the worst artificialities; the Dutch Co-
lonial, with its thrifty gambrel roof, framed to get most with

120 ARCHITECTURAL STYLES FOR COUNTRY HOUSES

least expense, and, purest of all, the farmhouses and barns
here and in Northern Europe. Just now the type seems
undergoing a curious development in England, a complica-
tion of many gables, of strange and restless oddities of con-
torted, half -developed forms, the picturesque run wild. In
America, Procrustes-like, we stretch it to fit a repertoire of
" styles " — loaded with false half-timber to wear its appear-
ance of some centuries ago ; decked with pilasters in the fond
hope that it will appear " Classic " or what is called " Co-
lonial " ; shorn of its gables, with roof depressed and wide
eaves, it is " Italian."

One enters a certain suburb of New York. All the
houses are new; no buildings wrere there a year or two ago;
it was a clear field for architects to do what they could, for
the promoters were anxious to make it an ideal suburb: yet
its general impression is discordant in the extreme. Houses
are individually most interesting, far above those of the av-
erage town in character, yet it is one of the most unpleasant
towns one ever sees. One leaves it with discouragement,
with the impression that our country architecture is result-
ing in a condition worse than the much-despised mid-nine-
teenth century, when at least there was a certain harmony;
that our study, our familiarity with the best work in the
world has resulted in nothing ; that " the mountain has la-
bored and brought forth a mouse."

One passes " Colonial," " half -timber," " modern English

THE NORTHERN TRADITION 121

plaster," " thatched shingle roofs," " Italian adaptations " —
all seriously studied too, and most of the houses distinctly
good according to their several ideals — and the result is
wildest discord. Each house strives to assert its indepen-
dence and drown its fellow. It is as if in an opera Briin-
hilde and Carmen, Yum- Yum and Aida, Thais and the
Runaway Girl were all on the stage together, answering
each to each in her own song, some serious, some frivolous,
each admirable, and the result diabolical.

An English or a German town never gives this impres-
sion. Is it possible that there they have a clearer concep-
tion of the basic type? One house may have the orderly ar-
rangement of the Georges and the next a Tudor-arched
doorway and mullioned windows, but the difference seems
rather interesting. Is it because they are all perfectly nat-
ural in their use of materials and roof forms, members of
the same family, so to speak, all examples of the same tra-
ditional type, nearer, perhaps, than their builders realized
or that one can recognize at present on account of his hav-
ing befogged his wits with much reading of the character-
istics of these " styles? "

But this was to be an article upholding a certain " style! "

Until a style is past and done with, it has no name. The

medieval architect would have been much surprised to learn

that he was designing in " Gothic," or the early settler that

he was doing " Dutch Colonial." Let us beg the question
then, and argue for a certain type, rather. " Grayeyres,"
" Two Stacks," " Swarthmore Lodge " or the Villa Nova or
Woodmere houses are pure examples, but what can they be
called more than " Northern Tradition? " As far as I can
see there is nothing in them not a natural expression of con-
struction. The stout stone columns were doubtless taken
from the old barns near Philadelphia, the pergola surely
from Italy, the porch about the Villa Nova house from no-
where at all, but each is perfectly fitted to its uses. What
difference does it make whether windows are in groups with
mullions between or each a single rectangle fitted with small,
square panes, or the doors round-arched with fan-lights or
depressed-pointed with clustered moldings?

They are of a type with gables and sloping roofs, the
whole house under a single roof or with a long main ridge
with intersecting gables disposed either formally or infor-
mally as the site, the plan, or the owner's whim suggests.
In each the gentle lines of silhouette seem to fit our irregu-
lar treatment of a countryside where, for instance, the long
tranquil lines of the Italian villas might seem unrelated.
They must have a proper setting of formal terrace and gar-
den to be in their full majesty; but our northern type is
democratic and seems born of the soil. It suits hillside or
meadow, formal gardens or no gardens at all with equal nat-
uralness, a sine qua non of a successful American type, for

Charles Z. Klauder, architect

"Two Stacks," near Philadelphia, Pa. — Mr. Klauder's own house. The

entrance front above; the garden front below. The texture and

color of the stonework makes unnecessary and

superfluous all exterior decoration

THE NORTHERN TRADITION . 123

while one man likes formality, another does not; where one
man desires a garden with straight paths and arbors another
would sow in grass with clumps of trees, and so it goes.

" Northern Tradition " as a title is misleading in one re-
spect. Its defense has not been attempted because it is tra-
ditional; that were an emotional reason, as, alas! most archi-
tectural arguments seem to be — misty, built on a morass of
sentiment, will-o'-the-wisps which lead to self destruction.
But the argument is that the house should take its form
from the materials employed and the constructive problem
to be solved, all in the easiest and most natural way, the old,
old argument of Ruskin, the tf Cherchez le Verite " of the
Paris school, by which they mean that the most direct solu-
tion of the constructive problem should determine the form
of the result. Now, since the problem has been substantially
the same in Northern Europe since the Middle Ages, we
should test our solution by comparison with the persisting
basic type there; that, as it seems, our solution agrees with
this, we may feel sure we have argued logically, that our
type is the same as this, and that by so building we are
merely continuing the " Northern Tradition."

Some of my predecessors have argued that historic as-
sociation should govern style ; others that any beautiful qual-
ity should be adopted. Both true, but is it not true that we
should take only what we can properly assimilate; that all
else, be it beautiful beyond words, we may admire but must

124 ARCHITECTURAL STYLES FOR COUNTRY HOUSES

pass by, to work out our own solution with the natural use
of our own materials?

Look at the House and Garden symbol in the circle re-
produced on the title page of this volume; what " style" is
that house? Dear knows; but it does not matter. Un-
consciously the magazine has adopted in its simplest form
the Northern Tradition, and what is unconscious is natural,
and what is natural is best.

THE END

t>i

•P -H

< Sr

^ *

rH <j

f" :

to
OJ

-*4

4
o

• i

•i

-«-l
«j

k|
»*

-r-i

to;

'oi
U

o
5

—

UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO
LIBRARY

Acme Library Card Pocket

Under Pat. " Ref. Index File."
Made by LIBRARY BUREAU

Internet Archive Audio

Featured

Top

Images

Featured

Top

Software

Featured

Top

Books

Featured

Top

Video

Featured

Top

Mobile Apps

Browser Extensions

Archive-It Subscription

Save Page Now

Full text of "Architectural styles for country houses, the characteristics and merits of various types of architecture as set forth by enthusiastic advocates"

See other formats