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•v. • ■ •

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1

ONE HUNDRED
COUNTRY HOUSES

fDobern Hmerican Examples

AYMAR EMBURY II

PUBLISHED BY THE CENTURY CO.
NEW YORK M CM IX

Twt D€ X-'NNS «^es*

TO MY KINDEST CRITIC AND FELLOW-WORKMAN,

ALFRED BUSSELLE

CONTENTS

Introduction: The New American Architecture . 3

I New England Colonial 16

II Southern Colonial 37

III Classic Revival 56

IV Dutch Colonial 74.

V Spanish or Mission 93

VI American Farm-house 107

VII Elizabethan 123

VIII Modern English i/^g

IX Italian 174.

X Art Nouveau i

XI Japanesque 215

XII The House and the Garden 2

XIII The Plan of the House 247

£.%r

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

CHAPTER I. NEW ENGLAND COLONIAL

PAGE

HOUSE FOR AUSTIN W. LORD, WATER WITCH, N. J 19

Lord 8c Hewlett, Architects.

HOUSE FOR MR. CHAUNCEY OLCOTT, SARATOGA SPRINGS, N. Y. ... 21
Keen 8c Mead, Architects.

THE PITMAN RESIDENCE, BROOKLINE, MASS 23

Kilham & Hopkins, Architects.

THE BRIGGS RESIDENCE, BROOKLINE, MASS 25

Kilham 8c Hopkins, Architects.

HOUSE FOR WILLIAM H. GRAY, DEDHAM, MASS 27

James Purdon, Architect.

THE CHENEY RESIDENCE, SOUTH MANCHESTER, MASS 29

Charles A Piatt, Architect.

HOUSE FOR MR. WITHERBEE BLACK, PELHAM MANOR, N. Y 31

O. C. Hering, Architect.

HOUSE AT NEEDHAM, MASS 33

James Purdon, Architect.

THE SWIFT RESIDENCE, LARCHMONT, N. Y 35

Ewing 8c Chappell, Architects.

CHAPTER II. SOUTHERN COLONIAL

••EASTOVER," WYOMING, N. J 39

Joy Wheeler Dow, Architect. ,

THE SAMUEL ADAMS HOUSE, SEWICKLEY, PA 41

Alden 8c Harlow, Architects.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

PACK

HOUSE OF DR. A. C. CABOT, CANTON, MASS 43

Charles A. Piatt, Architect.

HOUSE OF HOWARD CLARK, BRISTOL, R. 1 45

Charles A. Piatt, Architect.

RESIDENCE OF E. R. THOMAS, SHEEPSHEAD BAY, N. Y 47

Lionel Moses, Architect.

RESIDENCE OF ERNESTUS GULICK, GARDEN CITY ESTATES, L. I. ... 49
Kirby, Petit & Green, Architects.

THE FRANKENBERG HOUSE, GREENWICH, CONN 51

Hale Sc Rogers, Architects.

C. L. WISE RESIDENCE, EAST ORANGE, N. J. . . 53

Percy Griffin, Architect.

HOUSE OF PROFESSOR L. W. REID, HAVERFORD, PA 55

Bailey Sc Bassett, Architects.

CHAPTER III. CLASSIC REVIVAL

RESIDENCE OF DR. MARSDEN, CHESTNUT HILL, PA 59

Charles Barton Keen, Architect.

THE MATHERS FARM-HOUSE, GERMANTOWN, PA 61

Charles Barton Keen, Architect.

RESIDENCE OF MR. JOHN CHAPMAN, TARRYTOWN, N. Y 63

Charles A. Piatt, Architect.

RESIDENCE FOR MRS. PROBST, ENGLEWOOD, N. J 65

Davis, McGrath 8c Shepard, Architects.

M. TAYLOR PYNE HOUSE, PRINCETON, N. J 67

Raleigh C. Gildersleeve, Architect.

THE RAMSAY HOUSE, CLEVELAND, 69

Elzner Sc Anderson, Architects.

RESIDENCE OF ALFRED BUSSELLE, CHAPPAQUA, N.Y 71

Alfred Busselle, Architect. •

MR. WYATT'S RESIDENCE, BALTIMORE, MD 73

Wyatt Sc Nolting, Architects.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

CHAPTER IV. DUTCH COLONIAL

PAGE

A REAL ESTATE OFFICE, WOODMERE, L. 1 75

Charles Barton Keen, Architect.

HOUSE FOR MRS. J. E. SPEER, LOS ANGELES, CAL 77

Mvron Hunt & Elmer Grev, Architects.

THE CRENSHAW COTTAGE, GERMANTOWN, PA 79

Wilson Eyre, Architect.

COTTAGE OF MR. HENRY S. ORR, GARDEN CITY, L. 1 81

Aymar Embury II, Architect,

•^APPLEDORE," BOUND BROOK, NEW JERSEY 83

Aymar Embury II, Architect.

RESIDENCE OF MRS. ETHEL R. GRAEME, ENGLEWOOD, N. J 85

Aymar Embury II, Architect.

J. C. BULL HOUSE. TUCKAHOE, N. Y 87

Aymar Embury II, Architect.

HOUSE FOR ST. GEORGE BARBER, ENGLEWOOD, N. J 89

Aymar Embury II, Architect.

HOUSE AT COLONIA, N. J , .... 91

George Nichols, Architect.

CHAPTER V. SPANISH OR MISSION

MR. H. O. HAVEMEYER'S HOUSE, BAYBERRY POINT, L. 1 95

Grosvenor Atterbury, Architect.

MR. MACKENZIE'S RESIDENCE, OYSTER BAY, L. 1 97

G. C. Mackenzie, Architect.

THE REIDERMEISTER HOUSE, ENGLEWOOD, N. J. . • 99

William K. Benedict, Architect.

RESIDENCE OF E. S. HALL, WATER WITCH, N. J 101

Lyman A. Ford, Architect.

RESIDENCE AT CEDARHURST, L. 1 103

Louis Boynton, Architect.

RESIDENCE OF MR. TAYLOR, NORFOLK, CONN 105

Taylor & Levi, Architects.

4
t

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

CHAPTER VI. AMERICAN FARM-HOUSE

PACE

COTTAGE FOR MISS MARIA GREY, FOX POINT, WIS 109

Myron Hunt & Elmer Grey, Architects.

MR. JONES' COTTAGE, BRYN MAWR PARK, N. Y Ill

Sullivan W. Jones, Architect.

BENDIN RODE COTTAGE, HA VERFORD, PENN 113

Walter Smedlcy, Architect.

THE LYGERT HOUSE, GERMANTOWN, PENN 115

Cope & Stewardson, Architects.

F. P. LORD HOUSE, EDGEWORTH, PENN 117

Charles Barton Keen, Architect.

THE UNDERWOOD RESIDENCE, FOX POINT, WIS 119

Elmer Grey, Architect.

THE BATES COTTAGE, WYOMING, N. J 121

Joy Wheeler Dow, Architect.

CHAPTER VII. ELIZABETHAN

THE FINE RESIDENCE, PRINCETON, N. J , 127

Cope 8c Stewardson, Architects.

RESIDENCE OF MR. E. P. COE, ENGLEWOOD, N, J 129

Aymar Embury II, Architect.

F. M. NICHOLAS HOUSE, UNION VILLE, 131

Frank B. Mead, Architect.

BALDWIN RESIDENCE, DETROIT, MICH 133

Stratton & Baldwin, Architects.

GATE LODGE FOR W. K. VANDERBILT, JR., "DEEPDALE," L. 1 135

John Russell Pope, Architect.

SCOTT RESIDENCE, PELHAM MANOR, N. Y 137

Louis Metcalfe, Architect.

MR. JACKSON'S RESIDENCE, CAMBRIDGE, MASS 139

Allen W. Jackson, Architect.

• ■

Zll

•

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

PAGE

THE FASSETT RESIDENCE, NORFOLK, CONN 141

Taylor & Levi, Architects.

COTTAGE FOR MRS. BISLAND, LAWRENCE PARK, N. Y 143

William A. Bates, Architect.

THE RABBITT HOUSE, WYOMING, N. J 145

Joy Wheeler Dow, Architect.

RESIDENCE AT OYSTER BAY, L. 1 147

Grosvenor Atterbury, Architect.

CHAPTER VIII. MODERN ENGLISH

THE HOWARD RESIDENCE, BROOKLINE, MASS 151

Charles A. Piatt, Architect.

THE JACOBEAN HOUSE, BROOKLINE, MASS 153

William Whitney Lewis, Architect.

RESIDENCE OF MRS. GARLAND, HAMILTON, MASS 155

Winslow 8c Bigelow, Architects.

GATE LODGE OF MR. ERNEST A. HAMILL, LAKE FOREST, ILL 157

Spencer & Powers, Architects. «

THE BORIE RESIDENCE, JENKINTOWN, PENN 159

Wilson Eyre, Architect.

THE RICE RESIDENCE, IPSWICH, MASS 161

William G. Rantoul, Architect.

THE C. P. FOX HOUSE, PENLLYN, PENN 163

Cope & Stewardson, Architects.

RESIDENCE FOR DR. DAVID MAGIE, PRINCETON, N. J 165

Cope & Stewardson, Architects.

RESIDENCE OF MAXWELL WYETH, ROSEMOUNT, PENN 167

Wilson Eyre, Architect.

THE P. B. WALKER HOUSE, GLENCOE, ILL 169

Spencer & Powers, Architects.

COTTAGE FOR MRS. PRESBREY BISLAND, LAWRENCE PARK, N. Y. . . .171
Wilder & White, Architects.

HOUSE AT CEDARHURST, L. 1 173

Louis Boynton, Architect.

xiu

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

CHAPTER IX. ITALIAN

PACE

MR. BIGELOW'S RESIDENCE, READVILLE, MASS 175

Winslow & Bigelow, Architects.

RESIDENCE OF SAMUEL CABOT, CANTON, MASS 177

Winslow & Bigelow, Architects.

THE WILLIAMS RESIDENCE, NAHANT. MASS 179

Parker & Thomas, Architects.

RESIDENCE OF MR. HERING, PELHAM MANOR, N. Y 181

Oswald C. Hering, Architect.

)

RESIDENCE OF J. O. BLOSS, HARRISON, N. Y 183

Alfred Busselle, Architect.

RESIDENCE OF A. DURANT SNEDEN, AVON-BY-THE-SEA, N. J 185

A. Durant Sneden, Architect.

««CASA DEL PONTE," ROWAYTON, CONN 187

Slee Sc Bryson, Architects.

THE CARPENTER HOUSE, LAKE GENEVA, WIS 189

Howard Shaw, Architect.

THE A. C. BARTLETT HOUSE, LAKE GENEVA, WIS 191

Howard Shaw, Architect.

THE A. C. BARTLETT HOUSE, LAKE GENEVA, WIS 193

Howard Shaw, Architect.

CHAPTER X. ART NOUVEAU

•* RAGDALE," LAKE FOREST, ILL * 195

Howard Shaw, Architect.*

THE HEDGES RESIDENCE, BROOKLINE, MASS. 197

J. Lovell Little, Architect.

THE DUNNING COTTAGE, BRIARCLIFF, N. Y 199

A, Van Buren McGonigle, Architect.

A HOUSE AT GLEN RIDGE, N. J 201

A. Van Buren McGonigle.

xiv

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

PAGE

RESIDENCE OF CARLETON MACY, WOODMERE, L. 1 203

Albro & Lindeberg, Architects.

ENTRANCE TO THE CLUB HOUSE, KENSINGTON, ILL 205

George W. Maher, Architect.

RESIDENCE OF FRANCIS LACKNER, KENILWORTH, ILL 207

George W. Maher, Architect.

RESIDENCE OF MR. HARRY RUBENS, GLENCOE, ILL 209

George W. Maher, Architect.

HOUSE OF A. B. EASTWOOD, ROCHESTER, N. Y 211

Claude Bragdon, Architect.

RESIDENCE OF RUDOLPH TIETIG, CINCINNATI, 213

Tietig & Lee, Architects.

CHAPTER XI. JAPANESQUE

TICHENOR HOUSE, LONG BEACH, CAL 217

Greene & Greene, Architects.

RESIDENCE IN PASADENA, CAL 219

Greene & Greene, Architects.

TEA HOUSE AND POOL, LONG BEACH, CAL 221

Greene & Greene, Architects.

RESIDENCE OF DR. GUY COCHRAN, PASADENA, CAL 223

Myron Hunt & Elmer Grey, Architects.

RESIDENCE OF DR. GUY COCHRAN, PASADENA, CAL 225

Mvron Hunt & Elmer Grev, Architects,

THE FARRINGTON STUDIO, BERKELEY, CAL 227

Bernard Mavbeck, Architect.

A, CAMP ON LAKE WILBERT, ADIRONDACK MOUNTAINS 229

Davis & McGrath, Architects.

A COTTAGE FOR MR. DELAFIELD, TUXEDO PARK, N. Y 231

Donn Barber, Architect.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

CHAPTER XII. THE HOUSE AND THE GARDEN

PACK

GARDEN OF MR. JAMES HAMILTON, DETROIT, MICH 235

Stratton 8c Baldwin, Architects.

GARDEN OF DR. GUY COCHRAN, PASADENA, CAL 237

Myron Hunt & Elmer Grey, Architects.

CASA DEL PONTE, ROWAYTON, CONN • . 239

Slee & Bryson, Architects.

THE A. C. BARTLETT STUDIO AND GARDEN, LAKE GENEVA, WIS. . . .241
Howard Shaw, Architect.

THE GARDEN OF WELD, BROOKUNE, MASS 243

Charles A. Piatt, Architect.

THE CASINO AT FAULKNER FARM, BROOKUNE, MASS 245

Charles A. Piatt, Architect.

XVI

ONE HUNDRED COUNTRY HOUSES

INTRODUCTION

THE NEW AMERICAN ARCHITECTURE

TX THEN the medieval architect Vilard d'Honnicort was
^ ^ commissioned to build the church at St. Stephen at
Prague, he spent two years traveling around Europe study-
ing and sketching other churches. His sketch-books, which
have been preserved, are full of notes like this: ^^ Here's a
good tower; if it were changed thus: I could use it for
my church."

After this manner all architectural design has been done:
by the study of old work, varying the design to meet the
requirements of the individual case; and each style of
architecture has been logically evolved from the study and
revision of the work immediately preceding it. Thus
Roman architecture was derived from Greek, Romanesque
from Roman, and Gothic from Romanesque. During the
fourteenth century this chain was interrupted; somebody
dug up the Forum and all the near-by architects at once

ONE HUNDRED COUNTRY HOUSES

were fascinated by the Roman work and started to copy
it. Their knowledge of it was imperfect, but they were
very good architects and so created, almost by accident, the
free and charming, but by no means classic, architecture
which we know as Renaissance. This spread and developed
very slowly. Means of communication were poor and the
men of the countries outside Italy, trained, as Italians never
were, in Gothic architecture, were loath to give it up. In time,
however, the earlier process of development and elimination
was repeated, with the difference that now the development
was both aided and cramped by the increasing knowledge
and strength of the classic tradition. Thus the splendid
architecture of the Classic Revival was formed, gaining in
dignity what it lost in freedom.

It was toward the end of this period that in America
our ancestors became rich enough and had time enough to
think about things artistic; and after the Revolution the
eyes of the world were turned to this country with the
expectation that here, in a land unfettered by tradition and
unhampered by the monuments of a dead past, would be
developed an architecture original and beautiful. From
that time to this, both here and abroad, art writers have

THE NEW AMERICAN ARCHITECTURE

given voice to this feeling, and just as often they have ex-
pressed their mournful regret that we have so completely
failed.

Neither the expectation nor the regret was justified. It
would indeed have been a fine thing had we made an art
lovely and without precedent; but when the critics decry
our originality compared to that of Gothic and Greek
builders, they forget that the buildings they have in mind
were not spontaneous but the culmination of centuries of
study, experiment, and earnest effort. Had we been the
aboriginal Americans, without knowledge of the great past
and of different blood from its makers, we would have
developed, as the Indians did, an architecture novel and
without reminiscence of European work. But we were
transplanted Europeans of the blood of the old builders,
with memory of their work, all the more compelling be-
cause of the lack of daily familiarity therewith.

Nor can it be said that we entirely failed to create a new
style. Hardly had we become a nation before, working
with the old designs of the Renaissance in new materials
and with little accurate information to guide them, our
architects evolved the Colonial style; a result almost as ac-

ONE HUNDRED COUNTRY HOUSES

cidental as the Italian Renaissance and as truly an inde-
pendent style as that. And some of the monuments that
period has left us, notably the New York City Hall and
Independence Hall in Philadelphia, stand quite on a level
with any of the work of the Italian builders.

The American architects were still working in this Co-
lonial development of the old Roman school when, about
the year 1789, Stewart and Revett, two English travelers,
published their monumental work on the Antiquities of
Athens, which changed the current of work the world over,
from Roman channels to their prototype in Greece.

This movement influenced American architecture very
strongly and we find Fenimore Cooper complaining that
we were filling the land with "Greek temples'' utterly un-
suited to the environment. Some truth there was in this,
as there has been in all the criticisms of that character.
Yet Cooper failed to realize that in certain of the work
done at that time, notably the noble University of Virginia,
was shown a creative power as real as that of the Parthenon,
and that the old Greek motif, modified and adjusted to
needs of that day, was as vital an architecture as that of the
Greeks themselves.

THE NEW AMERICAN ARCHITECTURE

The Greek forms were, however, few in number and the
architects and their clients, the public, soon tired of them.
From that time on to within a few years, American work
has almost justified those critics who accuse it of being a
slavish copy of the foreign. With the exception of the bril-
liant adaptation of French Romanesque used by the late
H. H. Richardson, there was practically no good work done
which was not a close copy of an old original. But how
beautiful some of it was! Upjohn in his Gothic work,
and McKim, Meade & White in the Madison Square Gar-
den and in the Boston Public Library, and R. M. Hunt in
his copies of the French Renaissance, fairly outdid their
originals.

Now, at last we have developed rationally and naturally
an architectural style which may be fairly called our own.
Until within a few years American architects had practically
no training, few and poor books, and no monuments of
foreign work to copy. As with "dancing dogs and preach-
ing women'' the wonder was, not that they did it badly, but
that they did it at all. To-day the training is of the best,
both in the schools and in the offices; there is a flood of
architectural books of unquestioned merit, and with all the

ONE HUNDRED COUNTRY HOUSES

instruments for good work ready to our hands, we have
at length learned to use them, realizing that the truest
architecture is that which neither rejects the good which
has been done, nor tries to imitate it exactly. All this
knowledge and training might not have resulted in any-
thing further than more and better copies, had it not been
for that restless search for something new, modern, and ex-
pressive of present-day condition which we know as Art
Nouveau. This resulted in France, Austria, Italy, and
Germany in a type of design filled with beautiful, yet often
meaningless, lines; and in England and the United States,
coming at a critical period, it vitalized archaeology into
architecture. The use of the old work, changed and mod-
ified with the greatest possible freedom, is the key-note of
modern architecture, and we find those inveterate archaeol-
ogists, McKim, Meade & White, doing work as brilliantly
original as the Gorham Building and the Colony Club, in
which the old motives are so freely and skilfully treated
that the result is truly a new style.

While in all classes of buildings this modern sentiment
is apparent, it has advanced furthest in the country dwel-

THE NEW AMERICAN ARCHITECTURE

ling-house; and the reasons for this are evident. The great
number recently built gives almost unlimited opportunity
for change and experiment, and it is the type of buildings
least trammeled by the requirements of the owner and the
feeling that the building should conform to some extent
with others of its class. The results even of these few
years of work have been amazing to the observer, and the
illustrations here reproduced fairly represent this new
work.

They are very different and yet in a subtle way very
much alike. It is plain that their authors have started from
different prototypes; yet working with a common aim they
have achieved a result which is beyond mere copying, and
instinct with life.

Architects are employing a number of different historical
styles modified and modernized to suit the conditions and
needs of to-day. Exact reproduction of old work is apt to
be dry and tiresome; but there is nothing new under the
sun — in architecture at least — and so even the most modern
work has its prototype, sometimes so far separated from it
that the connection is barely perceptible. Accordingly

ONE HUNDRED COUNTRY HOUSES

those styles most usual in home-building will be dealt with
later under the following headings:

1 New England Colonial

2 Southern Colonial

3 Classic Revival

4 Dutch Colonial

5 Spanish or Mission

6 American Farm-house

7 Elizabethan

8 Modern English

9 Italian

10 Art Nouveau

1 1 Japanesque

This classification will be necessarily a very loose one;
probably almost every modern home owes something to two
or more of these styles, yet the root idea or motif will be
found mainly owing to one of them, and the points of like-
ness to, and divergence from, the older work will be shown.

This list divides itself naturally into two classes: one
more easily treated in a formal manner, and the other
suited to a less formal treatment. As a general, but not a

THE NEW AMERICAN ARCHITECTURE

hard-and-fast rule, the formal work is a far-away descendant
of the old classic period, while the informal is not. Under
the first class would come the divisions of "Colonial,"
"Classic Revival,'' "Spanish'' and "Italian," and under the
second fall the remaining styles,

A lot nearly level lends itself readily to almost any style
of house, but a sloping lot requires a house treated in an
informal way. Harmony of house and grounds is most
important, and a house should grow naturally from the
ground, not to be set upon it as if it had been dropped
there haphazard.

.The architecture of the first settlers in any part of the
country is apt to be that most suitable to it, and unless
some strong personal preference for another style prevents,
is probably the most satisfactory to employ. This is true
from a practical as well as from a sentimental standpoint:
our ancestors both here and in Europe did not think as
much of looks as they did of comfort; and the flat pitched
roofs of the Southern Colonial and Mission styles would
never have been employed by the New England or Middle
States farmers, who had to make the snow slide ofl" if they
did not want their bedrooms full of water. Yet while

1 1

ONE HUNDRED COUNTRY HOUSES

appearance was secondary, several factors made toward
suitability to location. The difficulties of transportation
compelled our ancestors to use the materials around them,
in country work at least, and there is something in the use
of native material which makes for fitness. Whether this
is purely sentimental or whether the colors and kinds of
the materials used are really harmonious with the woods
and ground from which they are taken, is hard to say. Such
nevertheless is the fact. The simplicity of most old work
is another element in its beauty; the structure of the build-
ings was always apparent in the exterior, and the suggestions
of the bones of a house under its skin is as a rule a good
feature; certainly it is one preached unceasingly by all
modern Art writers from Ruskin down. The fact that
cheap decorative motives for the exterior of the house did
not exist, compelled the old designers, call them carpenters
or architects as you will, for they were both, to study with
great care the masses of their work. It is in the main upon
the mass — or general proportion — of a building that its
beauty depends, for all detail is lost at the distance of a
hundred feet and only the outlines and the large shadows
remain.

»^

THE NEW AMERICAN ARCHITECTURE

The desire of every one is naturally enough for individu-
ality; and a house should express the character of its
occupant. Individuality, however, is not contrast; and the
cry of so many prospective home-builders for "something
different'' can be met just as well in harmony with the ad-
joining houses as out of harmony. There are an indefinite
number of designs possible in any style; each of its own
individual character, heavy or light, high or broad, accord-
ing to the desired expression of the style. Take for example
the Lord house designed by Mr. Keen in the farm-house
section, and the house for Dr. Cabot in the second chapter,
designed by Mr. Piatt; the one low and broad with heavy
columns and much roof; comfort and strength in every line.
The other slim, square, and simple, refined in detail and
good in proportion. Both have character, as distinct as
that of any two friends; yet they look like friends; born
and bred under the same sky; going each his own way
with community of interest to tie together their different
lives.

It is the likeness of these difi^erent styles of work that it
is thought here especially desirable to emphasize, and while,
as has been stated above, the houses shown later will be

ONE HUNDRED COUNTRY HOUSES

loosely grouped under their parent styles, they really com-
pose a single and modern type of architecture.

The characteristics of this style are honest expression of
the plan and structure in the exterior; and great freedom
and care in the use of materials; with an effort constantly
to expose rather than to conceal their nature. We no
longer turn and mold wood to appear like stone; nor do
we make the mechanical perfections of pressed brickwork
our aim, but rather try to get a texture to our flat surfaces
by the use of rough brick with deep-set joints and wide
rough shingles. The knowledge that age improves archi-
tecture as well as wine, is not new, but the realization that
the improvement is due to the texture of the surfaces and
the softening of the rigid lines is recent and has not yet by
any means become general.

The greatly increasing use of lattice-work, both as a
purely decorative feature, and as a trellis for vines, is another
characteristic of the modern work, and is apparent in a
great many examples here shown. The contrast between
delicate shadows cast by the lattice-work and the heavy
shadows of the cornices and projecting portions of the house
makes it a particularly eff'ective decoration, while forming,

THE NEW AMERICAN ARCHITECTURE

by the growth of vines upon it, an invaluable link between
the structure and grounds, conveying a sense of fitness of
the house to the site.

The order given above, in which the different styles are
to be treated, is not based upon any logical sequence, nor
is it possible so to do; but in a general way each style forms
a link between those adjoining.

CHAPTER I

NEW ENGLAND COLQNIAL

OF the various styles from which the houses of to-day
are descended, probably the one most commonly used
is the one treated in this chapter.

The title "Colonial'' is in a sense a misnomer, for the
title is generally understood to include all the work done
in this country prior to 1 840, and up to this time there
were a number of styles as distinct from each other as
Gothic and Romanesque. These styles were divided both
geographically and chronologically. In the different divi-
sions of what now constitute the United States the work
displayed nearly as great a variety of treatment as it did in
the separate countries of Europe, the New England States
employing an architecture very severe, simple, and quiet.
The detail was almost invariably light and had considerable
refinement. The masses of the houses were square, and
often without any projecting wings of any sort. Around

NEW ENGLAND COLONIAL

New York the Dutch farm-house style of architecture was
prevalent before the Revolution. In the neighborhood of
Philadelphia was a different type resembling more closely
the work of the same period in Maryland and Virginia than
the more northern work.

The houses of which we are now speaking are those
which in general are derived from New England motives,
but almost every one of them contains such an admixture
of elements foreign to the early New England style that
their inclusion under the term "New England Colonial"
is open to question, and only by a careful analysis of them
is it possible to trace their origin more to New England
than to other sources. Colonial or foreign.

In most of them there are very strong Italian influences
to be seen, especially in the detail of the cornices and in
the treatment of the porches. Generally speaking, the great
point of separation between the modern work along Colo-
nial lines and the older work is the constant use of details,
foreign to the style, applied to a house in mass quite simi-r
lar to the old work. Of course this use of extraneous
elements must be very carefully done to be successful.
When, however, they are incorporated into the design from

ONE HUNDRED COUNTRY HOUSES

its very inception, and are not simply introduced because
of a desire for something novel) they result in a crispness
and charm of detail that can hardly be surpassed.

The Lord house (the first illustration) is of all those
shown probably the purest in style, and yet there are many
points of divergence from the type. The width of the
shingle courses and their rough texture remind us very
strongly of the old-time country house. Yet the doubling
of the shingle courses is a very modern note. The house
is picturesque in composition, and while unsymmetrical,
shows a balance of design that is both clever and charm-
ing. The doorway and entrance porch are not upon the
axis of the building, while the two big chimneys are at
equal distance from the ends of the ridge. The little
pantry extension to the right brings the doorway back to
what may be called for lack of a better term, the center
of composition. The string-course above the heads of the
second-story windows is a recollection of the New England
village type of house so familiar to all visitors to DeerfieM
and Farmington. An especially interesting feature of the
house is the treatment of the cornice; this, richly treated
and of wide projection in the front and rear, is flat along

HOUSE FOR AUSTIN w, LORD

WATER WITCH, N. J.

LORD & HEWLETT, ARCHITECTS

ONE HUNDRED COUNTRY HOUSES

the gable-ends; and the cornice up the rake of the gables
is lighter than the main cornice. The old houses were
arranged in this way, but the treatment here is infinitely
more skilfully handled than in any of the old work, and
the feeling that the cornice does not fit neatly around the
corners, which is often observable in the old work, is here
entirely absent.

The Olcott house is very similar in character to the one
just described, and it is perhaps the most famous small
house in America. Exceedingly simple in mass and in
detail, the proportions are so admirable and the relation
of the window openings to wall surface so perfect that the
house compels attention, without having any exaggerated
or novel features. The house is simply composed of the
old motives a little more freely used than by their orig-
inators. The arbors at each end are nothing more or less
than the old grape-arbors, but so placed as to form a single
composition with the house, and to assist in forming a con-
nection between the house and the surroundings. The
trellis across the front is a feature which, while not com-
mon to New England, is often used in the neighborhood «•
of Philadelphia. The cornice, indeed, is considerably

HOUSE FOR MR. CHAUNCEY OLCOTT

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N. Y.

KEEN & MEAD, ARCHITECTS

ONE HUNDRED COUNTRY HOUSES

heavier than most Colonial architects would have dared
to employ, and the feeling of unity which it gives to the
house is its ample justification, and the placing of the
leaders at each end also helps in binding the house to-
gether. The treatment of the front porch with the flower-
boxes and beam-ends is one of which the old builders
would hardly have thought, and it seems very charming.
Perhaps the house owes almost as much of its charm to
the beauty of its setting as to any other one feature of the
design, and while the trees were certainly not included in
the architect's drawings, he unquestionably had their eflFect
in mind and placed his house in such a position as to best
bring them into the grouping. While it is not always
possible to obtain a setting like this, it very often happens
that an equally good setting is spoiled by unskilful placing
of the house upon the lot, and trees like these are sacri-
ficed to reasons of much slighter importance.

The Pitman and Briggs residences at Brookline, Massachu-
setts, resemble very closely the larger and handsomer village
residences around Boston, such residences as used to be spoken
of as mansions. It may be that the well-known Longfellow
house wa.s the suggestion for the Pitman house, and if so

THE PITMAN RESIDENCE

BROOKLINE, MASS.

KILHAM & HOPKINS. ARCHITECTS

ONE HUNDRED COUNTRY HOUSES

it was used in the proper way, not as a basis for a copy but
rather as an inspiration to a different and better treatment.
These houses are alike in the symmetry and simplicity of
their design, the grouping of five elements, two windows
on each side of the door, in the front of each being a favorite
one with the old Colonial builders. Especially interesting
is the front doorway of the Pitman house with the charm-
ing little trellis on either side of the Palladian motive; had
the building been an old one it would have become a shrine
for lovers of the Colonial. Even the fence with the inter-
esting posts and the little arched entrance-gate recalls very
strongly the old work, yet the treatment of the porches is

new, and though new, perfectly in harmony.

The Briggs house shows in the entrance doorway and
the piazza the influence of the Italian work, the doorway
being characteristically Italian and well adapted to the po-
sition in which it is used, although the columns seem a
trifle small and out of scale with the windows on either
side. The porch is not so happy as that of the Pitman
house.

The Gray residence is very far from the simple adher-
ence to the Colonial style shown in the other work. The

THE BRIGGS RESIDENCE

BROOKLINE, MASS.

KILHAM & HOPKINS, ARCHITECTS

ONE HUNDRED COUNTRY HOUSES

tremendous overhang of the cornice and the flatness of the
roof show strong Italian, or even Spanish, influence, while
the treatment of the front porch as a pergola is character-
istically modern. Compare the trellis with those of the
Olcott house, and the difi^erence between the strictly Colo-
nial usage and the modern one will be apparent. Here it
is arranged to form a belt course, and its original use as a
trellis for vines is, to some extent, lost sight of. Yet with-
out a single feature that is Colonial, this house plainly be-
longs to that class of work; it may be because the familiar
green and white of its coloring so strongly recalls Colonial
to our minds, yet it 'is probably because with all the use
of unfamiliar detail, the basic motive is precisely that of
the old work.

The Cheney residence by Mr. Charles A. Piatt resem-

bles in this respect the Gray residence, so far is it from
type that at times we are tempted to call it Italian. Of
all those illustrated here, it is, perhaps, the most thoroughly
modern although it is also the most restrained. Sturdy,
simple, and square, it is emphatically the most suitable resi-
dence imaginable for a modern gentleman descended from
the old Puritan stock. The beautiful balance and the air

HOUSE FOR WILLIAM H. GRAY

DEDHAM, MASS.

JAMES PORDON, ARCHITECT

ONE HUNDRED COUNTRY HOUSES

of utter sincerity, with nothing done for "effect/' but evi-
dently with no sparing of time and study to make all things
perfect, rank this unpretending house very high in the coun-
try work of to-day. The interweaving of the old New
England motives with those of Italy is complete and inex-
tricable, and it is this combination of any historic styles
that seem to the designer proper, treated with the utmost
freedom, that is the root indeed of the new American archi-
tecture. While we cannot all think so skilfully and in the
pure terms of Mr. Piatt's using, it is the idea present to the
mind of every man to-day who is giving true and honest
expression to his creative art.

The house at Pelham Manor, New York, by Oswald C.
Hering, resembles very closely the Cheney house. The cornice
treatment, the pergolas, and the arrangement of the win-
dows in the front are all very similar. The chief differ-
ence between the two houses being the difference in
materials, Mr. Hering's house being of stucco where the
other is of brick. With a light-colored house, such as this
one, the use of blinds as a decorative motive, even when
they are not required from any point of pure utility, is very
desirable, and the combination of gray or buff cement, dull

THE CHENEY RESrOENCE

SOUTH MANCHESTER, MASS.

CHARLES A. PLATT, ARCHITECT

ONE HUNDRED COUNTRY HOUSES

green blinds and white trim is very frequently used in mod-
ern work and almost invariably with success. A complex
color scheme is very difficult for an architect to handle, for
materials are not as flexible as the painter's palette, and it
is often necessary to confine the colors of a house to those
few simple ones which are inherent in the materials and
not obtained by art.

The house at Needham, Massachusetts, of which Mr.
Purdon is the architect, is similar in design, but with more
extended proportion. Like the others, it is composed of a
simple, central mass with wings; and here the piazzas are
treated at the ends of the wings instead of flanking the central
mass. The grouping of windows (^what is technically called
fenestration) is diff'erent from that of the other two houses
most closely resembling it, and in this respect is less like the
older work. The rooms inside are generally bettered in
appearance by grouped windows, but it is a more difficult
motive to treat in the exterior, as openings wider than their
height are apt to give a sense of lack of strength. The
broad white belt-course at the second-story line, which
Mr. Purdon has employed, has done much to counteract this
weakness, tying the building together, and giving a feeling

HOUSE FOR MR. WITHERBEE BLACK

PELHAM MANOR. N. V.

O. C. HERING. ARCHITECT

ONE HUNDRED COUNTRY HOUSES

of stability which would otherwise be lacking. The dor-
mers in this house are worthy of close attention, for while
they are very different from the majority of Colonial dor-
mers they seem to agree excellently well with the remainder
of the design, both in mass, detail, and grouping. The
front entrance-porch deserves the closest study, uniting a
very charming covering for the front doorway with the
second-story balcony so often found desirable in country
houses. The laying of the brick in pattern in this house
is very charmingly done, and shows a careful study of the
texture, essential to beauty in new work, which is spoken
of in the first chapter.

The Swift house at Larchmont, New York, is quite different
in type from these last three, preserving much more the

Colonial sentiment, although the root motive is not as
purely of New England origin as that of the others. This

is rather a combination of New England with Dutch Co-
lonial, the New England predominating. Probably the
feature best worth study and imitation in this house is the
very charming piazza. We find in New England trellised
posts to support the roof and we also find square posts.
This use of the square posts in connection with the trellis

HOUSE AT NEEDHAM. MASS.
JAMES PURDON, ARCHITECT

ONE HUNDRED COUNTRY HOUSES

has the advantages of both and the disadvantages of neither.
Trellis without the posts seems thin and weak, while the
use of the square posts alone is meager and lacking in in-
terest. Every one has probably noticed the charm of the
spider-web tracery of cables and ropes against the heavier
members of an unfinished steel structure. It is this same
grouping of light and heavy members which has been used
here and the beauty of its effect depends upon the sgime
causes. The setting of the house has evidently been very
carefully studied, the house being placed so that the large
trees hide the service wing, while they leave the main part
of the house free, except for foliage sufficient to relieve the
house from any bare newness of appearance, so that, while
the house had been but just completed at the time the
photograph here shown was made, it seems as if it had
been here for years.

The examples which have been presented show the wide
range of results obtained from the same motive, treated
by different hands to suit different requirements. That
they are kindred will be evident to all; likewise that they
are individual. All of them show the impress of the new
spirit which is pervading the architects of to-day. Of

THE SWIFT RESIDENCE

LARCHMONT, N. Y.

EWING & CHAPPELL, ARCHITECTS

ONE HUNDRED COUNTRY HOUSES

course there are many houses being built which are very
close copies of the old, often very charming copies, yet
these almost always impress the observer as being dry, hard,
and lacking in interest. Any copy, even a mechanically
correct one, lacks the beauty and charm which age alone
can bring; therefore, in new work it is best not to try to
imitate, but rather to create, not disregarding the old work,
but drawing upon its meaning and ideas as they may suit
the requirements presented.

CHAPTER II

SOUTHERN COLONIAL

^ I ^HE earliest buildings of architectural importance in
-^ the colonies were the old manor-houses in Virginia
and Maryland, and up to twenty years before the Civil War
the South continued to lead in architecture, as in the fame
of their hospitality, among the country houses of the land.
The earliest were of brick, imported because — as their
builders thought — there was no suitable clay in this coun-
try, for brickmaking, and in design they followed very
closely the English houses of the same period.

Piazzas were at first little used, since the English, with
all their love of outdoor life have never and do not to-day
build porches. The famous old mansion "Westover'' on
the James River is the best-known example of the period,
and is exceedingly close in its resemblance to the work of
the English architects who succeeded Sir Christopher Wren.

The climate, however, soon convinced the colonists of

ONE HUNDRED COUNTRY HOUSES

the necessity of outdoor sitting-rooms, and it was in the
South that verandas attained their greatest dignity and im-
portance. Sometimes they were one story in height as at
<^Homewood/' sometimes they extended the full height of
the house as at "Mount Vernon/' and sometimes they were
two-storied, the upper part called, as it is to-day, a "gal-
lery." This two-story porch was probably an importation
from the West Indian colonies, where it was a reminiscence
of the Spanish "patio'' with its two or more stories of gal-
leries surrounding the courtyard.

With the growth of plantation life came a correspond-
ing increase in the plan of the house. Elsewhere, the ser-
vice portion was contained in the main body of the house;
and business was rarely transacted at home. Here the heat
of the summer made it desirable to remove all fires from
the living and sleeping rooms, and the administration of
the plantation was the business of the house's occupant; so
in time there grew into the plans two wings, one for the
kitchen and store-rooms, and the other for the transaction
of business. " Mount Vernon " is, of course, a very familiar
example of this arrangement.

A similar development took place in building materials.

"EASTOVER"

WYOMING, ^f. J.

JOY WHEELER DOW, ARCHITECT

ONE HUNDRED COUNTRY HOUSES

Wood was found to be easier to obtain and cheaper to use
than brick; while equally good results, both in comfort
and appearance, were possible with its use. So wood ar-
chitecture began to make its appearance, and while it never
crowded out brick as it did in New England, it was still
much used even for the larger and handsomer class of
dwellings.

A marked point of difference between Southern and
Northern work was in the height of the ceilings. In New
England and the Middle States it was highly important
to have as few cubic feet of space as possible to heat
through the long, cold winters, while in the South the
airiness and coolness of the high ceilings was a necessity in
midsummer.

The old architecture of the far South at New Orleans
and along the Gulf, has had little influence over modern
work except in its own locality. This is much to be re-
gretted, for some of the most beautiful Colonial work in
America is to be found there, and is little known by most
architects. Some is, of course, situated far from the cities,
and the very knowledge of it would come only by accident,
but there remains a great body of material readily accessible

THE SAMUEL ADAMS HOUSE

SEWICKLEY. PA.

ALDEN U HARLOW, ARCHITECTS

ONE HUNDRED COUNTRY HOUSES

to the student of bygone times. The early work around
Philadelphia, on the other hand, has had great influence on
the modern; but as it is similar in character to the
Virginia work, houses derived from it will be classed with
the Southern ones.

Of the very earliest type is "Eastover,'' the brick resi-
dence at Orange shown in the first illustration. This is
pretty plainly indicated by its analogy to old "Westover"
not only in name but in design. While much smaller than
the original, it preserves the simple dignity and grace of
the older house, and that with many departures from old
lines. Bay-windows were almost unknown in Colonial
days, yet here is one absolutely fitting to the house, and
charming in itself. The double break in the wall where
the bay joins the flat surface of the house may be the secret
of the success of the treatment, but it probably lies deeper
— in the thorough sympathy between the designer and the
style.

While the Adams house is like "Eastover'' it is much
more modern in treatment. The front up to the cornice
is a very simple and charming design of the old type, with
a doorway of unusual beauty; while the side is entirely

HOUSE OF DR. A. C. CABOT

CANTON, MASS,

CHARLES A. PLATT, ARCHITECT

ONE HUNDRED COUNTRY HOUSES

unlike any of the old houses, yet the whole scheme hangs
together, and the exceeding cleverness of the treatment of
the side elevation becomes apparent only after careful
study. Where a change in the direction of the ridge of the
roof occurs a break in the wall surface at once suggests it-
self, in fact, is almost requisite, yet the plan itself may be
such as to make this break impossible. Such a case is
evidently before us, and by the simple expedient of a leader
at the rear termination of the gable the effect of this break
is produced. The window treatment on the front is
symmetrical to the point of formality; on the side the
windows cut through the walls apparently at their own will,
yet the whole is in harmony. The placing of the house
with the trees is also well done, and the terrace helps the
agreeable effect produced.

Dr. Cabot's house at Canton, Massachusetts, is in com-
position much like the house by Mr. Purdon, at Needham,
shown in the previous chapter. Composed of a simple
central mass dominating the wings, at the ends of which are
the piazzas, it is much like this New England Colonial
house; and the grouping of the windows, too, is similar. It
is in this similarity that lies the difficulty of dividing modern

HOUSE OF HOWARD CLARK

BRISTOL. R, L

CHARLES A. PLATT, ARCHITECT

ONE HUNDRED COUNTRY HOUSES

work into classes derived from older sources. The sources
themselves are often much alike, and it is impossible to be
absolutely certain of the root idea in every case, and it may
be that the architects of the houses would differ very w^idely
from their classification as here given, although the arrange-
ment has been the subject of much thought and study.
So these two houses, although they so closely resemble each
other, are placed under different headings because in them
there is that subtle difference of sentiment which seems to
stamp one as the descendant of Northern, and the other of
Southern, work.

The Cabot house almost speaks for itself. It seems un-
necessary to call to the reader's attention the beauty of
mass and of detail apparent everywhere in the design. The
very great area of the windows as compared with the mass
of the building presents a problem not easy of solution. Too
great a window surface is apt to break up a single mass into
its component parts; here by the strength of the white lines
of the terrace at the bottom and the cornice at the top of
this building the unity of the house is preserved, while the
large window surface suggests air and sun in the rooms
within. The four great chimneys flanking the main roof

RESIDENCE OF E. R. THOMAS

SHEEPSHEAD BAY, N. V.

UONEL MOSES, ARCHITECT

ONE HUNDRED COUNTRY HOUSES

are a favorite motive in the old w^ork, but it is not always
e.asy to adjust a modern plan so that it not only fits, but
requires them. When this is possible they form, as in this
case, a very delightful feature of the design.

The Clark house at Bristol, Rhode Island, suggests the
Cabot house, as might be expected from two examples
of the work of the same man. The treatment of the triple
openings is quite different from that in the Cabot house,
and is very original. The brick loggia at the right of the
house recalls the gallery between the main building and the
service quarters of the old-time plantation house. Like the
old work, too, are the dormers, bare to simplicity, and the
best that could be designed for this type of roof. Higher
or more decorated dormers would have given a ragged sky-
line, and spoiled the singleness of the composition.

The residence of which Mr. Moses was the architect is
in design more like those houses which were later built
under the influence of the Greek Revival, than the true
Colonial type, while the details follow this last-named
period. As has been noted with regard to other houses,
this is beautifully fit for the location. The trees and the
broad, sweeping road, as well as the generous lines of the

RESIDENCE OF ERNESTUS GULICK

GARDEN CITY ESTATES, L. I.

KIRBY, PETIT U GREEN, ARCHITECTS

ONE HUNDRED COUNTRY HOUSES

design, suggest ample comfort in the house. The harmony
in style between this new house and the quaint old barn
beyond shows exceedingly well how new work should be
treated to correspond with its surroundings, a feature not
often enough thought about, and which always deserves
the most serious consideration.

The Gulick house at Garden City Estates is similar in
type, but with the two-story portico across the front and
smaller porches at the ends. The roof of this house is the
familiar Dutch double-pitch roof, probably never used in
the South at the period when houses of this class were
built, but it is evidently suitable for its purpose. "Mount
Vernon" was evidently in the designer's mind as a standard
and he did not fall below it. The gardening, too, is very
Well done.

The Frankenburg house and the Wise residence are alike
in composition, but different in detail, as befits their execu-
tion in different materials. The very delicate and simple
cornice of the Wise house corresponds beautifully with the
pattern of the brickwork, and the porch treatment comes
just at the right place upon the fa9ade. The lattices used
in railings and to decorate the windows constitute perhaps

THE FRANKENBERG HOUSE

GREENWICH, CONN.

HALE k ROGERS, ARCHITECTS

ONE HUNDRED COUNTRY HOUSES

the most interesting feature of the Frankenburg house,
while the treatment of the porch with projecting beam-
ends in place ot a cornice, and the same arrangement over
the arcade in the center is one which, while thoroughly
modern in sentiment, accords with the character of the
building. The arcade is a feature which has been evolved
from the study of the architecture of the Renaissance and
one which is now coming to its own as a treatment for the
exterior walls of a sun-parlor, or living-room. It is un-
fortunate this photograph should have been taken so soon
after the completion of the building, for the stone wall
which here looks too heavy and clumsy for the remainder
of the building, would when covered with vines and hidden
by shrubbery be a most charming adjunct.

The Reed house at Haverford, Pennsylvania, is of local
material and design. Executed in brick, this would recall very
strongly the work of Maryland and Virginia, but in the
buff sandstone of which it is actually constructed it is of
the true old Philadelphia type. This stone was constantly
used by the Colonial builders, and is still much used in the
beautiful suburban work of the Philadelphia architects.
An unusual and interesting feature of this house is the

C. L. WISE RESIDENCE

EAST ORANGE. N. J.

PERCY GRIFFIN, ARCHITECT

ONE HUNDRED COUNTRY HOUSES

painting of the blinds green in the second story and white
in the first. The semi-circular windows on each side of
the chimney in the gable-end are delightful in pattern,
while the treatment of the cornice across the gable-end,
forming a shingled hood, is charming. It is to be regretted
that the exigencies of the third-floor arrangement required
the double dormers, but it is in such minor details that
modern needs, calling for more light and sunshine than
seemed to suit our ancestors, require the sacrifice of ap-
pearance to comfort.

In most of these examples there have been many extra-
neous elements introduced, yet all of them owe their genesis
to the few and simple motives of the older architecture.
While some of their designers have been content to accept
the old motives substantially unchanged, others prefer to
use them only as a ground- work; but all are using them in
a way which makes them their own, and with a proper
subordination of precedent to design.

HOUSE OF PROFESSOR L. W. REID

HAVERFORD. PA.

BAILEY tc BASSETT. ARCHITECTS

CHAPTER III

CLASSIC REVIVAL

BOUT the beginning of the nineteenth century in
America the forms of the old Colonial work were
merged into, and superseded by, the style known as the
Classic Revival. The Colonial architecture of New Eng-
land and of the South which has been illustrated in the two
preceding chapters was, although a descendant, a very far-
away descendant of the Greek and Roman forms. The
Classic Revival was a very close adaptation of the original
types to the needs of that day.

The causes of this were touched upon in the introduc-
tion. . The passion for the Classic political ideal, which
forms so curious a phase of the French Revolution, was
only one manifestation of an everywhere dominant interest
in the manners and life of the great Classic era. Know-
ledge had become more wide-spread throughout Western
Europe than it had been since the days of Roman occupa-

CLASSIC REVIVAL

tion. This knowledge brought in its train an eager ques-
tioning curiosity in regard to all things Classic. Corruption
was rife, and in the reaction against it people naturally
turned their eyes back to that time which seemed to them
the Golden Age, not realizing that the eighteenth century
was purity itself compared with imperial Rome.

The interest in all things artistic followed the interest in
things intellectual, and jewelry, dress, and architecture were
alike remodeled along pseudo-classic lines. As the only
remains of antique architecture existing were temples (for
Pompeii had not yet been discovered) it was the temple
form upon which was based the revival of the Classic type.
Since the original temple had jto windows it was naturally
something of a problem to adapt it to use as a dwelling.
The solution arrived at in-^mbst cases was simply to use the
temple portico as a piazza and to employ the usual type of
dwelling-house, with a complete change of detail from the
slim proportions of the Colonial to the heavy Roman, and
still heavier Greek. The portico then occupied the position
of the older piazza on the long side of the house; but some-
times an attempt was made to adhere more strictly to the
temple shape and the portico was placed on the end and

ONE HUNDRED COUNTRY HOUSES

windows were punched in the walls where necessary. In
this type the full entablature of architrave, frieze, and cornice
was retained; and as this was very wide, in small houses the
second-story windows were cut in the frieze, resulting in the
low broad windows close to the floor which have been so
aptly called "lie-on-your-stomach-windows," after the posi-
tion needed to look out of them.

The Mathers farm-house and the residence of Dr. Marsden
are very frankly like the old work. In each case a simple
four-columned portico supporting a pediment is used as a
frontispiece with the main body of the house running
across it. The use of the red brick with the white porch
was exceedingly common and of unfailing charm. The
portico is here treated with a full entablature (that is,
architrave, frieze, and cornice) over the columns, while the
cornice only continues around the house.

In the Marsden house the order is the familiar Roman
Doric, while the broad steps across the entire front of the
piazza remind us very strongly of the original temple. The
semi-circular window in the pediment over the portico is,
of course, a reminiscence of the earlier Colonial work, no
windows being used in temple pediments. It is such a

RESIDENCE OF DR. MARSDEN

CHESTNUT HILL, PA.

CHARLES BARTON KEEN, ARCHITECT

ONE HUNDRED COUNTRY HOUSES

happy adjustment as this of old forms to new needs which
makes the difFerence between copying and design. Evidence
of careful and painstaking study is shown also in the treat-
ment of the fence and gate-posts and the sweep of the drive
to the house. The wing at the right, forming the doctor's
ojfHce, while only one story high, is admirably in keeping
with the rest of the design, and yet is subordinated to the
main house in surface treatment by the lattice-work, as
well as in height.

The Mathers farm-house is greatly like the first example,
but the order is Ionic instead of Doric, and the roof is
gabled instead of hipped. Unusual is the use of four stories,
three in the body of the house, and one in the attic, and
it presents an immensely difficult problem, here beautifully
solved. The use of the big "order'' in the front of the
building serves to attract the eye away from .the building
itself, and aids in tying the whole structure to the ground.
While perhaps the stable archway, through which this pic-
ture is taken, should not be included in the criticism of
the house, the quality of the stonework is so lovely as to
be well worth comment. Half the charm of stonework lies
in the proper relation between the size of the stone and

THE MATHERS FARM-HOUSE

GERMANTOWN. PA.

CHARLES BARTON KEEN, ARCHITECT

ONE HUNDRED COUNTRY HOUSES

its position, here absolutely perfect, while the rough sur-
face of the stone and the wide joints give an exceedingly
pleasing texture to the whole.

These two houses just described adhere pretty closely to
their prototypes. They might almost have come from the
campus of the University of Virginia, and yet it is evident
that they are not simply copies, but the expression of an
original and creative mind. It is difficult to place one's
finger upon points of unlikeness to the older work, yet
they are, in common with houses of the most original de-
sign, imbued with the modern spirit.

The Chapman house, of which Mr. Piatt was the archi-
tect, is somewhat different in character, although the
motive is the same: namely, a portico on the longer face
of the building. The original Classic detail is blended
with strong reminiscences of both Italian and French
Renaissance. The portico is compressed toward the face
of the building with three-quarter "engaged columns'' in-
stead of free standing ones. The one-story porch at the
left-hand end employs a motive which is every day becom-
ing more usual in modern country-house work: the treat-
ment of the roof with projecting beam-ends, like a

RESIDENCE OF MR. JOHN CHAPMAN

TARRYTQWN, N. V.

CHARLES A. PLATT, ARCHITECT

ONE HUNDRED COUNTRY HOUSES

pergola, although the roof itself is closed, offering a beauti-
ful opportunity for the growth of vines along the top of
the porch, and at the same time giving a protection against
sun and rain. The little iron balconies on the central
motive are deserving of attention, as are the flower-boxes
between the windows of the first and second stories on the
flanking wings. In this house the full entablature is con-
tinued completely around, not stopping against the main
body of the house, as was the case in the previous examples.
The Probst residence at Englewood, New Jersey, is still
another application of the same principles, but in unusual
combination with the so-called "Dutch" or "gambrel"
roof. The walls are of clapboards, like the New England
houses, and the porch instead of having the columns spaced
nearly equal has them combined in pairs at either side of
the center, marking the entrance. It is to be regretted that
no photograph does this house justice, the beauty of the
detail being largely lost, and the effect of the mass of the
house injured, by the shadows cast by the clapboards, which
in reality play a very small part in the appearance. The
dormers, however, can here be seen to good advantage, and
are as thoughtfully studied as in any example given, while

RESIDENCE FOR MRS. PROBST

ENGLEWOOD, N. J.

DAVIS. McGRATH & SHEPARD, ARCHITECTS

ONE HUNDRED COUNTRY HOUSES

the treatment of the pediment over the main portico is,
perhaps, the most interesting of all.

In the Pyne residence at Princeton, New Jersey, the
pediment is omitted, the front of the building being deco-
rated with a colonnade of six beautifully proportioned
Ionic columns, with a simple and sturdy entablature above.
An interesting feature of this entablature is the use of the
"cushion frieze,'' so called from its curved section, instead
of the more usual straight frieze. The house is the largest
of which a photograph is here included, and has been re-
tained because of its quiet, simple, and home-like character.
The great difficulty in the design of a house of this size is
to make it a home and not a show-place, and Mr. Gilder-
sleeve's success in combining with the breadth and dignity
of the treatment an intimate and personal quality is note-
worthy.

The Ramsay house is under the influence of the Greek
Revival. The columns somewhat more attenuated than is
usual, are treated with the bell-formed capital, which was
the earliest Corinthian capital used by the Greeks. Here,
too, is used the " cushion frieze." It is to be regretted that
the windows of this house were not divided into small panes,

M. TAYLOR PYNE HOUSE

PRINCETON, N. J.

RALEIGH C. GILDERSLEEVE, ARCHITECT

ONE HUNDRED COUNTRY HOUSES

as is customary in work of this character, but large panes
are very frequently insisted upon by clients who think more
of an unobstructed view than of the exterior effect. All
houses are a series of compromises, and after all the wishes
of the client should be the governing factor. Dormers
play a very great part in the appearance of all houses, and
the many types which may be properly and consistently used
with Colonial houses form a constant source of pleasure to
the student of this work, while nothing mars more seriously
the appearance of a building than dormers when they are
badly designed or placed. These on the Ramsay house
are unusual but good in character.

The residence of Alfred Busselle is a very radical departure
in mass from the work of the Classic Revival, while because
of its preservation of the older detail it clearly belongs under
this heading. The dormers breaking through the cornice
are entirely unheard of in the older work and form inter-
esting secondary motives of the design. The use of the
piazza under a portion of the house is another very modern
feature, as is the tying of the design together by the heavy
entablature at the top of the single-story columns of the
piazza. These columns are typically Greek Doric, as are

THE RAMSAY HOUSE

CLEVELAND. OHIO

ELZNER & ANDERSON, ARCHITECTS

ONE HUNDRED COUNTRY HOUSES

the details, and that details as pure as these can be applied
to a Dutch roof as successfully as is here proven indicates
how free is the modern use of the old materials.

Mr. Wyatt's residence at Baltimore is modeled upon one
of the big square houses which were built at the very end
of the period of the Classic Revival. Most of them, built
of brick with their severity and lack of grace only relieved
by the lovely detail of the windows and entrance-doors,
look like enlarged packing-boxes. Here, however, this old,
clumsy motive is so skilfully used and so accurately placed

in its surroundings, that in spite of its uncompromising lines
it is truly a beautiful and refined piece of architecture. To
successfully design a building of this shape requires the
most careful and thorough study of the proportions of the
window-openings to the mass ; of the cornice to the build-
ing which it surmounts, and the most skilful handling of
the porches and entrance. Even these would go for noth-
ing were the proper setting unobtainable, but when, as
here, all things are in harmony, the tree shadows, the de-
tail, and the mass all work together to make a lovely pic-
ture. The high measure of success attained here means
much more than it would with a building of more inter-

RESIDENCE OF ALFRED BUSSELLE

CHAPPAQUA. N. Y.

ALFRED BUSSELLE, ARCHITECT

ONE HUNDRED COUNTRY HOUSES

esting roof-lines and greater possibilities for picturesque
treatment. It will remain a never-failing lesson in what
may be done with few and simple features.

The work of the Classic Revival was marked by dignity,
reserve, and a certain ample simplicity. The examples pre-
. sented are all, with the exception of the Busselle house, rather
more monumental than picturesque. They suggest square
high-ceilinged rooms, severe and simple furniture, rooms
light, clean and orderly. The jfirst four are of Roman detail,
the second four of Greek, but all convey an impression of
dignity without the least suggestion of the grandiose.

MR. WYATT'S RESIDENCE

BALTIMORE, MD.

WYATT & NOLTING, ARCHITECTS

J CHAPTER IV

DUTCH COLONIAL

I (o\Z' i^^zo

OF totally different character from the Colonial work
done in other parts of the United States, and the
work of the Classic Revival, was the architecture of the
Dutch settlers in the neighborhood of New York. The
old farm-houses — so many of which have fortunately been
preserved in the early Dutch settlements at Flatbush and
Flushing on Long Island, and at Hackensack,Schraalenburg,
and Demarest, in New Jersey — -were of a type very differ-
ent from the formal and symmetrical houses built by the
Colonial settlers of English descent.

The architecture of Holland has always been famous for
its picturesque quality and blood tells in art as well as in
manners. The feature which gave most quaintness to the
American work was the familiar Dutch or gambrel roof.
Just why this roof should have been so common around
New York is hard to say. In Holland it is rarely, if ever,

A REAL ESTATE OFFICE

WOODMERE,L. I.

CHARLES BARTON KEEN, ARCHITECT

ONE HUNDRED COUNTRY HOUSES

seen, and while it was occasionally used in other portions
of the Colonies it was the exception always. It is a shape
which lends itself admirably well to a picturesque treatment,
carrying the lines of the house well down to the ground,
especially when terminating in the broad sweeping curves
usual in most of the old work. These curves are seldom
reproduced in modern times, principally because of the great
labor involved in their construction. Labor was a small
item to the old settlers and when every beam had to be
hewn out by hand with an ax, it was not much more diffi-
cult to hew a curved than a straight timber; to-day, when
all lumber is wrought out by machine, the curved line in-
volves a very heavy expense. Another feature of the old
houses which impresses itself strongly upon the observer is
a cheerful disregard of uniformity of material. It was by
no means uncommon to find a single small farm-house with
the four walls of different materials, stone on one gable-end
and brick on the other, with stucco for the front and rear
walls, and perhaps the extension of shingles. Just why it
is that the use of stucco is so common in the Dutch work
is another of those fascinating problems which constantly
confront students of Colonial architecture. sStucco was

HOUSE FOR MRS. ). E. SPEER

LOS ANGELES, CAL.

MYRON HUNT tt ELMER GREY, ARCHITECTS

ONE HUNDRED COUNTRY HOUSES

very rarely employed in the English settlements — except
near Philadelphia — though the English, at home, built a
very large number of their farm-houses of stucco; and its
use in Holland was as rare as it was common in England.
Stone, too, was practically unknown in Holland, the flat,
low character of the country offering no building-stone at
all. Yet here a good half of the houses are of stone, and
many of these of both stone and stucco. In the details,
too, the Dutch was widely dissimilar from the other Colo-
nial work. * Their simplicity was quaint, rather than severe,
and while it is uncommon to find in Northern or Southern
work any molding which cannot be directly traced to some
Classic prototype, in the Dutch work much of the detail of
the moldings was distinctly Gothic. The columns had gen-
erally square or octagonal shafts, with caps and bases of
pure Gothic form. In the modern adaptation of Dutch
architecture more freedom has been used than with any
other of the early American styles, because this style, itself
exceedingly free, lends itself very easily to variations and
adaptations never employed by its originators. The Gothic
detail, so constantly employed in the older work, has been
generally lost in the modern. Architects of to-day are

THE CRENSHAW COTTAGE

GERMANTOWN, PA.

WILSON EYRE, ARCHITECT

ONE HUNDRED COUNTRY HOUSES

trained in classical schools, and while their design is often
spontaneous and without scholastic severity, at the same
time it is almost impossible for them to forget the formulae
with which they started their training. Then, too, the mate-
rials, as used now, are fewer in number than in Colonial times.
What was in old work naivete, in a present-day design would
be affectation. . As has already been said, the use of the
wide, swinging eaves of the earlier work has been generally
abandoned because of the difficulties attending its execution.
In spite of these points of diversion from type much of
the country-house work that is most truly modern and most
truly American, is unquestionably of Dutch genesis.

Such a house as that by Charles Barton Keen, shown in
the first illustration in this chapter, is unmistakably Dutch.
And yet if we except the shape of the roof and the general
proportion of the building it has not one truly Dutch
characteristic. Since the Dutch used no dormers it is need-
less to say that those used here, both the projecting one in
the center and the recessed ones at the sides, are not Dutch.
The big, circular pillar at each corner with the quaint
brackets under the eaves is Dutch only in spirit, while the
hood with its shell-formed arch over the front-door reminds

COTTAGE OF MR. HENRY S. ORR

GARDEN CITY, L. I.

AYMAR EMBURY II, ARCHITECT

ONE HUNDRED COUNTRY HOUSES

us of New England. The use of stucco for the first story
and wide white shingles for the second-story gable-ends,
with the dark-colored shingled roof, is almost the accepted
blend of materials in present-day work of this kind, and
while the house is not lacking in dignity, it is far from be-
ing of that somewhat rigid kind observable in the New
England and Southern work.

The Speer residence at Los Angeles, California, shows
how far-reaching has been the effect of those unpreten-
tious Dutch farm-houses built, almost without thought
of their design, around New York. Of the examples shown
in this chapter it is the simplest, both in materials and in
color, filled with the spirit of the old work and yet thor-
oughly modern. All of soft gray tones, even to the trim
of the windows, it would be monotonous were it not for
the texture of the walls, produced by the use of wide and
heavy shingles. The beautiful grouping of the windows in
the second-story gable, united by the shingled hood above
them, and the extremely quiet and natural treatment of the
dormers, are points especially worthy of notice and imita-
tion. A house built as this one is, with casement-windows
of square panes, always possesses a certain advantage over

"APPLEDORE"

BOUND BROOK. NEW JERSEY

AYMAR EMBURY 11. ARCHITECT

ONE HUNDRED COUNTRY HOUSES

one with the usual double-hung windows because, for some
reason difficult of explanation, the heavy cross-bar, cutting
horizontally in two the double-hung window, is not so agree-
able as the vertical lines of the casement-windows.

This may be seen by comparison with the Crenshawe
cottage, Mr. Wilson Eyre, architect, where again restfulness
is the salient feature of the design. Few though its ele-
ments are, they are few because of careful study, and there
is no hint of poverty of thought apparent. In many respects
the Crenshawe cottage and the Woodmere real-estate office
are very similar, differing only as the minds of their de-
cigners differed as to the handling of the details. The use
of the brackets under the eaves is confined to these two
houses among the examples here given. The brackets
themselves arc quite different, one being concave and the
other convex, those in the Crenshawe house more a struc-
tural feature, those in the Woodmere cottage used rather
as a decoration. Here, the treatment of the second story,
in one long simple dormer instead of presenting a com-
bination of several elements, is exceedingly interesting. The
terrace, with its stucco wall, leading to the side entrance-
way, is an unusual and pleasing feature.

RESIDENCE OF MRS. ETHEL R. GRAEME

ENGLEWOOD, N.J.

AYMAR EMBURY II, ARCHITECT

ONE HUNDRED COUNTRY HOUSES

The Orr cottage at Garden City, New York, is of similar
type and materials. The separation of the main living-
piazza from the entrance-porch is often very desirable, so
visitors and messengers may arrive and depart without in-
terfering with the comfort and occupations of the house-
hold. This house has a third story, necessitating a somewhat
higher treatment of the roof than is employed in the other
three, perhaps to its disadvantage. But the placing of the
chimneys at either end is a feature almost invariable in the
old work, and one which seems a suitable termination to
the long line of the ridge.

The house at Bound Brook, New Jersey, is a combination
of modern English with Dutch motives, the treatment of
the first story being quite characteristic of present-day
English work. A feature deserving of comment is the ar-
rangement of flower-boxes on the same level, for windows of
diff'erent heights. The symmetry of the design being main-
tained by little trellises back of the flower-box on the
right-hand side.

The Graeme cottage is a house of New England Colonial
shape translated into terms of Dutch architecture. The
use of the stone gable-ends with stucco front and back is

THE J. C. BULL HOUSE

TUCKAHOE, N. Y.

AYMAR EMBURY 11, ARCHITECT

ONE HUNDRED COUNTRY HOUSES

characteristically Dutch, as is the shape of the roof with
chimneys at cither end. The stone piers running through
the piazza roofs with columns between are employed to
tie in the piazza to the body of the house by repeating the
materials of the house. Too often a light wood piazza on
a stone or brick building looks false and unnatural .and
while a treatment like this one does not occur in any of
the old work, it is very possible the Dutch builders would
have used it had they happened to think of it.

In the Bull house at Tuckahoe, New York, the treatment
of the front of the iirst story with stone piers at each
end, and columns and glass between, making practically the
whole south side of glass, gives admirably bright and cheer-
ful rooms, while the details of the brick panels under the
windows were the subject of careful study. The use of
little trellises up the sides of the dormer windows and
across the top is novel, and should make a pleasant frame
for the view as seen from inside.

The Barber house is, like the Bound Brook house, a com-
bination of English with Dutch motives, the piazza treat-
ment being that combination of pergola and covered porch
elsewhere spoken of as being a modern innovation. The

HOUSE FOR ST. GEORGE BARBER

ENGLEWOOD, N. J.

AYMAR EMBURY II. ARCHITECT

ONE HUNDRED COUNTRY HOUSES

cement piers at the corners of the piazzas fulfil the same
function architecturally as the stone ones used on the
Graeme house. The oriel window at the right of the porch
is always a pleasing feature of an interior, although here it
breaks up the design of the exterior more than is desirable.

The residence at Colonia, New Jersey, of which Mr.
Nichols was the architect, is only placed in the Dutch
chapter by straining a point. It is one of the examples of
modern design whose elements have been drawn from so
many sources that it is difficult to place it under a single
heading without fear of successful contradiction. The main
roof is, however, Dutch in type, and while the detail of the
entrance-porch and of the cornices is Northern Colonial,
and the treatment of the side-porch rather Italian, the pic-
turesqueness and the freedom of the whole composition
suggests a Dutch origin. The design is exceedingly com-
plex, and had the colors not been confined to the simple
white for the walls, and green for the roofs, it might have
sufi'ered in efFect.

An architect, however, is as much responsible for color
as for proportion, and after seeing how completely such
various elements are unified into a single composition by

HOUSE AT COLONIA, N. J.
GEORGE NICHOLS, ARCHITECT

ONE HUNDRED COUNTRY HOUSES

the use of color in this instance, it is readily perceived what
an important factor it is. The daring experiment of using
two porches so utterly different justifies itself, and the
various heights of the eaves are successful only because of
the thought expended upon their arrangement.

These examples show how widely a style may differ in
itself, and how infinite are the designs, and the good designs,
which may be evolved from a single style. There is no
need to employ an entirely different type of house from
that of one's neighbors to express one's difference from
them, any more than it is necessary to wear crinolines to
express one's individuality of taste in dress. Good taste
will conform one's house to that of the neighbors, improv-
ing upon them, as may be possible, but building in harmony
with them.

CHAPTER V

SPANISH OR MISSION

WHILE the styles of architecture which seem to most
of us peculiarly American are the various kinds of
Colonial, there was used within the boundaries of the
United States even earlier than the Colonial styles, a style
almost unrelated to them, that we now know under both
the titles "Spanish" and "Mission." Like Colonial archi-
tecture, it was a far-off descendant of Classic, through the
Renaissance, but the Renaissance of a different country, —
Spain instead of England.

Every art passes through like processes of evolution. In
its youth it is virile and free, though often crude; in its
maturity it is restrained, quiet, dignified; and with its de-
cline comes a tendency to overload ornament, and .trust
to decoration rather than to structure, for appearance. In
English architecture this period of decline was halted by
the inquiry into Classic forms and their freshening influ-

ONE HUNDRED COUNTRY HOUSES

ence on the decaying art of the Renaissance. In Spain
and its American Colonies the revival of Classic architec-
ture had little influence, and Renaissance art became cor-
rupted and debased into the complicated and often ugly
forms of "Rococo'' and "Baroque/' It is to these last
stages of the Spanish Renaissance that the so-called Mission
architecture of the United States can be traced. But
under the influence of the unusual conditions of a new
country, which make any very extended use of ornament
impossible, and the forced use of new materials, there
resulted a certain freshening of the older springs of design.
For these reasons the Spanish Colonial architecture was in
many respects better than that of Spain at the same period.
Most of us are familiar with the few surviving examples of
the Mission architecture, and none will deny their charm.
They have become familiar through magazine illustrations,
through visits of tourists to Florida and the Southwest, and
their reproduction by California, Arizona, New Mexico,
and Florida, as state buildings for the difi'erent expositions.
We Americans are a restless race, searching always for
something new in art, as in construction and in politics, so
this style after centuries of disuse became again popular

MR. H. O. HAVEMEYER'S HOUSE

BAYBERRY POINT, LONG ISLAND

GROSVENOR ATTERBURY, ARCHITECT

ONE HUNDRED COUNTRY HOUSES

under the influence of the self-named "Craftsman'' move-
ment and during the past ten or twelve years many houses
have been built along the lines of this style, some of which
have also been influenced by the original Spanish work.
The architecture is a difficult one to work with. Quite
foreign to the usual run of design, it requires a peculiarly
sympathetic handling and very careful adjustment to loca-
tion of the building. While examples are found in the
Northern States, as well as in the extreme Southern, its low
pitched roofs and stucco walls seem out of place when
they are not surrounded with the palms of the South. A
careful search through many examples showed only a few
worthy of the inclusion in this series of American houses
of to-day. While there are doubtless others equally good,
they are not among those easily to be found.

Mr. Havemeyer's house at Bayberry Point is a very in-
genious and delightful adaptation of the Mission architec-
ture with a strong tincture of Moorish design. This is one
of eight houses built on Bayberry Point fronting the Sound,
all of which are executed in the same style, and all of which
are of similar design. Such a scheme was a wonderful
opportunity for the architect, and Mr. Atterbury has seized

MR. MACKENZIE'S RESIDENCE

OYSTER BAV. LONG ISLAND

G. C. MACKENZIE. ARCHITECT

ONE HUNDRED COUNTRY HOUSES

it and worked it out in its completeness with all the suc-
cess that might be expected of this pastmaster of country-
house architecture. The tremendous scale of the detail
and the large expanse of rough concrete give power and
strength to the design, while it is picturesque to the highest
degree. The manner in which the pergola terminates a
walk from the front door, and is flanked on one side by a
boat-house and on the other by a summer-house overlook-
ing the water, gives a beautiful opportunity for out-of-door
life, and one can easily imagine the view and air obtainable
from the third-story gallery.

Mr. MacKenzie's residence at Oyster Bay is along similar
lines, but exhibits a certain amount of influence from Spain
direct. There are. many things about this simple house
that are well worth notice and imitation. The railings of
tiles are both curious and unusual, the way they are used
is an excellent method of securing a masonry railing at a
minimum of expense and a maximum of efl^ect, while the
iron balconies are precisely what are needed both in size
and in scale. The corbels supporting the brackets under
the cornice are of brick and add a pleasing touch of color
to the wall surface, while the method of laying the roof tiles

THE REIDERMEISTER HOUSE

ENGLEWOOD, NEW JERSEY

WILLIAM K. BENED[CT. ARCHITECT

ONE HUNDRED COUNTRY HOUSES

gives a color to the roof that is exceedingly happy. At
either end of the building are roofless piazzas, or pergolas
(if a feature of this kind can be called a pergola), with
canvas loosely stretched for covering. An architect's house
usually possesses some features of interest beyond the ordi-
nary house. The architect can do for himself what he dare
not attempt with his clients.

The Reidermeister house is much like the MacKenzie
residence with the difference that the window trim, copings,
gables, and other details are dark instead of light. The com-
position is an interesting one, with the two unequal gables
against the main body of the house. Shrubbery over the wall in
the foreground will greatly improve the general appearance.

The residence of E. S. Hall at Water Witch reverts to
the original Spanish type, but with the detail subdued and
kept in good taste, while quite in accord with the general
design. The setting is excellent and doubtless adds to the
attractiveness of the place, but even without this setting
the house would not lose its good qualities.

The house at Cedarhurst, Long Island, is again of the
Spanish character with tendencies toward Italian. It
resembles rather the architecture of the island of Majorca

ICO

• •

• • • ... • •

• ' • • • •

• • . • •

• • • •

RESIDENCE OF E. S. HALL
WATER WITCH, NEW JERSEY
LYMAN A. FORD, ARCHITECT

ONE HUNDRED COUNTRY HOUSES

than either the Spanish Colonial or that of Spain itself, and
is a simple, quiet, and expressive piece of design. Many
unsymmetrical country houses appear casual, and while this
does not detract from their interest, when placed beside a
design so sober and thoughtful as this they lose in value.
The most remarkable feature of this house is the employ-
ment of color in the frieze between the third-story windows
and in the lunettes above the second-story windows. The
architect felt the need of some colored band to reduce the
apparent height of the building, and to decorate what
would otherwise have been a very plain surface. This was
effected by mixing earth colors, ocher and sienna, in the
cement of the final coat. How excellent was the resuking ap-
pearance can only partially be seen in the photograph where
the pattern is visible but not the color. Its durability was
tested within a few hours after the laying of the cement by
a heavy rain-storm without any damage. This is a very
inexpensive form of decoration which Mr. Boynton only
has used, and deserves great attention, for it is by employ-
ment of such features as this, cheap in themselves, with
great lasting qualities, and splendid decorative effect, that
small American houses can be made beautiful.

I02

RESIDENCE AT

CEDARHURST, LONG ISLAND

LOUIS BOYNTON, ARCHITECT

ONE HUNDRED COUNTRY HOUSES

The Taylor residence is in many respects the most suit-
able adaptation to northern conditions of Spanish architec-
ture that has been done in the neighborhood of New York.
While Mr. Atterbury's Havemeyer houses were built of
stucco of a gray color, quite in harmony with the beaches
and general barren conditions of the sea-shore, Mr. Taylor's
house is built of rough stone with a tile roof to blend with
the material surroundings. The situation of this house is
excellent, set as it is on a bench of the slope of a rocky
hill. The house is exceedingly vigorous in character, but
without losing the refinejnent essential to the best results,
and has many details which are of uncommon interest. The
balconies of the second story afford a delightful view, while
the arrangement of piazzas and terraces seems ideal. The
treatment of the railing and the chimney-caps are both ex-
ceedingly interesting. The problem was a difficult one in
this house, since it had to be long and narrow, both be-
cause of the slope of the ground and so that all the rooms
might obtain thorough ventilation. Every color used was
one which was in harmony with the natural ones, with the
result that this style, quite foreign to Connecticut, is most
happy in combination with its surroundings.

104 •

RESIDENCE OF MR. TAYLOR

NORFOLK, CONNECTICUT

TAYLOR AND LEVI, ARCHITECTS

ONE HUNDRED COUNTRY HOUSES

Some idea of what has been done along Spanish lines
may be gathered from the foregoing examples; and a fair
summing up of them would show that while beautiful as
they are and skilful as is their handling, they are more suited
to warm climates than to the Northern States, not only from
a practical but from a sentimental viewpoint.

io6

CHAPTER VI

AMERICAN FARM-HOUSE

BECAUSE of the rough conditions which prevailed in
the newly settled regions, and the crudity of the im-
plements to be found in districts remote from the closely
settled portions of the country, there was developed in
Colonial days an architecture distinct from the recognized
Colonial type. In the "back settlements" and on the fron-
tier the type persisted for a long time, until with modern
processes of manufacture and transportation, galvanized
iron and canvas took the place of the materials wrought
out by hand in older days. There was very little of what
schoolmen would call architecture to be seen in these
buildings. They were simply built as rapidly and cheaply
as possible to house the settlers until more finished struc-
tures could be built, and were only a step in advance of
the log cabin and the sod hut. While most of them were
totally lacking in an element of design derived from older

107

ONE HUNDRED COUNTRY HOUSES

sources, many of them possessed an unsophisticated charm
of proportion and material which commends itself to minds
tired of the city and every reminder of it. Picturesque-
ness is their dominant quality. They are rarely dignified,
never formal, but possess the same charm that rough camp-
ing life in the woods has for the dweller in the city.
Native to no particular locality, they vary little from
Maine to Florida and, whether one hundred and fifty or
only fifty years old, have served to inspire much of the
pleasantest of the country work of the present generation.
They are familiar to us all. While the Colonial type was
of the villages, these were of the open country, the homes
of farmers and fishermen.

It was to them that Amierican country architects looked
for inspiration when, some thirty years ago, the art of
country-house design began to be revived. In the new
work the original lines were almost lost under a maze of
jig-saw work and elaborate turning, but the basis was the
farm-house type. Of late they have not been so often
copied. So much of the first work done with them as a
motive was so bad that designers fought shy of the style.
Now,when the "back to Nature" and "The Simple Life" ideas

io8

COTTAGE FOR MISS MARIA GREY

FOX POINT, WISCONSIN

MYRON HUNT & ELMER GREY, ARCHITECTS

ONE HUNDRED COUNTRY HOUSES

have much force, interest in them has naturally been re-
vived and they are gradually coming to their own as one
of the great sources of modern design.

The residence of Miss Grey at Fox Point, Wisconsin, is
very close in its simplicity of design and color to those
plain, almost crude, farm-houses of the poorer class of set-
tlers. Like many of the old examples it is built around a
central chimney. The use of a single central chimney in
old times was, of course, common, because the chimney
was the most difficult thing in the house, to construct, and
the joint between the roof and the chimney gave most
trouble to a generation too poor to buy lead or copper,
and to whom tin was almost unknown. The rough stone
terrace wall across the front of Miss Grey's house is another
reminder of the time when, to clear the fields of stones,
the farmers built their walls of them. The same careful
touch is observable in every part of the design, resulting
in an almost perfect preservation of the old spirit of sim-
plicity.

The residence at Bryn Mawr Park is quite similar in
character, but with certain additional features which have
been introduced to the type through its use in sea-shore

I lO

MR. JONES' COTTAGE

BRVN MAWR PARK, NEW YORK

SULLIVAN W. JONES, ARCHITECT

ONE HUNDRED COUNTRY HOUSES

cottages. The piazza under a portion of the main room
is one of these, as is the use of casement- windows- through-
out, and the rough stone chimney. A semi-bungalow, like
this cottage, is gradually becoming the accepted way of
building mountain and sea-shore houses for summer occu-
pancy, and the farm-house is the logical and fitting style
to use.

The Bendin Rode cottage is of the same character, the
lower story and chimney being of stone, and the upper story
of shingles. This house is probably the best suited to its
position of any illustrated in the book. It follows exactly
the crest of the little hill on which it is set, and is arranged
so as to secure the shade of the trees at the proper places.
It seems fairly to grow out of the ground, so perfectly are
its lines adjusted to its position. As has elsewhere been
pointed out, harmony between the site of the house and
the style employed is essential to perfect composition, and
this example more than any other brings out this point.
The dark color of the stonework, the rough texture of the
hand-made shingles, the simple cornice up the gables, and
the use of a gutter along the eaves instead of an elaborately
molded cornice, all blend with the informal and natural

112

BENDIN RODE COTTAGE

HAVERFORD. PENNSYLV'ANIA

WALTER SMEDLEY, ARCHITECT

ONE HUNDRED COUNTRY HOUSES

treatment of the surroundings, while every feature recalls
the farm-house from which it was derived. The shutters
upon the extension at the rear are thoroughly in keeping
with the remainder of the design, and the pergola at the
end of the extension blends sp well with the surroundings
as to make it almost unnoticed except upon close inspec-
tion. Formal garden there is none, but gardening in the
sense of development of the surroundings to fit the house
is here in its highest degree.

The Lygert house at Germantown, Pennsylvania, is very
like the Bendin Rode cottage in the shape of its masses but
the detail is of a more conventional kind. This house is
not built far out in the country, but in a suburb of the city,
and the materials are therefore of a more properly finished
kind to suit its location. Like many of the old farm-
houses, around which villages have grown, it is placed very
close to the street, a position generally avoided nowadays
if possible, because of the dust from the road and the pub-
licity of the piazzas. The thick growth of vines along the
fence and the small openings between the pickets are here em-
ployed to overcome, as far as may be, these annoyances, while
they improve at the same time the setting of the building.

114

THE LYGERT HOUSE

GERMANTOWN, PENNSYLVANIA

COPE AND STEWARDSON, ARCHITECTS

ONE HUNDRED COUNTRY HOUSES

The Lord house is another successful treatment of a
house set close to the street. Here the heavy columns of
the pergola and the high wall at its termination shield the
occupants from the dust and view from the road, while they
give a charming spot in which to grow flowers and live out
of doors during the summer. Such a treatment as this is,
of course, foreign to the primitive type, but the simple lines
of the roof, the rough stonework of the first story, and the
informal character of the building all the way through are
alike impressed with the farm-house character. The stone-
work of the chimneys is of unusual charm as is the treat-
ment of the porch under the overhang in front with stone
arches at either end and a tremendous stucco column in
the center. In many of the details of its handling this
house is like the Woodmere Land Company's office, illus-
trated in the chapter on Dutch Colonial, and exemplifies
how with difi'erent root-motives a characteristically modern
treatment can be obtained. The sturdy and solid treat-
ment apparent in all Mr. Keene's work, and which, com-
bined with the original and playful fancy that has made for
him his great reputation as a designer of country houses, is
in this house carried to its furthest point. It is in the ex-

ii6

;• •; ••• ••• • •

• •: :••• ••••

F. P. LORD HOUSE

EDGEWORTH, PENNSYLVANIA

CHARLES BARTON KEEN. ARCHITECT

ONE HUNDRED COUNTRY HOUSES

treme of modern design as logically conceived, and is exe-
cuted with a beauty and simple richness of detail that is
neither bizarre nor extravagant, although utterly unlike the
conventional forms. While not the best of Mr. Keene's
houses it is perhaps the most interesting and fullest of sug-
gestion for the lover of country-house work.

The Underwood residence is marked by many English
characteristics. The dormer and gable over the porte-
cochbre have, instead of cornices, an English "verge-board,"
while the brackets under the eaves and the square posts of
the piazza and porte-cochbre are also English in treatment.
The main body of the house is carried over both the piazza
and porte-cochbre, as is often done when more sleeping-
rooms are required than living-rooms upon the first floor.
This affords an easy, cheap, and pleasant way of obtaining
the desired result. Of course for an all-year-round resi-
dence this is not apt to be satisfactory because the rooms
over the piazzas are difficult to heat, but in summer they
are the coolest ones in the house. The color scheme is ex-
cellent and well adapted to the style.

The Bates cottage at Wyoming, New Jersey, is composed
of such various elements that its inclusion in this chapter

ii8

THE UNDERWOOD RESIDENCE

FOX POINT, WISCONSIN

ELMER GREY. ARCHITECT

ONE HUNDRED COUNTRY HOUSES

is on account of its general character rather than because
of any specific likeness to type. The treatment of the
dormers might be either English or Holland Dutch, and
the big bow-window in the front might also be derived
from either of these styles, yet the general composition is
that of the old time farm-house. The finish of the stone
walls at the ends with a wide board along the top is one
sometimes employed in primitive work, and if not the only,
it is certainly one of the very few modern instances in
which it has been used. The treatment of the little gate
leading to the road pierced through a continuation of the
gable-end on that side is unusual in the extreme, and its
combination with the brick terrace across the front, lead-
ing to the garden, is very charming. There are three dis-
tinctly different types of windows used on this elevation.
One of small square panes in the bow-window, one of
diamond leaded panes in the dormers, and the other of
single panes in the circular headed windows at the left
of the door-way. It is difficult to recall any other house
where that has been done, and though perhaps not a very
desirable thing to imitate it is here very delightful. As in
the Bendin Rode cottage the harmony between the build-

I20

THE BATES COTTAGE

WYOMING, NEW JERSEY

JOY WHEELER DOW, ARCHITECT

ONE HUNDRED COUNTRY HOUSES

ing and its surroundings is excellent, and by the liberal use
of vines and the preservation of the trees close to the
house, the architect has succeeded in obtaining the effect
of fitness which constitutes the appeal of old work to the
artistic eye.

It was mainly in their intimate fitness to their surround-
ings that the older farm-houses are beautiful, and the suc-
cess or lack of success in present-day work depends very
largely upon the handling of this element. The propor-
tion must, of course, be pleasant and the composition happy,
but in a style such as this where detail plays a small part,
it is essential that the house and its surroundings should
form a complete picture without any intrusive or discordant
element.

122

CHAPTER VII

ELIZABETHAN

A LL the houses illustrated in the chapters preceding this
^ ^ one have been derived from early work in the United
States. There are, however, many houses whose precedents
must be sought elsewhere, and in most instances these may
be found in England. English domestic architecture is the
most delightful in the world, and is the only one whose
traditions have continued without interruption up to the
present day. It has varied during the course of years, but
each variation has been evolved slowly and naturally from
the preceding period.

The architecture under the Tudor kings, such as is
familiar in Haddon Hall, is the earliest country-house
architecture which has an appreciable influence on present-
day designs. Before that time the larger houses were
castles, built for defense and not for comfort. At the
dawn of the Renaissance the Tudor architecture was modi-

123

ONE HUNDRED COUNTRY HOUSES

fied by the Renaissance impulse and became what is now
called Elizabethan; and with the growing knowledge of
Classic forms Elizabethan was transmuted into Jacobean.
During the time of the civil wars there was little or no
building in England, but under Charles II English build-
ings became very strongly influenced by the Romans, owing
to the growth of knowledge of the Classic period gained
by Charles II and his nobles, during their stay in France.
This type of architecture was brought to a fuller perfection
under Queen Anne, for whose favorite general, Marlbor-
ough, the famous palace "Blenheim" was built.

Under the four Georges architecture became much more
refined in detail and lighter and more delicate in every
way, and what we now call Georgian architecture reigned
supreme. It is from this type that our American Colonial
architecture was derived.

During the nineteenth century there was a revival of
interest in Gothic forms which has continued up to the
present time.

Now English architects are using both the Classic and
the Gothic styles and are fusing them into one single type,
which, in addition to its original components, is strongly

124

ELIZABETHAN

influenced by the modern art spirit, which we know best
under its French title "Art Nouveau/' This deliberate
combination of two styles so strongly opposed as Classic
and Gothic is something which has never previously been
attempted, and the fact that it is in the highest degree suc-
cessful, is one of the strongest ocular demonstrations of the
tremendous art movement which is now visible throughout
all the world. It is true that the Elizabethan and Jacobean
styles were combinations of Classic and Gothic, but they
were only the preliminary attempts of architects trained in
Gothic to design in a Classic way; and the preliminary
attempts of men, who, without books, pictures, or any in-
formation other than that given orally, were groping in the
dark for what was to them a new style. The result would
be much the same if our dressmakers should attempt to
imitate the French styles without any knowledge of them
aside from what instruction their customers could give.
The result unquestionably would not be French, but were
the dressmakers people of taste and experience, one could
reasonably expect charming and unusual patterns. Such
was the result in architecture under Elizabeth, and there
was evolved a system of building, largely of wood, which

125

ONE HUNDRED COUNTRY HOUSES

was of extraordinary charm and has been a continuing de-
light to the present day.

All styles of architecture are influenced to a marked
degree by available materials, and as what we know as half-
timber construction was the easiest and most common at
that time, the term "Elizabethan" has become almost sy-
nonymous with half-timber construction. It is in that sense
here employed.

Half-timber construction is the framing of the building
in wood, generally of heavy oak beams, and the filling in
of the vertical walls between the beams with brick or stone,
which was generally plastered on the exterior, leaving the
outside of the wood exposed. Of course construction in
this manner was not limited to England; many of the most
beautiful examples are found in France; but our architects
are not so apt to seek in France for their precedents as in
England. And so, for purposes of comparison and illustra-
tion, it has seemed desirable to group all photographs of
half-timber houses under the generic title Elizabethan.
Real half-timber construction is not as enduring as true
masonry, nor is it so easy to repair as a construction en-
tirely of frame: and it is more expensive than either. For

126

«
*

THE FINE RESIDENCE

PRINCETON, NEW JERSEY

COPE AND STEWARDSON, ARCHITECTS

ONE HUNDRED COUNTRY HOUSES

these reasons practically all modern houses where the quaint-
ness and richness of the old half-timber work is sought for
are built of frame, and the exterior plastered and covered
with thin strips of wood between the panels of plaster. The
construction is in a way a sham, as the woodwork which
appears on the face of the building has no relation to the
structure, but as this construction is exceeding decorative,
and as it forms a durable and water-proof covering for the
outside of the house, its use is common and growing in
favor.

The Fine house at Princeton, New Jersey, is one of the
best examples of houses of this type in this country. Pho-
tographs cannot do it justice because the color scheme is
largely lost. The lower stonework is of gray, the wood-
work of greenish-black, the plaster nearly white, and the
roof red. The house is very close to the Elizabethan period
in its design, the double gable on the front being common
in that period, and for a few years later, while the orna-
mental timber-work just above the second floor line and
the verge-boards (^as the overhanging cornices on the
gable-ends are called) are both characteristically Eliza-
bethan. The oriel windows on the first floor are very de-

128

RESIDENCE OF MR. E. P. COB

ENGLEWOOD, NEW JERSEY

AYMAR EMBURY II, ARCHITECT

ONE HUNDRED COUNTRY HOUSES

lightful both within and without, far surpassing in effect
any octagonal or square bay-window because of the great
quantity of glass area. These would form window-seats in
the rooms and windows of this, or similar design could be
used on almost any kind of house. Chimneys, while a
little-noticed part of the building, are yet very important
to the general appearance, and these seem exactly right for
the house since they are both archaeologically correct and
admirably well fitted in size and shape to the general pro-
portion. Chimneys ought always to be carefully studied;
it is not necessary to make them very elaborate, but their
height and width and thickness should always be such as to
get the proper relation between their size and the size of
the building. It is unfortunate that in this reproduction
the beautiful carving on the hood over the front doorway
cannot be very well seen, nor is the method of laying the
stone visible except in the shadows. It has big quoins on
the corners, contrasting well with the small stones and wide,
white joints of the filling between, and is neither too rough
nor too smooth. Very rough stonework such as is used
in "rustic" houses is apt to look as if the wall had no
mortar in it and was liable to fall down at any moment;

130

F. M. NICHOLAS HOUSE

UNION\ILLE, OHIO

FRANK B. MEAD, ARCHITECT

ONE HUNDRED COUNTRY HOUSES

on the other hand, stonework where all the faces are per-
fectly smooth and the joints narrow and straight looks too
hard and sharp, and lacks all the interest of old work. As
has often been said before, the charm of old work lies in
the texture of the wall surface, and much of that charm can .
be obtained by the careful use of materials not to imitate
the old work, but to obtain a texture which is in itself
pleasing.

In the Coe house an attempt was made in a similar way
to get a texture in the brickwork; and in other respects
the working out of the details is like that of the Fine house.
The dormer-windows are the only portions which call for
especial comment and are both good in design and eminently
fitted to the house, although not at all like old Elizabethan
work.

The Nicholas house is almost entirely of half-timber, a
form of construction which even in the most beautiful of
the English half-timber country houses is apt to become
tiresome because of the glaring contrast between the light
and dark members. Half-timber work is best adapted for
use in only a small part of the building, and a house all of
half-timber is a pretty difficult thing to handle; but in the

132

BALDWIN RESIDENCE

DETROIT. MICHIGAN

STRATTON AND BALDWIN, ARCHITECTS

ONE HUNDRED COUNTRY HOUSES

Nicholas house the ill effect of too much half-timber work
has been to some extent overcome by the big chimneys and
stone base, and the great extent of roof surface, and the
whole scheme is well executed and proportioned with many
bits of delightful detail. Exceedingly charming is the car-
riage entrance underneath the wing at the left, with the
house carried entirely over it. The manner in which the
service wing is cut off from the front portion of the house
by big hedges also merits attention, and serves to strengthen
the oft-repeated statement that it is largely upon the sur-
roundings that the beauty of a house depends.

The Baldwin residence is a very delightful combination
of brick, cement, and half-timber, half-timber being used in
the gable-ends, and stair-tower in the corner, where a
lighter form of construction might naturally be expected.
The blank brick wall on the wing to the right with the
mass of ivy over it is an experiment which most clients
would have refused to try, but a large wall surface properly
treated can be quite as charming as any group of windows.
An architect should never forget that the proper relation
between walls and windows can be obtained in other ways
than by the symmetrical placing of the windows, as is made

134

GATE LODGE FOR W. K. VANDERBILT, JR.

"DEEPDALE," LONG ISLAND

JOHN RUSSELL POPE, ARCHITECT

ONE HUNDRED COUNTRY HOUSES

evident in this case. The house is modern English of the
pronounced type that is being used in England to-day; and
still has a certain atmosphere which marks it as American.
To what this is due is impossible to point out, yet, while
thoroughly " English," it could not be mistaken for the work
of English hands.

The gate lodge at Deepdale is probably the only house
of genuine half-timber construction throughout that is here
illustrated. It is built with a frame of heavy chestnut
timbers filled in with brick eight inches thick and plastered
on the bricks. The color scheme was very carefully studied,
the timbering being stained dark brown, and the stucco
gray, warmed up a little with yellow ocher, while the roof
was of red tile. The effort to obtain the charm of old
work was here made by the use of old roof tiles, from a
demolished Moravian church in Pennsylvania, and as may
be seen from the photograph it was exceedingly successful.
It is unfortunate that the photograph does not do justice
to the timber brackets under the overhang, for they are
delightful pieces of carving. The chimneys here, as in some
of the other cases, have been carefully studied, and the
combination of brick and stucco is well worth imitation.

136

SCOTT RESIDENCE

PELHAM MANOR, NEW YORK

LOUIS METCALFE, ARCHITECT

ONE HUNDRED COUNTRY HOUSES

The whole design is French in treatment rather than
English, and shows how closely the two styles were allied.

The Scott residence at Pelham Manor has the two wings
of cement and the connecting portion of the second story
half-timber, a good motive for a house, and here excellently
executed. The only weak spot is the piazza in the right-
hand wing, where the piers seem to be too light to support
the wall above. The whole color scheme is also good, the
gray cement with the black timbering and the white sash
harmonizing very well, and giving enough difference in
color without too sharp a contrast.

Mr. Jackson's residence at Cambridge, Massachusetts, is
like most of the houses which architects build for them-
selves, quite unusual, and is as charming as it is unique.
Architects often are held too much in check by their
clients; were a freer rein given to them, especially in the
matter of exterior, results would be, on the average, better.
A client inevitably desires his own personality expressed by
his house, and the architect is unable to entirely eliminate
his, and the result is a compromise, often satisfactory to
neither. This condition cannot be bettered except by one
of them giving up to the other, and as a rule the client

138

MR. JACKSON'S RESIDENCE

CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS

ALLEN W. JACKSON. ARCHITECT

ONE HUNDRED COUNTRY HOUSES

should select an architect whose work appeals to him and
leave the design entirely in his hands. Were this the case,
we would have oftener a house like this; in many respects
unusual. While the combination of brick, half-timber, and
cement is often used, it is seldom so happy as here. The
little entrance porch is a feature which might be copied to
advantage on a much smaller house than the one here illus-
trated, and though the carriage gate at the left of the
building Would probably not commend itself to the average
person who was considering building, it forms an agreeable
change from the ordinary.

The Fassett residence at Norfolk, showing strongly the
influence of the Art Nouveau in England, recalls the work
of Lutyens, the great English architect, and that of his
followers. The treatment of the stone piers running up
through the two stories at the sides of the gables with the
projecting woodwork between, supported] on brick and
wood brackets, is unique. The wood brackets below the
second-story windows and the projecting beam-ends in the
verge-boards are painted a dull red, which adds to the
interest of the house and gives an unusual effect. The
more carefully the whole composition is studied, the more

140

THE FASSETT RESIDENCE

NORFOLK, CONNECTICUT

TAYLOR AND LEVI, ARCHITECTS

ONE HUNDRED COUNTRY HOUSES

the cleverness of the design becomes apparent, and while to
the minds of many it will not make as great an appeal as
more staid work, it is brilliant beyond most.

The little cottage at Lawrence Park is one of those
simple English houses constantly becoming more general in
our suburban towns. While it is by no means free from
defects of design, it is so quaint and delightful that these
may be easily forgiven it.

The Rabbitt house is quite different from any other in
the chapter. Consciously or not its designer has been
strongly influenced by the German Renaissance half-timber
work, but has succeeded in eliminating the crudity and
vulgarity often found in that period. The bay-windows
on the second story are clever beyond the ordinary, and
the arrangement of the first-story openings below them,
while unsymmetrical, has the quality of balance which is
needed to make a perfect design. The broad cornice re-
turning across the gable-ends is unconventional and daring,
and the use of leaders to form brackets is excellent. Worth
noting is the trim of the four grouped windows on the first
story at the left with the Jacobean type of pilasters and the
breaking of all the moldings around the heads of the

142

COTTAGE FOR MRS. BISLAND

LAWRENCE PARK, NEW YORK

WILLIAM A. BATES, ARCHITECT

ONE HUNDRED COUNTRY HOUSES

pilasters. This same type of pilaster was employed both
in Germany and in England during the seventeenth cen-
tury and is now generally condemned by architects who
have not the skill to use them as has here been done.

The residence at Oyster Bay, Long Island, is so wonder-
fully charming in every way that no siiigle viewpoint serves
to bring out all its delightful features. The photograph
reproduced here was chosen because it showed better than
any other the mass of the house, although much of the
best of the detail is hidden. This house, like the gate lodge
at Deepdale, is of genuine half-timber construction with
the brick filling left unplastered. The house is in a gen-
eral way derived from big French farm-houses, many of
which were almost chateaux, but is so greatly modified by
the introduction of modern elements that its prototype is
almost lost sight of. The great strength in modern design
lies in precisely such adjustment of old motives to suit
modern conditions and their combination with new motives
as is here done. It is unfortunate that in this photograph .
the color of the woodwork, the brickwork, and the roofs
is not more clearly differentiated. A tower seems almost
'mpossible of successful introduction into the design of a

144

THE RABBITT HOUSE

WYOMING, NEW JERSEY

JOY WHEELER DOW, ARCHITECT

ONE HUNDRED COUNTRY HOUSES

modern house; that it is possible, and not only possible,
but under certain conditions the best thing to do is here
proved; yet it is only by the careful study of the roof forms
and the treatment of the corners with vertical lines that so
beautiful a result can be obtained. Any further detailed
critique is not essential; the house itself is its own best
exponent.

Black-and-white photographs cannot properly show the
best feature of the English houses, — their color. As Colo-
nial work is mainly a study in green and white, sometimes
with red brick, one cannot go very far wrong in the color
scheme for that style. When, however, it is necessary to
combine into a harmonious whole the varied colors of the
materials used in half-timber work, the architect is at liberty
to indulge his fancy to almost any degree, and upon his
color sense rests, to a large extent, the success of the design.
There is a great chance for unusual and striking combina-
tions such as the red beam-ends of the Fassett house, and
the white leaders under the black cornice in the Rabbitt
house. If a man be not careful he will inevitably ruin the
best of designs, while the architect who treats his house as
an artist does his picture, keeping in his mind not only the

146

RESIDENCE AT

OYSTER BAY, LONG ISLAND

GROSVENOR ATTERBURY, ARCHITECT

ONE HUNDRED COUNTRY HOUSES

various colors of the house, but the colors of the back-
ground and the garden work in the foreground, will, by
the use of half-timber, achieve a success impossible in any
other style.

148

CHAPTER VIII

MODERN ENGLISH

IN the preceding chapter, houses of English precedent in
which half-timber is used were included; in this chap-
ter the English houses of cement, brick, and stone will be
taken up.

In England most of the houses are of masonry, frame
houses being almost unknown, and the roofs are usually of
slate or flat tile. Here a large proportion of the houses
are of stucco over wood framing and the roofs are of
shingle. This has resulted in a loss of the deep-set win-
dows of English houses, but as long as wood construction
continues to be cheaper than masonry, it will continue to
be employed for houses of low and moderate cost. For-
tunately the time is rapidly approaching when we, like the
English, will be compelled to use wood only for trim and
floors; when that time comes, instead of the frame build-
ings now used, we will, in all our houses, have masonry

149

ONE HUNDRED COUNTRY HOUSES

construction and its corresponding advantages of deep-set
windows and general sturdiness of appearance.

It is characteristic of English work to emphasize the
lines of the walls rather than of the roofs. A wide over-
hang is seldom employed; often the walls project above the
roofs forming parapets, such as were used in medieval times
and in English architecture alone have persisted to the
present day. The roof is always subordinated to the wall
treatment, and in all those houses whose genesis can be
traced even indirectly to Gothic times, the cornice is either
entirely omitted, or its position is faintly indicated by a
string course of small moldings. These peculiarities are
found alike in stone, brick, and plaster houses, and probably
no other style takes the material into account in the design
so little.

At the same time the use of material is invariably care-
fully studied by the English architects in an attempt to
harmonize the colors throughout the design and also
to enrich wall surfaces by diaper patterns formed of the
materials themselves. In brickwork this is done by using
different colors; in stonework by using different kinds of
stone or by using some stone with much rougher surfaces

THE HOWARD RESIDENCE

BROOKLINE. MASSACHUSETTS

CHARLES A. PLATT. ARCHITECT

ONE HUNDRED COUNTRY HOUSES

than others, so that the pattern is introduced by the different
quality of the shadows. This treatment may be greatly
elaborated and the patterns can be infinitely varied, and
some of the most interesting of the English work both new
and old depends largely upon this feature.

The English influence over American domestic architec-
ture has been constantly growing in power, very greatly
to the advantage of American work, and whether the types
here copied are derived from English work of the present
time, or hark back to some earlier "period'' of English
architecture, they are rarely used quite as an English archi-
tect would handle them. There is a certain American
spirit noticeable in all which it seems impossible for an
architect in the United States to avoid, no matter how
deeply he imbues himself in the work of the English past.

Formality is the least requisite quality of English archi-
tecture, and in the sense that dignity is formality, they lack
that quality. A charm impossible of definition takes its
place; quaintness, homeliness, and comfort are its charac-
teristics, and in order to be successful they are inevitably
picturesque.

The Howard residence at Brookline, Massachusetts, of

THE JACOBEAN HOUSE

BROOKLINE, MASSACHUSETTS

WILLIAM WHITNEY LEWIS, ARCHITECT

ONE HUNDRED COUNTRY HOUSES

which Mn Charles A, Piatt was the architect, is a very simple
and sober example of English work of the modern type,
Mn Piatt has done very little work along these lines, most
of his houses being of Colonial origin with Italian influ-
ence, as has before been said; but as if to illustrate his ver-
satility he has given us in this house a delightful example
of the English type, Brobkline being, par excellence, a
Colonial town, the house is very properly simplified so as
to be in harmony with the spirit of the place, and the door-,
way is treated in a classic manner. The street front is
composed with a double gable in a manner quite charac-
teristic of the English, the gables being set very close to-
gether. It is symmetrical without being formal, and still
is picturesque enough to satisfy the most exacting enthu-
siast about English work. No overhanging eaves or "verge-
boards" — as the cornices up the rakes of the gables are
called in English work — are employed. They are. seldom
used in England except on half-timber houses, and are very
properly omitted from this design.

The architect of the second house illustrated in this
chapter is not known to the writer, but the house is also
at Brookline. It is proportioned in a similar manner to

RESIDENCE OF MRS. GARLAND

HAMILTON, MASSACHUSETTS

WINSLOW & BIGELOW. ARCHITECTS

ONE HUNDRED COUNTRY HOUSES

the Howard residence, but instead of being modern English
in type, is closely studied from the Jacobean work. The
decorative form of the gables was very popular in the time
of James I, and the use of brick with stone coigns, small
finials on the tops of the gables and the ornamental chim-
ney-pots are all characteristic of the time. While the
house is by no means so dignified or so good in design (i(
there is any absolute standard of good in architecture) as
most of the others here illustrated, yet it has a certain
charm and quaintness which make it well worth while
illustrating.

The Garland residence is a splendid example of the big
handsome, many-windowed Elizabethan type of house.
The plan with the wings at either end and the shorter pro-
jection in the center — in this case reduced to a bay-win-
dow — resembles the letter E, and was formerly supposed
to have been adopted in honor of Queen Elizabeth. .
Whether this is so or not, it was a favorite type of plan
in Elizabethan days and one which, apart from any senti-
mental reason, is an exceedingly good one, permitting the
large rooms to go on the corners where they should be,
with the other rooms between. Judging from the exterior

156

GATE LODGE OF MR. ERNEST A. HAMILL

LAKE FOREST, ILLINOIS

SPENCER fc POWERS, ARCHITECTS

ONE HUNDRED COUNTRY HOUSES

the staircase goes up over the front door to a large land-
ing lighted by a great number of leaded-glass panes. The
gables are like those of the old houses in the process of
evolution from the true Gothic type to the Jacobean type
of gable shown in the Brookline house just spoken of. Both
in mass and in detail this is a very nearly perfect example
of the highest class of English country work. Built of
masonry throughout, even to the mullions and transoms
between the windows, it adheres much more closely to the
old lines than is common in present-day architecture. It
is nevertheless vigorous, sturdy, free from any trace of mere
copying, and full of the right quality of pure design. The
dormers, in marked contrast to the highly ornamented ones
of Colonial work, are as simple as a dormer can possibly
be, yet are in perfect keeping with the rest of the work.
The brickwork is laid in a rich pattern all the way through,
although this is difficult to see from the photograph because
of the "efflorescence," a white stain on the brick, due to the
salts in the lime and the action of the weather. This deco-
rative treatment of the brickwork is one feature of which
architects are taking more and more thought, not only in
big houses such as this, but in the smallest type of cottages

158

THE BORIE RESIDENCE

JENKiNTOWN. PENNSYLVANIA

WILSON EYRE, ARCHITECT

ONE HUNDRED COUNTRY HOUSES

where only the chimneys are of brick. It is but a little
more expensive than running the bricks straight, and the
appearance of the house is markedly enhanced by this
fea-ture. The gardens also are well carried out. There are
no great masses of bloom, but the treatment of the paths,
steps, and terraces is such as to display to the best advan-
tage the beauty of the building. As has often been said
before, and cannot be too often repeated, a proper treat-
ment of the grounds to form a proper setting for the house
is indispensable in all country work, be it large or small.

Take the little gate lodge of Mr. Hamill, where the garden
is reduced to a minimum. There are only simple flower-
boxes, one group of shrubs in the foreground, and a plain
fence to shut ofi^ a clothes-yard, yet they are exactly what is
needed to keep the lodge in sympathy with its surround-
ings. Without foliage the house would probably look bald
and plain ; as it stands it is charming. While the lodge is
of brick, like the two preceding examples, the bay-window
is of wood, as is proper in a projection from the main build-
ing; and while derived from the work of the same period
as the Garland house, it is much more modern in treatment.
A house of this size and of this character would be very

i6o

THE RICE RESIDENCE

IPSWICH, MASSACHUSETTS

WILLIAM G. RANTOUL, ARCHITECT

ONE HUNDRED COUNTRY HOUSES

little more expensive than the cheap wooden house usually
built, and would be infinitely more unique and attractive.

The Borie residence at Jenkintown, Pennsylvania, is very
modern in type, and is an exceedingly interesting combi-
nation of brick and stucco — brick for the first story and
stucco above, with the copings and chimneys also of brick.
While in general the house is English, there are certain de-
tails suggestive of Colonial work, especially a sort of Ger-
mantown hood in the angle. As in several of the other
cases noted, the brickwork is very interesting, the joints
being exceedingly wide and pointed up with white mortar,
a combination which is always pleasing, and which Mr.
Eyre was one of the first of our architects to adopt.

The Rice residence, Ipswich, Massachusetts, is another of
the very large type of English brick houses, and by the use
of this style all the homelike character of a small house is
preserved as would be impossible with Classic architecture
applied to a building of this size. The little forecourt at
the right of the picture is an unusual and charming feature
while the extremely open treatment of the one-story dining-
room set in the angle is bound to be agreeable on the
interior. Where practically all of one or two sides of a room

162

THE C. P. FOX HOUSE

PENLLYN, PENNSYLVANIA

COPE & STEWARDSON, ARCHITECTS

ONE HUNDRED COUNTRY HOUSES

is of glass, the room is apt to be pleasant, and although this
treatment is becoming less unusual than it was a few years
since, it has not yet been widely enough adopted. Single
windows giving much glass area would appear to weaken
the wall, and even a parapet such as is here used would
seem to crush a single window below; but where it is
broken up into three or four smaller ones, and these in
turn treated with small panes, a structural strength of ap-
pearance is produced which is essential to proper design.
The treatment of the front of the Bull house, shown in
a former chapter, is along these lines; and it may be inter-
esting to compare the same treatment executed in entirely
different styles in Mr. Bull's small semi-Colonial cottage and
this big important English building.

I'hc Fox residence is of the Tudor type, modified to
present-day requirements, that is most used in England at
the present time, and which is among the most satisfactory
styles to use. The well-known English architect Voysey
has done many houses of precisely similar character, but
with his window-openings much smaller, reduced, in fact,
to a size which no American owner would permit, largely
because of our hotter summers. This house is built of con-

164

RESIDENCE OF DR. DAVID MAGIE

PRINCETON. NEW JERSEY

COPE & STEWARDSON, ARCHITECTS

ONE HUNDRED COUNTRY HOUSES

Crete, the exterior in rough cast, and the door-opening at
the extreme right of the picture is of stone.

The Magie house, by the same architects, is similar in
character but with the changes which,- befit its construction
in different materials. The stonework is of soft gray, with
very wide white joints giving a beautiful texture to the wall
surface. The wood piazza at the left is especially worthy
of attention as it is admirably designed to form a single
composition with the house, a very difficult thing to do
with a piazza in English work, without employing the same
material of which the main body of the house is built. Of
special interest too are the leaders with their big copper
leader-heads. For some reason the artistic treatment of
leaders has been neglected by most American architects,
although in the older work in this country every little farm-
house, no matter how small, had its carefully designed
lead leader-heads and leaders. Nowadays it is the excep-
tion rather than the rule to find any attempt to use the
leaders as a decoration. They are usually treated as a nec-
essary evil, and not as a feature which can, if desired, add
to, rather than detract from, the design.

The Wyeth house at Rosemount, Pennsylvania, is by the

166

RESIDENCE OF MAXWELL WVETH

ROSEMOUNT. PENNSYLVANIA

WILSON EYRE. ARCHITECT

ONE HUNDRED COUNTRY HOUSES

same author as, and similar in materials and design to, the
Borie residence. The use of brick walls to close in the
foreground and what is probably a clothes-yard at the right,
gives a delightful privacy which is essential to the complete-
ness of country life. The mass of the house is exceedingly
varied and has "that balance of composition" which is gen-
' erally produced only by symmetry. The house, although
playful in treatment, has quietness, dignity, and real char-
acter.

The next two houses illustrated, the Walker residence at
Glencoe, Illinois, and Mrs. Bisland's cottage at Lawrence
Park, New York, are of about the same size and the same
materials, derived from the same motives, and are as far
apart in appearance as if one had been Chinese and the
other Greek. The Walker house is strongly tinged with
the Chicago variation of Art Nouveau in the introduction
of strong horizontal lines. The older English architecture
was an architecture of vertical lines, and it is this change
that has produced the difference in sentiment.

The Bisland cottage is a derivative of the little English
farm-house which has flourished without any marked vari-
ation from the time of the Norman Conquest until the

i68

THE P. B. WALKER HOUSE

GLEN COE, ILLINOIS

SPENCER 4 POWERS, ARCHITECTS

ONE HUNDRED COUNTRY HOUSES

present day. The imitation, in shingles, of the thatched
roof, is very clever, although possibly not a sincere or
straightforward piece of design. Both houses are of frame
construction with stucco on the outside, bringing the
window-trim flush with the outside wall, and no recessed
windows are possible.

A much less extreme treatment of the shingle roof with
softer lines is shown in the next illustration, a cottage at
Cedarhurst by Louis Boynton. In this the roof is by no
means so dominant a feature as in the cottage at Lawrence
Park and no attempt is made to produce the appearance
of a thatched roof; only the softness of outline char-
acteristic of thatched roofs is sought for. Another way of
softening the rigidity of outline is shown where the longer
slope of the gables comes over the piazza, the roof sweep-
ing out in a broad curve to connect the house more inti-
mately with its surroundings. English of the present-day
type, this house, while simple to the extreme, possesses all
the charm of the much more elaborate houses before illus-
trated. It is by no means necessary that a house should
be big to be successful. Our large real-estate companies
are coming to realize this, and are employing the cleverest

170

COTTAGE FOR MRS. PRESBREY BISLAND

LAWRENCE PARK, NEW YORK

WILDER & WHITE. ARCHITECTS

ONE HUNDRED COUNTRY HOUSES

men they can find to design their work, and their success
is seen in this house. The lattice around the porch-open-
ings and the hood over the front door are the only features
added for merely decorative purposes; all the rest is straight
structural work as cheap as can be well built, but the archi-
tect, through the proportion of his mass, and the careful ad-
justment of the details of the window-openings, has achieved

a result that could not be bettered by any expenditure.

These eleven houses illustrate pretty welbthe-various pos-
sibilities of the English type. They are from all parts of
the United States, and show that the style is by no means
localized but tliat its influence is wide-spread and deep-
seated. While we are only to a small degree of English
blood, our laws, our customs, perhaps even our minds, re-
flect England more than any other country, and it is there-
fore only natural that in architecture as well we should
turn to England for inspiration, especially as it is in England
that the best domestic architecture of the world is to be
found.

172

A HOUSE AT
CEDARHURST, LONG ISLAND
LOUIS BOYNTON, ARCHITECT

CHAPTER IX

ITALIAN

'^ ^ I ^HE use of the Italian motives in modern American

X country houses is entirely due to the influence of
travel and education upon architects and their clients.
Italy has long been a land of dreams to art lovers the world
over, and even the medieval architects working in the
Gothic period, owing no trace of their design to Roman
times, thought and wrote of Rome with a kind of awe.
Italy has furnished us, in her villas and gardens, the com-
pletest and most beautiful schemes for life in the country
which have ever existed; and as long as these monuments
of Italy, and even the records of them endure, thev will
serve as inspirations for the dweller in the country.

For our use they have one fault; their great size and
rich ornamentation makes them difficult of reduction to
the more modest demands of America to-day. Formerly
only the very rich could live far from their occupations;

174

MR. BIGELOW'S RESIDENCE

READVILLE, MASS.

WINSLOW Ic BIGELOW, ARCHITECTS

ONE HUNDRED COUNTRY HOUSES

now the improved methods of transportation have made it
possible for people of moderate means to live in the coun-
try and still earn their livelihood in the city.

The style is one foreign to America and only by certain
adjustments of details can it be made to meet our require-
ments. The roofs were very low-pitched, because in the climate
of Italy snow is infrequent and no provision is necessary
against its lodgment on the roof; and the windows were small
to keep the houses cool in the same way as a cellar is cool.

Adaptations of the Italian styles built here are necessarily
widely different from the originals. We require large
windows to give a maximum of sun and air in the rooms.
It is true that by improved methods of roof-building we ^

have made flat roofs possible; these, the wide overhanging
eaves, and the general masses with a certain proportion of
detail, are all that remain to us of the original Italian. As
was noted in discussing Colonial work, the Italian buildings
have had a great influence upon American in the question
of detail. A good proportion of the so-called Colonial
houses being built to-day have had their cornices, columns,
and other decorative features copied very closely from Italian
work, and it may be said, to their lasting advantage.

176

RESIDENCE OF SAMUEL CABOT

CANTON. MASS.

WINSLOW Sc BIGELOW. ARCHITECTS

ONE HUNDRED COUNTRY HOUSES

Italian work of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries
in these details was not so very different from the English
Georgian, yet it is never possible to mistake one for the
other. The description which fits an Italian might apply
equally well to an Englishman; but, without being able to
point out a single feature of difference, we can unhesita-
tingly tell one from the other. So it is with Italian and
English work, and to a lesser degree with modern Ameri-
can work derived from those sources.

Occasionally, however, we find a house in which the two
styles are combined. Such a one is Mr. Bigelow's resi-
dence at Readville, Massachusetts. It has certain points
of resemblance to the house in Brookline, of which Charles
A. Piatt was the architect, in the preceding chapter, espe-
cially in its lack of overhanging eaves — an English rather
than an Italian characteristic. The chimneys, too, remind
us of England, but the house in the main is clearly Italian.
The use of the projecting gable-ends balanced throughout,
although entirely unsymmetrical, is an interesting feature
of the house, while the fore-court bounding the street en-
trance is excellently contrived to keep all vehicles out of
view except at that point. This, though the entrance-side,

178

THE WILLIAMS RESIDENCE

NAHANT, MASS.

PARKER 4 THOMAS, ARCHITECTS

ONE HUNDRED COUNTRY HOUSES

is really the rear, as the living-side of the house is facing
the garden. The service wing is at the right, separated
from the fore-court by a high wall, thus hiding from vdew
the clothes-yard and the other objectionable although
necessary features of the service portion of the house. This
arrangement, which is in many respects ideal, is growing in
favor as Americans realize that family life should be with-
drawn from, rather than exposed to, the public, and that
their houses are made to live in and not look out from.

The Cabot house, by the same architect, is similar in
character and beautifully fitted to its location. While the
main portion of the house is symmetrical, the service wing
is not in any way recalled vipon the opposite end, and so
well is it treated that no need for symmetry is felt. As
the country, to judge from the photograph, is one in which
beautiful views may be obtained, one room is located high
above the others and this higher portion, so treated that '
it does not dwarf the main body of the house, is a very
remarkable piece of design. It would be easy to erect a
tower were the design informal, but where the style is that
here employed, the problem is one of utmost difficulty.

The Williams residence at Nahant is an excellent piece

180

RESIDENCE OF MR. HERING

PELHAM MANOR. N. Y.

OSWALD C. HERING, ARCHITECT

ONE HUNDRED COUNTRY HOUSES

of design, showing what has grown to be practically the
typical American use of Italian work. The overhangs are
broad with exposed beams supporting them, there are plenty
of large windows for sun and air, and the roof is of the low-
pitched type with the slope changed at the eaves. Where
no third story is required for living purposes, this kind of
house possesses all the good qualities of the Colonial type,
permitting large square rooms, high ceilings, and ample
ventilation. The service quarters are of course placed in
the wing over the kitchen, an arrangement which, though
not so economical as the use of the third story, is more
desirable. The trellis at the extreme right, hiding the ser-
vice portion with the little hood over the gate, is a very
charming bit of design and is one of those manifestations
of increased care and thought in regard to details that is
one of the strongest things in modern work. The whole
house is one of the best examples of its kind; and, as has
been said, the kind has of late become very common.

Mr. Herring's house at Pelham Manor, New York, is a
scholarly and dignified adaptation of the Italian villa to a
modern country house, simple, refined, and elegant, but
without much of that intimate and domestic quality which

182

RESIDENCE OF J. O. BLOSS

HARRISON, NEW YORK

ALFRED BUSSELLE, ARCHITECT

ONE HUNDRED COUNTRY HOUSES

is after all what should most be sought for in a dwelling-
house. The mass of the house is excellent, the central
portion dominating the wings to exactly the proper extent;
the proportion of window-openings to wall-space is admir-
able, while the doorway, without being aggressive, is
sufficiently emphasized and well detailed. The only feature
which one could regret is the stone wall across the front,
which apparently does not extend to the limits of the plot
on which the house is set, and is in consequence somewhat
meaningless. It only serves as a retaining-wall for the
terrace in front of the central portion, but when vines and
shrubbery are over it, will unquestionably lose much of this
unfortunate appearance.

The Bloss residence at Harrison, New York, is simple in
mass and refined in detail. As in Mr. Herring's house the
rough stone wall at the present time is somewhat objec-
tionable, but will lose this appearance when the planting
is completed. Here the third story is utilized, and the
dormers are designed with much success to harmonize with
a style in which dormers were unknown. The circular-
headed windows in the second story placed in pairs above
single windows at each side, and a bay-window in the center

184

RESIDENCE OF A. DURANT SNEDEN

AVON-BY-THE-SEA, NEW JERSEY

A. DURANT SNEDEN, ARCHITECT

ONE HUNDRED COUNTRY HOUSES

on the first story form an admirable composition, all tied
together by the dark leaders at either end. The use of
the porches to carry out the long lines of the house, is as
good as is their design.

Somewhat similar in type is Mr. Sneden's residence, but
of a larger and more formal character. The manner in
which the central mass is recessed between the wings and
finished with a terrace in front is excellent. The railing
and flower-boxes at the outside of this terrace cannot be
too highly commended and the use of dark wood brackets
to support the roof is interesting ; yet delightful though the
house is, one cannot but think that it is exotic upon the
New Jersey coast.

In looking at Casa del Ponte, however, another Italian
house upon the sea-shore, there is no feeling of that kind,
probably because the house is absolutely unsymmetrical and
is much more intimately connected with its surroundings.
It is exceedingly small, so small indeed that off-hand one
would say it would be impossible to successfully execute
a house of its size along Italian lines. And one would be
mistaken. There is no single portion of this little and in-
expensive house without its feature of interest. Simply by

i86

"CASA DEL PONTE"

ROWAVTON, CONN.

SLEE & BRYSON. ARCHITECTS

ONE HUNDRED COUNTRY HOUSES

the clever grouping of windows, and the delightful placing
of the little bits of ornament it is given a charm which few
if any houses of far greater cost possess. It is an object
lesson to all those intending to build a small house, as
probably the entire outlay for the balusters, figures, and
molded work did not exceed three or four hvmdred dollars,
and while three or four hundred dollars spent on a house
without adding one penny's worth to its usefulness seems
to the average person building money wasted, the owner
has been a thousand times repaid by his pleasure in the
house, and even in a commercial sense has been repaid by
its greatly enhanced selling power.

The Carpenter and the Bartlett houses located at Lake
Geneva, Wisconsin, while in the main Italian, show like all
of Howard Shaw's work much of that modern spirit of
design which is characteristic of the best work of to-day.
Mr. Shaw's vigorous and forceful personality, apparent in
everything he touches, is nowhere more so than in these
two houses. Imagination is a rare quality; architecture is
to a large degree copying and adaptation, but the cleverest
of adaptation needs fusion with imagination to produce
really live design. We may have sometime more beautiful

i88

THE CARPENTER HOUSE

LAKE GENEVA, WISCONSIN

HOWARD SHAW, ARCHITECT

ONE HUNDRED COUNTRY HOUSES

houses derived from Italian styles than these, but whether
we will ever again have anything at once so virile and so
fresh, yet so restrained and scholarly as these, seems very
doubtful. It is a tremendous achievement for one man to
design along strictly Classic lines an entrance-way so pure
and so beautiful as that of the Carpenter house, and then
in its next-door neighbor, the Bartlett house, to carry out
a wall treatment like that on the wall facing the pool.
There may be precedent for this wall treatment; if so, one
may go far to find it. It seems an inspiration too exquisite
for any precedent.

A description of these two houses is unnecessary. They
are their own best exponents, absolutely in harmony with
their surroundings; it seems as if nature had conspired to
lend them added beauty. In mass as in detail they are
near perfection. The windows, the arrangement of the
gardens, the well-curb, the very pavement under foot, is
treated with loving attention; nothing is slighted, nothing
is overdone.

The Bartlett house and the little Casa del Ponte are
probably among the dozen most successful country houses
in America, and both for the same reason : there are many

190

THE A. C. BARTLETT HOUSE

LAKE GENEVA, WISCONSIN

HOWARD SHAW, ARCHITECT

ONE HUNDRED COUNTRY HOUSES

houses whose architects are as clever; some are more
brilliant, but there are few who have the patience so thor-
oughly to design every detail. These will rank high, not
alone because of their beauty, but because while restrained
they are daring, and while they acknowledge precedent
they are not bound by it.

192

THE A. C. BARTLETT HOUSE

LAKE GENEVA, WISCONSIN

HOWARD SHAW, ARCHITECT

CHAPTER X

ART NOUVEAU

IN the preceding chapters those houses have been
described which were evidently derived from some his-
torical precedent. There remains, however, a great body
of work in which the influence of any older style is almost
imperceptible, and of these a number of the best examples
are here gathered together under the heading "Art
Nouveau/' This term is far from being an exact charac-
terization; the style we are using to-day has not yet been
named, and will not be named until it, in its turn, has be-
come a matter of history.

The houses, then, shown in this chapter are those in
which the architect has been given a free hand and has
made little or no attempt to follow precedent. They are
all very truly "new art" and in its literal sense the term
"Art Nouveau'' applies to them excellently well, but as that

generally brings before the mind the fanciful and often-

194

"RAGDALE,"

LAKE FOREST. ILL.

HOWARD SHAW, ARCHITECT

ONE HUNDRED COUNTRY HOUSES

times meaningless curves with which the movement started,
the term is not satisfactory.

In England and in this country the Art Nouveau move-
ment has assumed a form that differs from its Continental
development, — a simpler form, and in all respects better.
Its tendency is toward straight lines and plain shapes, so
plain indeed that in furniture it often recalls the Colonial
work, and in another manifestation it is like the self-styled
"craftsman" movement, although without the affectation
that mars that work. It is mainly by the great English
exponents of Art Nouveau, Voysey, Baillie-Sott, and
Lutyens, that our modern work has been influenced; and
much of it shows a trace of English sentiment, while in
cases where the architects are of German blood a Teutonic
influence has been developed, as is natural enough.

"Ragdale'' at Lake Forest, Illinois, is the home of its
architect, Mr. Howard Shaw. It has the delightful freedom
of treatment characteristic of many houses which architects
build for themselves. In working for another man the
architect does not dare to express himself as fully as he
would like, and often it is just as well, perhaps, that there is
some restraint put upon him. The combination of a sensible

196

THE HEDGES RESIDENCE

BROOKLINE. MASS.

J. LOVELL LITTLE, ARCHITECT

ONE HUNDRED COUNTRY HOUSES

and artistic client with a capable architect gives better re-
sults than are achieved by architects w^orking alone, since
every house is a series of compromises and an architect often
attaches too much weight to matters the reverse of those on
which a client would insist, with the result that his house,
while usually successful pictorially, is apt to be unpractical.
In this case the house is utterly delightful in the exterior
treatment, with the projecting second story supported on
sturdy beams over the cement columns.

One of the most interesting things which has lately been
developed is a method of shingling roofs to produce the
softness of a thatched roof. Sharp and angular lines are
hard to disassociate from new buildings, and it is soft-
ness of outline and color which gives to old work its
peculiar charm. Many architects have therefore resorted
to all sorts of devices to get the peculiar quality of old
work in new houses, and of these, the curving of the shingle
roofs is as helpful a one as has yet been found.

In the Hedges residence at Brookline, Massachusetts, it
has not been carried far, and yet has immensely aided in
relieving the stiffness of the design. The house is quaint
and picturesque with the different lengths of the roof

198

THE DUNNING COTTAGE

BRIARCLIFF, N. V.

A. VAN BUREN McGONIGLE, ARCHITECT

ONE HUNDRED COUNTRY HOUSES

slopes, and their projection over the loggias at the corners.
The proportions are pleasing and the details, while some-
what meager, are well planned and executed.

The Dunning residence at BriarclifF, New York, and the
cottage at Glen Ridge were designed by Mr. McGonigle,
whose work has been largely along more important lines
than the country house. These houses have somewhat the
English character, accentuated by the treatment of the
shingles, earlier mentioned, and by the use of trellis-work.
The Dunning house is the simpler of the two, being almost
symmetrical, where the other is entirely picturesque. Mr.
McGonigle was the first architect in the East, perhaps in
this country, to attempt the shingling of roofs to produce
the effect of thatch, and his design in this direction has
never been surpassed, although other architects have carried
the curved treatment much further than he has done. The

interest in this type of roof lies, not alone in the curving
at the ends of the shingles, but also in the manner of lay-
ing them very irregularly, and without the stiff horizontal
lines to which we have grown accustomed and which
necessarily result from the ordinary method of laying shingles.
The garden in the Glen Ridge house is delightful, and the

200

A HOUSE AT

GLEN RIDGE, NEW JERSEY

A. VAN BUREN McGONIGLE, ARCHITECT

ONE HUNDRED COUNTRY HOUSES

treatment of the clothes-yard trellis at the left especially
demands attention. Every detail has been thought out:
the seat on the loggia, the leaders, and leader-heads, and
the very shapes of the w^indow-sash are kept in harmony
with the general form of the building.

The residence of Carleton Macy, at Woodmere, Long
Island, has been one of the most admired of the past few
years. In it the shingle treatment has been carried further
than has ever before been attempted, with unique and
satisfactory results. The house is thoroughly modern in
every respect, for the columns, while Greek in detail, are
so unusual in their handling that they may fairly be called
modern design. The roof-lines are symmetrical, and the
chimneys are placed at either end of the main ridge, where
the need for some emphasis is always felt. The windows
are quite simply handled in a manner suggestive of Colonial,
and the shutters are solid below with louvers above. The
setting is such as to show the house to its best advantage,
and was very carefully thought out by the architects. The
house is one which has brought much and well-deserved
reputation to its authors, for its brilliancy is the result of
virile and thoughtful design.

202

RESIDENCE OF CARLETON MACY

WOODMERE, LONG ISLAND

ALBRO & LINDEBERG, ARCHITECTS

ONE HUNDRED COUNTRY HOUSES

The entrance to the Club House at Kensington, Illinois,
should not properly be included in a book of this character,
but is too remarkable a piece of design to be omitted.
Certain portions are like the European variety of Art
Nouveau, and with strong German tendencies. The ar-
rangement of the pergola, leaving the tree in place, is im-
mensely interesting, and exhibits a satisfactory solution of
a problem w^hich has troubled many v^ho have desired to
preserve beautiful trees which come in too close proximity
to the house. The treatment of the beams is perhaps the
most interesting thing about the whole composition. This
is largely due to the contrast between their heavy and
simple lines and the delicate handling of the leaded glass
in the lamps and windows. The whole scheme suggests
the Japanese, as does much of the best of modern work in
which an effort has been made to preserve a simple and
expressive handling of materials. The brickwork, on the
steps and floors harmonizes with the stucco and the rough
woodwork, while the pedestals for the flower-boxes are
truly delightful.

The Lackner and Rubens residences are Art Nouveau
to the last degree and full of interesting and suggestive fea-

^ 204

ENTRANCE TO THE CLUB HOUSE

KENSINGTON, ILL.

GEORGE W. MAHER. ARCHITECT

ONE HUNDRED COUNTRY HOUSES

tures for a student of modern architecture. As can readily
be seen, the architect was the same as that of the Kensington
Club House, and his German blood is here again plainly
perceptible. The Lackner residence is of brick and stucco
with a simply designed pergola carried on brick piers and
stucco columns. A pergola treatment of the porches like
that here shown gives a combination of light and shade
such as no covered porch can ever do, and, when it becomes
thoroughly covered with vines, affords ample protection
from the sun, with greater coolness than is possible with
the usual type. The shape of the roof is a very curious
one, perhaps derived from the Dutch farm-house style, but
far removed therefrom. The leaded glass adds immensely
to the appearance of the exterior by introducing many
small motives to relieve the big scale of the other detail.
The manner in which the stucco work is carried up under
the top of the gable in a sort of cove is interesting, and
this house is one of the few in which the leaders and leader-
heads have been thought of and provided for in an unusual
and delightful way.

The Rubens house is one which staggers criticism. It
is of a style which the Germans are using to-day, the com-

206

RESIDENCE OF FRANCIS LACKNER

KENILWORTH, ILL.

GEORGE W. MAHER, ARCHITECT

ONE HUNDRED COUNTRY HOUSES

bination repeated throughout the design of columns be-
tween brick walls is characteristically German, as is to a
great extent the whole treatment of the building. Any one
who desires their architecture undiluted by the personality
of the architect, will pronounce this house bad beyond re-
demption, but to those who see the brilliancy and daring
of its author, it will be full of interest. It is so different,
so unusual, that a proper viewpoint from which to judge it
is impossible to find, and whether the immense cleverness
displayed in its design is sufficient to atone for its disregard
of the most elementary consideration of both form and
scale, is something which time alone can tell.

The Eastwood house at Rochester is another example
of the use of German motives, and a very picturesque and
charming one. The entrance-porch with the hoods cutting
across the arches is most entertaining, and one which, while
absolutely novel, has much spirit. It is impossible to fairly
consider houses which are so far from the ordinary as this.
Beauty lies so largely in the eye of the beholder that one
cannot be certain whether one is seeing a piece of great
and lasting design or the caprice of an unrestrained fancy.
Mr. Bragdon is an iconoclast first, last, and always, but the

208

RESIDENCE OF MR. HARRY RUBENS

GLENCOE, ILL.

GEORGE W. MAHER, ARCHITECT

ONE HUNDRED COUNTRY HOUSES

idols he breaks are those of false convention and improper
tradition, and unlike most iconoclasts he is constructive as
well, setting up before us new and delightful forms to take
the place of the old.

The Tietig house at Cincinnati, Ohio, is derived from
one of the designs of the English architect Lutyens, but so
greatly revised and modified to suit its location and the
temperament of its owner that it is only upon closest in-
spection that we perceive its genesis. The double gable
at the end is always difficult to handle, and is here un-
usually well done. The chimneys are well placed and the
combination of color is a good one. The simple pilasters
running up between the prominent portions of the front
are excellent while unconventional in the extreme, and the
arrangement of the window-panes to continue the same
vertical sentiment visible everywhere throughout the house
is well done. It does not often happen that this matter of
shape and spacing of the window-panes is thought of to be
entirely in harmony with the general character of the de-
sign, and were it done more often better results would be
achieved. Of equal merit are the leader-heads and leaders,
the latter placed so as to form the groups of four windows

2 lO

HOUSE OF A. B. EASTWOOD

ROCHESTER. NEW YORK

CLAUDE BRAGDON, ARCHITECT

ONE HUNDRED COUNTRY HOUSES

on the front, while the leader-heads make a dark spot of
excellent outline opposite the tops of the windows.

As may be seen from these houses, the term "Art
Nouveau" can be stretched to include widely different
examples of heterogeneous types. They are not of equal
merit, either per se or as steps in the evolution of the
great art which must be coming; but all are of interest as
showing what can be done without precedent and without
any other inspiration except that found in the minds of
their authors.

The whole tendency of architecture of to-day, and in-
deed of every art, is away from precedent, and is reaching
out toward some goal which is as yet hidden to us. We
do not know whether the great and fresh art movement at
the present time is but the beginning of an evolution, or
whether it is already at its height; the former seems prob-
able. We cannot forecast from past movement the pro-
gress of the present, for at no past time were the artists and
artisans so thoroughly familar with, and so well drilled in,
old work. Their knowledge of precedent extended back
only a few years and was confined to a very small territory;
ours covers the whole range of historic time, and of all the

212

RESIDENCE OF MR. RUDOLPH TIETIG

CINCINNATI, OHIO

TIETIG Ic LEE. ARCHITECTS

ONE HUNDRED COUNTRY HOUSES

world, and it is impossible to say what influence this know-
ledge has to speed up a development, or to retard it, by
confusing its progress with too varied knowledge. We do
not even know whether the present-day movement is that
of some great wave in the life of art, or only a ripple on
its surface. We are probably attaching too great value to
present tendencies. Their influence may be by no means
so permanent or so powerful as we think, yet it is only by
honestly believing that everything we are doing is of the
utmost importance, that we can really do enduring work;
for all new work that is worth while is an honest expres-
sion not only of the spirit of the architect, but of the spirit
of the time in which he lives.

I •

214

CHAPTER XI

JAPANESQUE

ARCHITECTURE at the present time is nothing if not
XjL eclectic. As has been said before, our architects have
searched the world for ideas and, of many extraneous
sources, none is more interesting than the Japanesque, and
there is none so utterly foreign to our traditions.

There are nevertheless many features of the Japanese
work which deserve the respectful consideration of the
architect. It is the aim of all to use materials in a proper
way so that the full beauty of each material may be ob-
tained. There is no material without beauty when it is
properly handled, and there is no material which does not
lose by being employed as an imitation of some other, even
though the other be much more expensive and difficult to
employ in construction. It is in precisely this point of
frankness in the handling of materials that the Japanese
excel. Every traveler returning from Japan speaks of the

215

ONE HUNDRED COUNTRY HOUSES

wonderful treatment of wood to bring out the full color
and richness of the grain, and it is evident from all photo-
graphs of Japanese work that their stonework is masterly,
possibly because they spend little time and labor in cutting
and polishing it, but use it in its natural condition. Of
course there are some of the Japanese materials which we
cannot use. It seems unlikely that paper partitions will
ever become popular in this climate, although the Japanese
continue to use them in the face of winters as cold as ours,
and much of their construction is not intended to be dur-
able, but rather to be renewed without inconvenience or
much expense when its term of usefulness has expired.
Here we have a prejudice in favor of durability.

It has not been by Japanese dwelling-houses that
American country-house work has been inspired, but
rather by the temples and castles. There is little Japanese
work which does not attract the American architect; this
may be because of its complete novelty; and those who
have studied Japanese architecture with care often find
much to regret in a building which to the unlearned seems
perfection. As with Japanese art of other kinds, as shown,
for example, in their theaters and their pictures, their view-

216

TICHENOR HOUSE

LONG BEACH, CALIFORNIA

GREENE & GREENE, ARCHITECTS

ONE HUNDRED COUNTRY HOUSES

point is so difFerent that it is impossible to properly grasp
it, and it may be that in our imitations of Japanese work
we are copying the poorest and not the best.

The houses here presented have a compelling charm.
Whether this will be enduring future generations alone can
tell, but no resume of American country-house architecture
of to-day can omit these houses without omitting some of
the sincerest and most inspiring work of recent years. As
is natural, these houses are most common upon the Pacific
coast, yet once in a while an eastern architect uses the
Japanese form consciously, as Cope and Stewardson did in
a Japanese house for a Philadelphia exposition some years
since; or oftener because, aiming like the Japanese, at a
use of materials which will explain itself, he arrives at a
similar conclusion.

Messrs. Greene and Greene have carried the Japanese
treatment further than any other architects whose work
has been brought at all before the public. The Tichenor
house at Long Beach, California, and the residence in
Pasadena, here illustrated, seem like the utmost limits to
which Japanese architecture could be stretched, and still
meet American requirements. Nevertheless it may even

. 218

RESIDENCE IN

PASADENA, CALIFORNIA

GREENE & GREENE. ARCHITECTS

ONE HUNDRED COUNTRY HOUSES

be that they are only the first beginnings of an evolution.
They are very consciously adaptations from Japanese
sources and so eloquent of Japan that one is tempted to
believe that Greene and Greene must have studied the archi-
tecture on its native soil. Even the twisted and unusual
forms of the trees and shrubs agree with the house in per-
fecting the illusion of a foreign country.

Of course the patio idea is not foreign to California, but
when it is treated in a Japanese way, as in the garden of
the Tichenor residence, it is very unusual. The style is
perhaps happier in the accessories to the house than in the
house itself. Certainly nothing could be more delightful
than this garden with its high arched Japanese bridge span-
ning the pool from the rough boulders on either side. Of
flowers and plants there are few, but the whole composi-
tion is utterly delightful. Big balconies on the second
story of the house are a splendid arrangement for seaside
cottages, and in any style but this most difficult to com-
pose. It may be that even in this style it was hard to do,
but is so successful that it seems simple. The various ma-
terials used in this house are quite along Japanese lines,
although each by itself is a well-known one. The half-

220

TEA HOUSE AND POOL

LONG BEACH. CALIFORNIA

GREENE & GREENE, ARCHITECTS

ONE HUNDRED COUNTRY HOUSES

timber work with brick filling is not uncommon, and yet
because of the extreme roughness with which the bricks
are used, it gives the effect of a new material. Shingles are
by no means an uncommon covering for the exterior of a
house, nor is tile unusual on the roof; yet the whole com-
bination as used here is novel in the extreme. The brackets
and the balustrade are very simply handled in a way thor-
oughly Japanese, but with a cleverness that is clearly due
to the architects and not to the source.

The Pasadena residence is by no means as interesting as
the one at Long Beach, yet even so has a charm which must
be recognized by every one. It is probably the only house
in America with a white roof, but so skilfully is this han-
dled that one does not even think of it as a curiosity, and
is almost persuaded to go and do likewise. The method
of laying the bricks in the retaining walls mixed in with
boulder stones is curious and interesting, but the question
of its beauty lies in the taste of the individual. Just how
good these houses are cannot be said. The standards with
which we are wont to measure do not here apply, but that
they are full of suggestion is undeniable.

Dr. Guy Cochran's house, while strongly influenced by

222

RESIDENCE OF DR. GUY COCHRAN

PASADENA. CALIFORNIA

MYRON HUNT & ELMER GREY, ARCHITECTS

ONE HUNDRED COUNTRY HOUSES

Japanese art, is not carried to the extreme of these other
houses. The entrance-front (^practically the rear of the
house) is almost English in character, while the garden
front is Japanese only in a measure. Stucco is and has
been for centuries a favorite material in Japan, and the best
of Japanese architects would not be ashamed had he used
it here. The center of the garden front is formed by a
tremendous group of windows looking down on the garden
shaded by an awning whose edge has been designed. Once
in a while one sees an awning about whose color and de-
sign some thought has been taken. The best house can
be spoiled by ugly awnings and the worst house can be
improved by well-chosen ones, yet they are a feature seldom
thought of except by the German mechanic who makes
them. It is by the complete harmony of these little and
comparatively unimportant details that a house may be
made perfect of its own kind, and that the same care is not
taken by all architects in regard to them cannot be suffici-
ently deplored. Whether it is because they are too busy
to pay to them the attention they deserve, or whether it is
that the owner dismisses his architect when the bare skele-
ton of the house is completed, varies with the individual

224

RESIDENCE OF DR. GUV COCHRAN

PASADENA, CALIFORNIA

MYRON HUNT & ELMER GREY, ARCHITECTS

ONE HUNDRED COUNTRY HOUSES

case, but if an architect is good for anything he is certainly
good enough to complete the work and not leave it half
finished. One of the delightful things about this Cochran
house is that everything has been thought out: the walls,
the walks, the gardening, the awnings — all harmonize with
the house, combining to give to its authors a reputation
among other architects altogether out of proportion to the
money value of the houses they have built, and only com-
parable with the artistic excellence of their work.

Of the Western architects, one of the most imaginative
is Bernard Maybeck, and it is to be regretted that only the
little Farrington studio can here be reproduced. His
Faculty Club House at the University of California is out-
side the scope of this book. Yet while the single example
of Mr. Maybeck's work shown is perhaps the least expen-
sive thing he has ever done, for that very reason it is a good
one to show. The whole thing is so simple that it would
seem impossible to make anything of it, but by the judi-
cious use of materials, the excellence of the proportion and
the quaintness and richness of the pergolas and trellisses, a
most delightful piece of picturesque architecture has been
evolved. Thoroughly Japanese in quality, this effect is due

226

THE FARRINGTON STUDIO

BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA

BERNARD MAVBECK. ARCHITECT

ONE HUNDRED COUNTRY HOUSES

in all probability to a course of reasoning similar to the
Japanese on the part of its architect, and not to any con-
scious imitation. The full beauty of the woodwork is
preserved; of moldings and turned work there is none, and
it is all the more excellent for that reason.

The Adirondack camp, of which Davis & McGrath were
the architects, is a piece of pure design whose architects
worked without much thought of precedent, and achieved
a result that is both vital and full of meaning. The double
roof, the railings, and the black-and-white color of the
walls all remind us most strongly of Japan, as does the
general handling of the entire problem in its location. Too
often a house is designed to fit any site, and, therefore, seems
stereotyped and commonplace, but this one is evidently
suitable to this situation and to this situation only. Every
log-cabin has the joints between the logs filled with clay;
here the architects have used mortar^ colored white, and
have tinted the ends of the poles of the overhang, white to
match. This use of poles instead of rafters has resulted in
a charming piece of decoration along the edge of the
piazza roof. It was from the decorative results produced
unconsciously by the employment of natural materials that

228

A CAMP ON LAKE WILBERT

ADIRONDACK MOUNTAINS

DAVIS & McGRATH, ARCHITECTS

ONE HUNDRED COUNTRY HOUSES

the world's ornament has for the most part been evolved,
and it is pleasant to know that once in a while an archi-
tect has the courage to "revert to type/' as has here been
done, and find his ornament not in books, but in life.

The cottage at Tuxedo Park is another example of
American architecture which owes its success to the
exquisite use of materials. The stonework is especially de-
lightful, and the contrast between the large and small mem-
bers in the half-timber work compels admiration. It is
good to meet architects who have the courage and ambi-
tion not to accept the obvious methods of handling ordi-
nary materials; even in the method of shingling a roof.
All the horizontal lines of this cottage are strong, and this
effect is continued by making every sixth course of shingles
in the roof a double one, producing a somewhat heavier
shadow than there is elsewhere. The trim of the rafter-
ends is interesting and characteristically Japanese, although
it was probably approached from an entirely different view-
point, as Mr. Barber is an architect trained in France, and
whose work customarily follows French lines. Most archi-
tects of successful country houses are those who specialize
in such work, not by choice perhaps, but by necessity; yet,

230

A COTTAGE FOR MR. DELAFIELD

TUXEDO PARK, N. Y.

DONN BARBER, ARCHITECT

ONE HUNDRED COUNTRY HOUSES

as can be seen in this house, an architect good in one class
of work is usually qualified for all, and success rests upon
inherent merit alone and not upon continuous practice in
any particular branch of design.

232

CHAPTER XII

THE HOUSE AND THE GARDEN

TO the architect the term "garden'' does not mean
an acre lot full of vegetables, nor even an open space
full of flowers, but rather that part of the grounds adjacent
to the house which is treated in such a manner as to dis-
play the house to its best advantage. The garden is the
link which forms an intermediate step between the purely
artificial building and its natural environment, and is there-

fore of dual character, partly natural and partly conven-
tional. Some attempt at an attractive treatment of the
grounds is almost always made by the home-builder, and
the tendency to-day is to discuss with the architect the dis-
position of the shrubs, flowers, and paths, so as to best dis-
play the good qualities of the building and to mask as far
as possible its weak points. No house, however small, should
be left without some serious effort at arranging the sur-
roundings to harmonize with the house. These may be of

233

ONE HUNDRED COUNTRY HOUSES

the simplest description, a few shrubs, vines against the
house, and some small trees, or — as is the case with some
of our large country places — the surroundings may be
treated for miles to lead up to the heart of the whole: the
house of its owner.

Bright flowers add immensely to the appearance of a
place, and although almost any kind is beautiful, still some
judgment should be exercised in securing colors which blend
with the colors of the building, and in picking out flowers
and shrubs whose blossoms are either large or which grow
in thick masses. Probably the best of all flowers from the
viewpoint of the architect is the hollyhock. Its tall and
stately form, the freedom with which it blossoms, and the
magnificent colors of the bloom all make it an ideal plant
for growth near the house. Asters in the fall are excellent,
and for early spring blooming the iris is' good; especially
as its beautiful leaves assist in the decoration of a place
long after its flowers have faded.

Of the shrubs azaleas are the most satisfactory; their wide
range of brilliant colors, and the large size to which they
eventually grow, suit them well for the kind of gardening
which is here taken up. Rhododendrons both in their nat-

234

GARDEN OF MR. JAMES HAMILTON

DETROIT, MICH.

STRATTON & BALDWIN, ARCHITECTS

ONE HUNDRED COUNTRY HOUSES

ural and cultivated varieties are also useful, and the fact
that they are evergreen makes them valuable for decoration
in the winter. Althaeas, or as they are more commonly
known, " Rose of Sharon," bloom in August at a time when
few other shrubs are in flower, and as they increase in age
the stems take on a gnarled and twisted appearance which
is very attractive. No attempt ca'n here be made to give
anything like a full catalogue of the better shrubs and flowers
for planting. The few above enumerated and those which
most closely resemble them are spoken of only to illustrate
the kind of thing for which one should seek in gardens close
to the house.

The Hamilton house is quite near to the street, and
in order to avoid dust and to secure as much privacy as
possible, the garden is placed in the rear in an angle of the
house upon a little terrace. It is very simple, cut ofi' from
the service portion by a pergola and a trellis at the right,
and from the lot next door by beds thickly planted with
trees, shrubs, and flowers. This same type of garden could
be used with the grass terraced to replace the stone wall,
and gravel walks instead of cement ones, and it would give
to every householder a bright and cheerful place to spend

236

GARDEN OF DR. GUY COCHRAN

PASADENA, CALIFORNIA

MYRON HUNT Sc ELMER GREY, ARCHITECTS

ONE HUNDRED COUNTRY HOUSES

his afternoons in seclusion. Only a few varieties of flowers
are used here, and it is better to use miany plants of few
varieties than to attempt to include in a garden, if the space
be limited, enough kinds to give a continual bloom, for in
that case the garden will never be very attractive, since there
will never be at one time sufficient color.

The garden of Dr. Guy Cochran's residence is without
flowers with the exception of a few iris plants around the
pool. The beauty of this garden is due to the charming
vista terminating at a glassed-in porch and bounded on
either side by the dwarfed fruit-trees. The vista is a most
important feature of gardens and to be successful must be,
as in this case, interesting in itself, broken up by objects of
interest, and terminated by some more or less important
feature. The sun-dial is one of the "objects of interest"
more commonly used and most charming in effect, espe-
cially when it can be reflected by water. A little pool
always adds to the beauty of a garden. Water flowers of
all sorts are attractive, and the water itself with its possi-
bility of reflection and movement, suggesting life, is almost
indispensable.

In the garden of Casa del Ponte architectural motives

238

CASA DEL PONTE

ROWAYTON, CONN.

SLEE & BRYSON. ARCHITECTS

ONE HUNDRED COUNTRY HOUSES

are introduced with more freedom than in the two forego-
ing instances, and the columns, vases, and pergola, together
with the tubs of arbor vitae, interspersed with masses of hol-
lyhocks and dwarf oak-trees, all lead the eye gradually to
the house from the natural woodland around. The man-
ner in which the walk is terminated is especially worth
imitation, for there is no abruptness of change perceptible,
but the transformation is accomplished in a gradual and
ordered sequence.

The studio and garden of the Bartlett house remind us
in many ways of the best of the Italian gardens, but the
shapes of the lattices, of the fences and pergolas, are very
distinctly along modern lines. It was not possible in this
case to make any gradual transition from the garden to the
woods, and the trees were so large that had it not been for
the original and beautiful manner of designing the garden,
they would have appeared to dominate and encroach upon
it. The pool is used here, too, with excellent effect. The
hollyhocks in the center of the picture furnish an excellent
screen for the terrace wall, and permit the studio to be
seen in exactly the proper relation to the garden.

The question of boundaries which is here solved in so

240

THE A. C. BARTLETT STUDIO AND GARDEN
■ LAKE GENEVA. WISCONSIN
HOWARD SHAW, ARCHITECT

ONE HUNDRED COUNTRY HOUSES

unusual and picturesque a manner is always a difficult one.
It is best for a formal garden such as this/ to select, when
possible, some spot where the boundaries are natural, per-
haps using the side of the house as one, and such other
natural features as may be found for the others, strength-
ening them with architectural features as in Casa del
Ponte, or with a terrace as in the Hamilton garden.

The success of any garden lies largely in securing proper
vistas and in the successful handling of the boundaries.
Their angles must usually be strengthened, and in the large
and formal work small summer-houses, technically called
gazebos, are employed. Those in the garden of Weld are
among the most beautiful which come to mind, even as
Weld is perhaps the most perfect garden in the world.
This is said with the wonderful Italian gardens fresh in
memory, and it is a triumphant illustration of what genius
and money combined can accomplish in a short time. Mr.
Piatt without the client could never have added this gar-
den to his list of superb accomplishments, nor could the
owner without Mr. Piatt have obtained this triumph of art.
The garden is a very large one, around its sides run wide
terraces, the corners of which are strengthened by the gazebos

242

THE GARDEN OF WELD

BROOKLINE, MASS.

CHARLES A. PLATT. ARCHITECT

ONE HUNDRED COUNTRY HOUSES

shown in the photograph. At the extreme end of the gar-
den facing the house is a sort of little altar, which can be
seen in the center of the picture, with a fountain at its base
and columns of excellent design flanking it. Through the
center runs an open grass plot and this is flanked on either
end by masses of bloom rising up the terrace.

In another of Mr. Piatt's gardens, at Faulkner Farm, the
garden is terminated at the rear by the casino and, with
pergolas flanking it on either side, it fronts upon a pool in
which the whole is reflected. It is impossible for most of
us to spend the money required to obtain anything like
this, but some motive of this character is an excellent one
for formal gardening even of the small and simple kind.
Most of us like to have a definite objective when we walk,
even though the distance to be traversed is only the length
of the garden; for that reason, if for no other, some place
to sit at the end of the garden opposite the house is good
to have. It does not need to be covered, it may be only
a couple of seats and a table, but in any inclosed garden
it is an essential feature. Pergolas are used at Faulkner
Farm for the boundary wall at the rear of the garden and
some sort of pergola has grown to be a habit nowadays.

244

THE CASINO AT FAULKNER FARM

BROOKLINE, MASS.

CHARLES A. PLATT, ARCHITECT

ONE HUNDRED COUNTRY HOUSES

It is a habit which is well worth while, for when over-
grown by vines, shaded by trees, pierced through with spots
of sunlight and casting shadows of irregular and delightful
form, there is no piazza which can compare with it. One
thing should be remembered, however, in placing a pergola:
there must be a need for it. It cannot simply "happen''
anywhere, like a postage-stamp set in the middle of an
envelop, but must bear some definite relation to the whole
layout of the grounds; then nothing can surpass it. It
is this quality of fitness that makes success not only in
this but in every other feature of gardening. The sur-
roundings and the shape of the plot must be most carefully
studied and worked over and accentuated to produce the best
results. Columns and statues are by no means essential,
at times they are absolutely unsuitable. The garden, like
the house, must be studied as an individual case and not as
a general proposition to be laid down and followed.

246

CHAPTER XIII

THE PLAN OF THE HOUSE

VEN more essential than an attractive exterior is a
good plan, but it is so entirely dependent upon cost
and individual requirements as to necessitate each problem
to be worked out afresh. For this reason only a few typi-
cal plans are illustrated, as against many exterior views, since
any exterior which pleases a client is susceptible of reduc-
tion and variation to a degree which is impossible in a plan.

A successful plan embodies three qualities: it is econom-
ical both of space and of operation, and it makes an
attractive interior possible.

Taking up the first of these considerations, economy of
space, there are certain governing factors which enter into
every plan, be it large or small. The most important is
the relative size of rooms. There should be one room of
sufficient area to comfortably seat all the family and such
guests as may be ordinarily expected. The modern house

247

ONE HUNDRED COUNTRY HOUSES

has no parlor, the large room — now generally called the
living-room — taking its place. It should be half again as
big as the dining-room and should be much longer than
its width. It must contain a fireplace, space for book-
cases, possibly for a piano, and should be arranged in such
a way that all the occupants may form themselves into a
single group, or can fall into two or more, according as
they are simply sitting around the fire and talking, or read-
ing and playing cards. Attached to this living-room it is
desirable to have the main piazza, which forms in summer
practically an extension of it. It is not often wise to have
the piazza across the front of the house because the en-
trance of strangers and guests to the front door breaks up
the family group unnecessarily, and messengers and people
having purely business relations should be enabled to come
to the front door without interrupting their occupations.

The living-room should have windows upon at least two
and, if practicable, upon three sides, so that thorough ven-
tilation is secured with the accompaniment of coolrress in
summer, and good light in winter. The best position for
the living-room is upon the south end of the house, with
windows on the south, east, and west, since the south end

248

THE PLAN OF THE HOUSE

of the house is both the warmest in the winter and the
coolest in the summer. The dining-room also should have
east windows, and, as it is generally desirable to remove it
as far from the living-room as possible, it falls to the north.
The dining-room does not need to be by any means
so large as the living-room ; people are always concentrated
around the table in that room and no provision need be
made for scattered groups. A fireplace is not an essential.
It is an excellent decorative feature, but seldom of any
practical use since, in any but the largest dining-rooms, the
heat of the fire becomes uncomfortable to those seated near
it. The dining-room should be nearly square, with the
sideboard and serving-table arranged on the sides of the
room so that the table may be extended to seat a compar-
atively large number of people. For an ordinary family
of not over six persons, and in a house which costs not over
$15,000, a dining-room about fifteen by seventeen feet is
ample, as opposed to about fifteen by twenty-five for the
living-room.

In a house of any size a room in addition to the dining-
room and living-room is desirable on the ground floor, call
it study, den, or reception-room, as you will. The condi-

249

ONE HUNDRED COUNTRY HOUSES

tions of American life are such that in a family where there
are children, they prefer to entertain their guests apart from
their elders, and two rooms become then inevitable. Where
the head of the family is a professional man, or, indeed, in
any business where he has to occasionally see his clients in
his own home, some room for necessary consultations, and
so on, is desirable. This additional room need not be large,
probably ten by fifteen feet is in most cases sufficient, but
it must be possible of access directly from the hall, and to
some extent secluded from both the dining- and living-
rooms, although a door into the dining-room makes it
possible for use as a smoking-room after dinner. The
grouping of these three elements, the dining- and living-
rooms and the study, together with the hall and stairway
and the servants' portions, becomes then the plan problem,
and the manner in which the arrangement may be varied
is according to the location of the lot, the preferable means
of access from the street, and the individual requirements
of the owner.

The hall is essential only as a means of access to the
rooms, and although many attempts have been made to
utilize the hall as a living-room, they are usually unsuccess-

250

THE PLAN OF THE HOUSE

ful, first, because the number of doors required in a hall
make it drafty and unpleasant to sit in; and, second, be-
cause the continual passage of people is disturbing to those
reading or playing games. Nevertheless in many cases a
hall of suitable size is essential because of a desire to ob-
tain a thorough draft or to give as impressive an entrance
to the house as is possible. In the case of large families
there is usually more space required for bedrooms above
than for rooms below, and in such an instance a large hall-
way is an excellent method of obtaining the additional
area required.

Doorways opening from the hall into the different rooms
should be large and dignified, and while sliding doors are
usually asked for by the prospective builder, they are sel-
dom of ^ny use except to shut off the rooms when cleaning
is in progress, and as they are often difficult to handle they
fail to fulfil their anticipated purpose.

For economy in operation it is desirable that those por-
tions used more often by the servants should be in close
connection. The pantry should connect directly with both
the kitchen and dining-room, and the dining-room and
kitchen should be shut off by at least two doors. If these

ONE HUNDRED COUNTRY HOUSES

are made swinging doors, so that they may be pushed open
without turning a handle, it saves a servant much trouble.
The kitchen should have, where possible, two closets, one
to contain the refrigerator, and such stores as are best kept
in a cool place, and the other for pots and pans. Ample
dresser room is desirable in the pantry, and an excellent
arrangement of the pantry would permit of one maid
handling dishes, and the like, near the pantry sink, without
interfering with the passage of another from the kitchen to
the dining-room.

Many housekeepers desire direct entrance from the
kitchen to the front door without passing through the din-
ing-room. In theory it is an excellent arrangement; practi-
cally, however, it does not work out so well. The force of
habit is strong enough to induce almost every servant to go
through the dining-room to the front door, following her
usual route, even though the other be much easier; and as
in families of small size the same maid answers the bell and
waits on the table, she would probably be in the dining-
room at meal-times anyway, and when the family are not
in the dining-room there can be no objection to her pass-
ing through. A rear stairway direct from the kitchen is

252

THE PLAN OF THE HOUSE

not as satisfactory as one from the pantry, for, unless the
rear stairs are very thoroughly cut off, the smell of the
cooking is apt to penetrate to the second story.

Every kitchen w^here no separate maids' dining-room is
provided should have a bright and cheerful place with a
pleasant outlook for the maids to sit at meals. This should
be on the opposite side of the kitchen from the working
part, and is an essential feature in these days when servants
are so hard both to obtain and retain.

A ground-floor lavatory is desirable where there are
many guests, and should open from some retired part of
the house, possibly from the study, where this is used by
the man of the house. A servants' toilet, opening from
either the servants' part of the first story, or in the cellar, is
almost a necessity, since most servants' rooms are on the
third floor.

The third essential to a successful plan concerns itself
with appearance alone. There should be a suggestion of
space when one enters the house, without entirely reveal-
ing every portion of it. The stairs should be in plain sight,
and the entrance to the various rooms should be exactly
where expected. The opposite wall from the entrance

253

ONE HUNDRED COUNTRY HOUSES

should be made interesting, either by doorways, windows,
or stairs, and no part of the entrance-hall should be a blank
wall. Doors are best placed opposite each other, and so
that, standing in one room and looking through the doors,
the vista will terminate in either fireplace, stairs, or win-
dows. The color scheme must be arranged to grade grad-
ually through the rooms without glaring contrast between
those adjoining. Where dull and quiet colors of wood-
work are employed, the wall-hangings, the rugs, furniture-
coverings, and curtains may be very brilliant without loss of
harmony, but where the woodwork is white, rich and sub-
dued colors are essential.

The five plans shown here vary in size from a house
which could be built for about ^4000 to one which could
be built for $ 1 6,000 or ^ i 7,000, and the same basic princi-
ples will be found in all.

The first, designed by Mr. Her-
man Boss, is exceedingly compact,
the hall reduced to a minimum,
with the stairs at one side and the
doorway through to the kitchen
opposite the entrance; the living-
254

THE PLAN OF THE HOUSE

room is at the left. Only one chimney is required and
that is placed in a niche opening from the living-room,
permitting two or three persons to be seated by the
fire, while the rest are scattered about the room. The
proportion between the living-room, dining-room, and
kitchen is excellent, and the kitchen has an extension
where the maids may sit and be removed from their work.
There is only a single staircase in this house, but it is so
arranged that the maids may pass under the second run of
it to go up-stairs, without being seen from the main portion
of the house. This portion is cut off by two doors from
the kitchen, a very desirable feature in that the cellar may
be entered from the front without passing through the
kitchen. While the plan as shown here is a small one, it
is possible of enlargement by increasing each room in pro-
portion, to a house which would be exceedingly convenient
for a family of three or four people with a single maid.

The second plan, which can be built for about $7000,
is excellent in giving a large living-room and dining-room
and a good-sized kitchen in a comparatively small area.
The stairway is in principle the same as in the first plan,
there being no back stairway, and entrance to the cellar is

255

ONE HUNDRED COUNTRY HOUSES

possible from the
front of the house.
In both of these plans ff
the maids can go ^
straight to the front ^o^
door without going +
through the dining-
room, although, as has
been before said, it is
seldom that they ever do so. The ice-closet is close to the
rear porch so that the iceman has to take as few steps as
possible in the kitchen, and the pot and pan closet is ar-
ranged conveniently to the range. The living-room is of
ample size with a fireplace well placed for comfort, and
French windows on either side leading directly to the
porch. While the hall is comparatively small, every one
of its four sides is interesting. This plan was used in the
Bull house in the Dutch Colonial chapter.

The third plan is one with a large hall suitable for a
living-room; the front staircase goes up at one side, and a
first-floor lavatory is arranged under the front staircase in
the secondary passageway between the kitchen and hall.

256

THE PLAN OF THE HOUSE

The dining-room and living-room are placed at either end,
with the living-room slightly larger than the dining-room.
The chimney in the living-room comes at such a point
that it can be seen all the way through the house, from the
dining-room, giving a beautiful appearance. The pantry,
here called the china closet, affords a simple and direct

OIjOH

connection from the kitchen to the dining-room, and the
refrigerator closet is placed off the entry in an excellent
manner. This plan is by Mr. Lovell Little.

The fourth plan is one in which the hall runs straight
through, with the stairs at one side, and the dining-room

and study opening from it at the right by little lobbies —
the living-room at the other side. This permits of a carri-
age entrance at the rear, with a walk up to the front, an

257

ONE HUNDRED COUNTRY HOUSES

arrangement which is often desirable, since either a garden
or a lawn can be placed in the front of the house in place

of the usual dusty road. The study has an entrance both
from the hall and from the dining-room, which permits its
use, as before suggested, as a smoking-room. The back-
stairs open directly from the kitchen, and the servants'
quarters would be kept on the second floor over the kitchen
extension, with the guest rooms on the third floor.

The last plan illustrated is that of the Orr house in the
chapter on Dutch Colonial, and is the largest and most
complete of all. The entrance is from a little loggia porch,
and faces directly the stairs, under which is placed a lava-

258

THE PLAN OF THE HOUSE

tory. The entrance-hall is reduced to a corridor with an
arcaded ceiling, at one end of which is the dining-room and
at the other the living-room. From this corridor at the back.
of the house open a reception-room and study, while coat

closets are placed adjoining the dining-room and living-
room on the front. The kitchen and pantry arrangements
are very complete, with the stairs to the second story going
up from the pantry and down to the basement from the
kitchen. A rear entrance for carriages is placed under the
stairs at the back, while the entrance to the front is for
people on foot only. The living-room has ample wall
space for furniture, and at the same time is brightly lighted.
The fireplace in the dining-room is kept as far back in
the wall as possible, so that the mantel will not crowd the
passage around the table. The plan is excellent in per-
259

ONE HUNDRED COUNTRY HOUSES

mitting through ventilation in every room and giving airi-
ness and spaciousness combined with excellent working
qualities.

No second-floor plans have been shown because these
vary so enormously that a few examples would not even
be of suggestive value to the home-builder. A few words,
however, on the modern tendency of second-floor plan may
not be amiss. People are coming more and more to house
the servants in extensions above the kitchen, reserving the
third story for guest rooms or for children's rooms. In
many cases the outlook from the third story surpasses that
from anywhere else in the house, and big, light, and airy
rooms are possible, while the improved methods of con-
struction of to-day have done away with the old-fashioned
theory that rooms directly under the roof are invariably
hot. In the second floor, where there are young children,
it is desirable to arrange the owner's room and one or two
children's rooms en suite, so that they may be completely
cut off from the remainder of the house, and the doors left
open at night, without fear of the great American bogie —
"the burglar." It is perhaps not necessary to add that
bath-rooms are constantly increasing in proportionate

260

THE PLAN OF THE HOUSE

number to the bedrooms, and a separate bath-room for the
owner, with one for the children, and one for the guests,
will soon be an essential in every house, however small.

For the best placing of furniture rooms should be kept
as free from angles and projections as may be. Every
room should have ample closets, with outside light where
possible. Built-in cupboards for dresses, coats, shirts, and so
forth, are a customary feature, and a soiled-clothes chute
from the second and third floor to the laundry in the base-
ment, where it can be introduced, is a saving of labor.
Open fireplaces in bedrooms assist in ventilation, especially
in cases of sickness.

While no attempt has been made to enter fully into the
subject of plan, these few suggestions may prove of help
to those intending to erect a house, and no one of them
has been made without due regard for the requirements
of the average American of moderate means. It is prob-
ably impossible to combine them all in one house without
too great a sacrifice of factors dependent upon the individ-
ual case, but in a broad and generous sense they are
applicable to all.

261

LIST OF ARCHITECTS

PAue

Albro & Lindeberg 203

Alden & Harlow 41

Atterbury, Grosvenor 95, 147

Bailey & Bassett 55

Barber, Donn 231

Bates, William A • 143

Benedict, William K 99

Boynton, Louis 103, 173

Bragdon, Claude 211

Busselle, Alfred 71, 183

Cope & Stewardson ; 115,127, 163, 165

Davis & McGrath 229

Davis, McGrath & Shepard 65

Dow, Joy Wheeler 39, 121, 145

Elzner & Anderson 69

Embury II, Aymar 81, 83, 85, 87, 89, 129

Ewing & Chappell 35

Eyre, Wilson 79>i59> 167

Ford, Lyman A. . loi

262

LIST OF ARCHITECTS

i*a(;b

Gildersleeve, Raleigh C 67

Greene & Greene 217, 219, 221

Griffin, Percy 53

Grey, Elmer 119

Hale & Rogers 51

Hering, O. C 31, 181

Hunt, Myron, & Elmer Grey 77, 109, 223, 225, 237

Jackson, Allen W 139

Jones, Sullivan W 1 1 1

Keen, Charles Barton 59> 61, 75, 117

Keen & Mead 21

Kilham & Hopkins 23, 25

Kirby, Petit & Green 49

Lewis, William Whitney 153

Little, J. Lovell 197

Lord & Hewlett 19

MacKenzie, G. C 97

Maher, George W 205, 207, 209

Maybeck, Bernard 227

McGonigle, A. Van Buren 199, 201

Mead, Frank B 131

Metcalfe, Louis 137

Moses, Lionel 47

Nichols, George 91

263

LIST OF ARCHITECTS

PACK

Parker & Thomas 1 79

Piatt, Charles A 29,43,45,63,151,243,245

Pope, John Russell 135

Purdon, James 27, 23

Rantoul, William G. 161

Shaw, Howard 189, 191, 193, 195, 241

Slee & Bryson 187, 239

Smedley, Walter 113

Sneden, A. Durant 185

Spencer & Powers 157, 169

Stratton & Baldwin 133, 235

Taylor & Levi 105, 141

Tietig & Lee 213

Wilder & White 171

Winslow & Bigelow 155, 175, 177

Wyatt & Nolting 73

264

■^^

•-^-•^ » . ^ ■ . - .

-^ - ■"

ADDENDUM

The author desires to acknowledge the courtesy of
"American Homes and Gardens" in permitting the
use of the illustrations on pages 19, 27, 55, 67, 1 1 1,
127, 143, 165, and 167.

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