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Vol. XLVI. No. 4 OCTOBER, 1919 Serial N o 25
Editor: MICHAEL A. MIKKELSEN Contributing Editor: HERBERT CROLY Business Manager: J. A. OAKLEY
COVEK Water Color, by Jack Manley Rose PAGE
THE AMERICAN COUNTRY HOUSE . .;. .-. 291 By Prof. Fiske Kimball.
I. Practical Conditions: Natural, Economic,
Social . . ,. . *.,, . 299
II. Artistic Conditions : Traditions and Ten^
dencies of Style . \ . .- 329
III. The Solutions : Disposition and Treatment
of House and Surroundings . . 350
J . .Vi
Yearly Subscription United States $3.00 Foreign $4.00 Stn<7?e copies 33 cents. Entered May 22, 1902, as Second Class Matter, at New York, N. Y. Member Audit Bureau of Circulation. PUBLISHED MONTHLY BY THE ARCHITECTURAL:TURAL RECORD COMPANY VEST FORTIETH STKEET, NEW YORK F. T. MILLER, Pres. XL, Vice-Pres. J. W. FRANK, Sec'y-Treas. E. S. DODGE, Vice-Pi*
''< w : : f'lfvjf !?-; ^Tt;">7<"!{^if ^J^Y^^''*'C I''-" ^^ '^'^''^>'**-*'^j"^4!V; TIG. 1. DETAIL RESIDENCE OF H. BELLAS HESS, ESQ., HUNT1NGTON, L. I HOWELLS & STOKES, ARCHITECTS. AKCHITECTVKAL KECORD
VOLVME XLVI NVMBER IV
OCTOBER, 1919
By Fiskc KJmball the "country house" in America scribed "lots" of the city, where one may we understand no such single well- enjoy the informality of nature out-of- BYestablished form as the traditional doors. country house of England, fixed by cen- Much as has been written on the sub- turies of almost unalterable custom, with ject, we are still far from having any a life of its own which has been described such fundamental analysis of the Amer- as "the perfection of human society." ican country house of today as that Even in England today the great house which Hermann Muthesius in his classic yields in importance to the new and book "The English House" has given for smaller types which the rise of the middle England. Perhaps the reason may be classes has strewn over the country and that we have taken too much for granted on the fringes of the city, and with the and should try, as Muthesius does, to variety is infinite, from the dwellings of look on the work more with the eye of a the further suburbs to the distant, self- stranger. sustaining estate. Yet the common char- Things we never mention are in acteristic of all is clear enough a site many cases the very ones which go free of the arid blocks and circum- farthest to make the specific architec- Copyrighted, 1919. by The Architectural Record Company. All rights reserved. FIG. 2. DETAIL VIEW RESIDENCE OF JOSEPH BUSH, ESQ., FIELDSTON, NEW YORK CITY, DWIGHT JAMES BAUM, ARCHITECT. FIG. 3. SUN ROOM RESIDENCE OF J. B. RICH- ARDSON LYETH, ESQ., FIELDSTON, NEW YORK CITY. DWIGHT JAMES BAUM, ARCHITECT FIG. 4. ENTRANCE DETAIL RESIDENCE OF DR. EDWARD B. KRUMBHAAR, WHITEMARSH VALLEY, PA. ARTHUR H, BROCKIE, ARCHITECT FIG. 5. VIEW FROM THE SOUTH RESIDENCE OF STEWART DUNCAN, ESQ., NEWPORT, R. I. John Russell Pope, Architect. FIG. 6. RESIDENCE OF TRACY DOWS, ESQ., RHINEBECK, N. Y. Albro & Lindeberg, Architects. 295 FIG. 7. "THE MANOR HOUSE," ESTATE OF JOHN T. PRATT, ESQ., GLEN COVE, L. I. Charles A. Platt, Architect. f ,'n- -J.T. I'KAI 1 -\ .-" FIG. 7A. FIRST FLOOR PLAN "THE MANOR HOUSE." ESTATE OF JOHN T. PRATT, ESQ.. GLEN COVE, L. I. Chark s A. Platt, Architect. 296 FIG. 7B. VIEW FROM GARDEN "THE MANOR HOUSE," ESTATE OF JOHN T. PRATT, ESQ., GLEN COVE, L. I. Charles A. Platt, Architect. FIG. 7C. GENERAL PLAN "THE MANOR HOUSE." ESTATE OF JOHN T. PRATT, ESQ., GLEN COVE, L. I. Charles A. Platt, Architect. 297 FIG. 8. RESIDENCE OF JAMES SWAN FRICK, ESQ., GUILFORD, BALTIMORE, MD. John Russell Pope, Architect. FIG. 8A. PLAN RESIDENCE OF JAMES SWAN FRICK, ESQ., GUILFORD, BALTIMORE, MD. John Russell Pope, Architect. 298 THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD. tural and domestic character which we analysis which has been so successful in recognize intuitively as American. A helping us to understand past styles, but search for these basic conditions and ele- which we have usually been content to ments cannot fail to bring us greater drop at the year 1800: seeking, first, the clarity of thought in our domestic design, bearing of the practical conditions, nat- and help make conscious and direct the ural, economic, social, next, the bearing adaptation which tends to remain merely of artistic conditions, the traditions and intuitive and groping. tendencies of style; and, with the insight Let us, then, apply to our own prob- thus won, examine the prevailing types lem of today the same thoroughness of and recent examples. Practical Conditions ** Natural * Economic ^ Social *" far as concerns natural conditions, exceptional conditions of weathering and SOcertain diversities are so obvious of expansion, and that unusual provi- that it might seem impossible to sions of defense must be made to secure formulate generalizations such as are comfort both in summer heat and in win- readily made for a homogeneous country ter cold. No small share of the greater like England. Closer examination, how- cost of American buildings in proportion ever, reveals much underlying unity with to relative prices abroad is due to this respect to all but a few exceptional dis- struggle with severity of climate. tricts: semi-tropical Florida, the deserts In winter freezing temperature not of the Southwest, and the temperate only demands deep foundations and care- Pacific Riviera. ful protection of plumbing, but also In climate, the fundamental character- makes central artificial heat an absolute istic is a range of temperature out of all necessity for the plumbing system as well proportion to Western Europe. Whereas as for the comfort of the inhabitants. there the difference between the means of The high cost of foundations tends to January and July is but ten or fifteen prevent the house from ramifying and degrees, as on our Pacific coast, through- to force it into the air, while the cost of out the rest of the United States the the heating system restricts the open fire- mean annual range is immensely greater, place still desirable as the best means seventy degrees in the northern prairies of ventilation and cheer to the few and plains, and forty or fifty degrees principal rooms at most. On the other even along the Atlantic seaboard. As hand, the development of artificial heat- summer temperatures of a hundred de- ing gives us certain advantages that grees are occasionally carried to the Ca- other countries where winter is less nadian boundary and freezing winds drastic do not possess, making the house sometimes sweep down to the Gulf of relatively independent of unfavorable Mexico, the extreme range is even great- orientation and permitting large openings er than this would indicate 110 and between the rooms without incurring the even 135 in given localities. It follows foreign bugaboo of draughts. The ten- that building materials are exposed to dency in the last generation of adequate 299 THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD. the forms of heating has been to utilize these possibil- for reasons of style. Even have been ities through replacing the more Euro- porch posts and railings the the column and pean. Colonial plan of isolated rooms affected by screens, with inside chimneys and closed doors by the balustrade tending to be replaced by one with outside chimneys and with the square pier and the solid parapet. rooms thrown together by broad-cased Of building materials the natural openings. abundance in most sections has always The heavy and lasting snows of the given a wide range of physical possibil- north have also their influence, by for- ities, and has left the choice to be deter- bidding the horizontal valleys and free- mined primarily on economic grounds. dom of roof composition of the English, That the dominant form of construction and by rendering interior courts exotic in America has hitherto been of wood and unsatisfactory, unless in houses not has not been due to special difficulty in intended to be occupied in winter. securing stone or brick, but to the cheap- The heat of summer must be met ness of wood itself. In the pioneer set- either by high ceilings or by large open- tlement and on the Colonial estate tim- ings, both, but especially the latter, ber was actually to be had for nothing as again demanding adequate winter heat- a by-product of clearing the land neces- ing. The nineteenth century solution, sary for tillage, and masonry has re- seen most characteristically in mid-Vic- mained at a relative economic disadvan- torian houses, was to use high ceilings tage quite unknown in the deforested with openings relatively small, windows countries of Europe. With the deple- closed and shaded by blinds on the prin- tion of our own forests in recent years, ciple of holding the imprisoned air at its however, this disparity has been rapidly night temperature. The system was sat- decreasing. In 1910 careful investiga- isfactory except for the neglect of one tions showed that the excess first cost in factor, disclosed by the medical science dwelling houses of brick over wood had of the turn of the century, sufficient to fallen to ten or twelve per cent. And un- destroy the whole equilibrium and grad- less reforestation is carried out on a large ually bring about the wholly different ad- scale, it is merely a question of time justment of today. It was the discovery when the difference shall ultimately dis- that tuberculosis flourishes in closed appear. Already products of clay, ce- rooms but yields to fresh air and sun- ment, and metal tend more and more to light, with the complementary discovery replace wood at this point or that. Wall that malaria comes not from "night air" coverings of stucco on metal lath, floors but from mosquito bites, which threw of tile composition, girders of steel at wide the windows of our houses, gave crucial points become relatively less ex- casement sash a greater vogue, and travagant. New materials and struc- brought the demand for sleeping porches. tural devices, such as hollow tile for At the same time, in view of a prevalence walls, are further reducing the relative of flies and mosquitos unknown in west- expense of masonry construction, and ern Europe, this required complete causing an increasing number to assume screening, for safety as well as comfort. the added first cost for the sake of great- In the new houses, where the breeze er durability and dignity. blows through unrestrained, high ceilings In our more ambitious houses, of have become unnecessary, and, in all but course, these motives of preference have the most pretentious, have generally always led to the occasional employment to low or at least lower of in local conditions given way studs, masonry ; and, this, in the interest of coziness with economy at first played a large role. The clay of of first cost and of heating. Blinds, no Maryland and Virginia suggested brick; longer so much used either day or night, the stratified ledge-stone of Pennsylvania, and impossible to close with full screens stonework of special technique and tex- or casements opening outward, have ture. Although cheap transportation has tended to be abandoned, unless retained tended to make brick and stone of all 300 FIG. 9. VILLA OF JAMES DEERING, ESQ., MIAMI, FLA. Paul Chalfln & F. Burrall Hoffman, Jr,, Architects. (From the Architectural Review for July, 1917) FIG. 9A. FIRST FLOOR PLAN VILLA OF JAMES DEERING. ESQ., MIAMI, FLA. Paul Chalfln & F. Burrall Hoffman, Jr., Architects. (From the Architectural Review for July, 1917) 301 FIG. 10A. RESIDENCE OF JOSEPH C. BALDWIN, JR., ESQ., MOUNT KISCO, N. Y. Benjamin Wistar Morris, Architect. FIG. 10. "SHALLOW BROOK FARM," RESIDENCE OF JOSEPH C. BALDWIN, JR., ESQ. MOUNT KISCO, N. Y. Benjamin Wistar Morris, Architect. 202 FIG. 12. RESIDENCE OF THOMAS R. BARD, ESQ., HUENEME, CAL. Myron Hunt, Architect FIG. 12A. FIRST FLOOR PLAN RESIDENCE OF THOMAS R. BARD, ESQ., HUENEMA, CAL. Myron Hunt, Architect. 304 FIG. 13A. ENTRANCE TO COURT RESIDENCE OF C. A. BARTLETT, ESQ., LAKE GENEVA, WIS. Howard Shaw, Architect. FIG. 13B. COURT RESIDENCE OF C. A. BARTLETT, ESQ., LAKE GENEVA, WIS. Howard Shaw, Architect. 305 , FIG. 13. FIRST FLOOR PLAN RESIDENCE OF C. A. BARTLETT. ESQ., LAKE GENEVA, WIS. HOWARD SHAW, ARCHITECT. FIG. 14. GROUP OF BUILDINGS ON ESTATE OF FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT, SPRING GREEN. WIS., INCLUDING RESIDENCE. ARCHITECTURAL OFFICE. FARM BUILD- INGS. FARMER'S DWELLING AND DORMITORIES FOR EMPLOYEES, FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT, ARCHITECT. THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD. sorts universally and equally available, cent., have over $10,000 a year. Obvious- and fashions of style rather than neces- ly but a very small fraction of the popu- sity have thus been able to determine the lation is in a position to build country preference among them, the influence of houses of any sort. Equally striking, at local supply of materials either on cost the other end of the scale, is the large or on style is by no means exhausted. absolute number of "millionaires,'' and their rapid increase from the 4,027 shown the exhaustive of the II by investigation New York Tribune in 1892 a quad- Economic conditions, revolutionized by rupling in twenty-five years. war and still in rapid change, determine For the time being and for some time both the costs of building and operation to come, it must not be forgotten that the and the sum available for them. "net income" of the individual suffers a Who and how many can build country large further reduction by taxes, amount- houses depends ultimately on the distri- ing for 1918 to $830 on an income of bution of income in the nation. Figures $10,000; $11,030 on an income of $50,- really exact are difficult to arrive at, but 000; and over $100,000 on an income of the most reliable are these : $200,000. Even with the reduction of Annual Income Number of families or "income receiving units" 1910 1916 1917 (Estimated)* (Federal tax returns on Over $1,000,000 basis of "net income") $200,000 to 1,000,000 154 206 141 100,000 to 200,000 261 2,243 1,959 50,000 to 100,000 3,145 4,184 4,604 11,630 10,452 12,439 Total over $50,000 ("millionaires") 15,190 17,085 19,143 20,000 to 50,000 39,000 36,690 47,197 10,000 to 20,000 73,000 67,926 95,696 6,000 to 10,000 117,000 98,522 3,000 to 6,000 831,429 476,000 209,178 Total over $3,000 720,190 429,401 993,465 Total families or income receiv- ing units 27,945,190 The smaller numbers in certain classes one-third in the normal tax for 1919, of incomes in 1916 are not due, of course, these amounts will remain very substan- to decrease in incomes since 1910, but to tial. deductions exempt from tax and to fail- How much of this actual income is ure to file returns on the part of those available for country house building and with the smaller incomes. It is notable operating may be traced by examining that in spite of such factors and the in- budgets for different classes. To begin evitable proneness of tax returns to un- with incomes as low as $3,000, the ap- derstate the facts, the number of incomes portionment between the five usual of $100,000 or more in 1916 greatly ex- groups established by Professor Ellen H. ceed the estimates of 1910. The striking, Richards is somewhat as follows: almost incredible conditions verified, however, by a multitude of other evi- dences are that the families with in- comes over $3,000 constitute but three Food per cent, of the whole number of families 25% in the country; and that not much over 150,000 families, or one-half of one per FIG. 15. GENERAL VIEW OF FORECOURT AS SEEN FROM THE GRANARY ESTATE OF FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT, SPRING GREEN, WIS. Frank Lloyd Wright, Architect. For larger incomes the percentage for above the basement, and allows for but food and clothes naturally decreases and one bath. For each additional bath the that for higher life increases, the other allowance would have been some $300, proportions remaining much the same. for additional servants' rooms about $500 Taking the average rent in any case as each. With higher standards of material 20 per cent, and capitalizing it at ten and finish the expense ranged in 1914 per cent, to allow for taxes, repairs, and from 30 to 50 cents per cubic foot or $4 depreciation, we find the amount which to $9 per square foot in country houses might be available for building and op- of the better classes. Meanwhile costs erating expenses in different grades of have risen to entirely new levels. On income somewhat as follows: figures given out by the United States Amounts Available for: Department of Labor, prices of building Annual Annual Building (house Operating Income Rent and land Expenses materials, excluding metals, have ad- $3,000 $600 $6,000 $450 vanced 84 per cent, in the last five years. 6,000 1,200 12,000 900 Owing to the slower rise of wages, to be 10,000 2,000 20,000 1,500 sure, the advance in the total cost of 50,000 10,000 100,000 7,500 construction has not been so great. By With the prices of building in 1914 actual comparison of costs the increase the country or suburban dwelling of or- between June, 1915, and May of this year dinary character and minimum dimen- on a two and a half story frame dwelling sions cost, with the land, roughly a thou- with stucco exterior, in the vicinity of sand dollars a room. This is on the New York, is 48 per cent. On the basis basis of a rate of 22 cents per cubic foot of present incomes it is easy to see not of habitable space including the base- only why the great mass of city dwellers out ment, or $3 per square foot of floor area finds anything like a country house 309 FIG. 16. LIVING ROOM RESIDENCE OF FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT, SPRING GREEN, WIS. Frank Lloyd Wright, Architect. of the question, but why many who might ized that at the wages prevailing in Eng- have built before the war now find it im- land before the war it was not abnormal possible to do so, even though assured there to keep three servants on an income that prices are not coming down. of a thousand pounds a year, the notable No less important a factor than the influence of present American economic cost of building is the cost of operation. conditions will be appreciated. In this the largest element by far is rep- Ill resented by service. Even before the Foremost of the social conditions af- war at an average wage for white maids fecting the country house is the very of seven dollars a week with room and impulse to its building, the great wave board, and at a cost for board of four of renewed love of out-of-door life and dollars, the current expense for female of nature which swept over America in help was some $550 a year per servant. the last years of the nineteenth century At present wages of ten dollars and up- and the opening years of the twentieth. wards, $850 to $1,000 would be a con- Predominant in it, no doubt, is the fond- servative estimate. If the first cost of a ness for out-of-door sports, which have thousand dollars or more for a servant's had such an unparalleled development in room and bath are in last but beside this has considered addi- the generation ; tion, it is obvious that in the North, with come a fuller enjoyment of gardening families of average numbers, even the and the quieter pleasures of country life. keeping of a single maid is a burden on To permit the indulgence of these tastes incomes less than six or eight thousand even modern business has had to give dollars. Few of the houses illustrated way, adapting its organization to vaca- in this number have provision for more tions and week ends, not only of the ex- than three servants, on incomes very ecutives but of the whole sales and office much larger than that. When it is real- force. 310 FIG. 17. COURT RESIDENCE OF CHARLES A. WIMPFHEIMER, ESQ.. LONG BRANCH. N. J. HARRY ALLEN JACOBS. ARCHITECT. Ji 34T-1 Up FIG. 24. RESIDENCE OF WALTER B. WALKER, ESQ., ARDSLEY, N. Y. Frank J. Forster, Architect. The impulse into the open is strong the automobile and good roads have made enough to make a man bear hardships, if transportation over long distances rapid, necessary, to relish camping, or make the easy, and pleasant. With over four mil- best of living in old farm houses or in- lion passenger cars in the United States adequate shacks. But in its cooler and in 1918, of which some two and a half more permanent moods it is still subject million are used in farm and country to the imperative demand for modern life, the car is rapidly coming to be con- and American ideals of comfort. A com- sidered a necessary, like the furnace, the plete water supply, drainage and plumb- fixed bath tub, or the telephone. ing system, with special facilities for ser- The result of these ideals and facili- vants, if any, central heating in winter ties has been the great decentralization of supplemented by one or more fireplaces, the more favored classes of towns and electric lighting, ease of communication cities, whether by summer exodus to the and transportation, are our universal re- seashore and mountains, or by life the quirements, to a large degree indepen- year around on the borders of the coun- dent of income. To make possible en- try or in the country itself. joyment of country life without the loss In determining the main types to of these modern facilities, applied science which these houses conform, social has devoted itself in recent years with stratification plays the chief part. It is complete success. Gasoline pumping and idle to ignore the reality of existence pressure tanks have insured a constant of social groups in contemporary Amer- distance in water supply ; long transmission ica spite of the continuous gradations and private generating systems have between them. Our political democracy made electricity universally available; does not exclude industrial aristocracy, rural delivery, the parcels post and the and the war and its aftermath are mak- telephone have solved the problem of ing the essential cleavage between cap- communication. Most important of all, italists, business men and professional 318 THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD. men and the laboring masses, but too plitude and luxury a stamp which pronounced. shows that in its building lavish means Of the classes it is only the first two were at disposal. There are numerous that come at all into consideration as rooms for house guests and enlarged builders of country houses. Between facilities for entertaining; correspond- their dwellings there is a difference more ing provisions are made for the privacy fundamental than disparity of expense of -the hosts through dressing rooms, on social boudoirs ser- grounded conventions and mode and additional baths ; the of life. Whereas in England, with an vice arrangements are calculated for a ancient aristocracy rooted in feudal numerous staff; gardens, dependencies landholding, the conventions and the his- and surrounding land are of generous toric form of the house alike are native 'extent, and all rooms, especially .the liv- with it and tend to impose themselves on ing rooms, of liberal dimensions. While the middle class, with us the middle class in all this to a large degree it is the conventions are the fundamental ones, to old ideal of the English country house (free itself from which our industrial which is followed, it is only in a minority aristocracy tends to have recourse to of cases, except in the South, that this foreign, especially English, models. This is carried to the extent of making the es- does not exclude, of course, imitation of tate self-sustaining. Agriculture and the reigning social fashion in externals stock-breeding as hobbies are rarer here by all classes. Thus it comes about that than in England with its feudal back- in the basic form of the American house, ground. however large, the traditions of simpler The houses of this class in general are American society are apt to govern, of an importance to demand individual while in style and decoration the succes- illustration and comment, more extended sive modes of the leaders of fashion ul- than can be made here. A few examples timately prevail even in the modest only, such as the Watson Webb (Fig. dwelling. 19), Appleton (Fig. 109) and Hess For the fashionable world, residence (Fig. 41) houses on Long Island, them- in the country is a part of the conven- selves relatively modest in their preten- tional division are in of the year, which involves sions, shown some completeness ; also residence in town during the social but otherwise houses like these are dis- season, with visits to Florida or Cali- cussed merely in so far as they have had fornia in the depth of winter and to influence on the smaller type, principally Mount Desert in the height of summer. in matters of style. By such migrations there is an escape For American business and profession- from conditions of climate which the al men, ideals of life and standards of house reflects in its freedom from pro- comfort do not differ so greatly from vision for extremes. In the country those of the greater capitalists, but ab- house not occupied in winter, an open sence of social pretensions permit a more court becomes feasible, as in the Wimpf- modest establishment, while difference of heimer house at Long Branch (Fig. 17). means enforces certain limitations. Full The sleeping porch is not needed for material conveniences of plumbing, heat- comfort, and under favorable circum- ing, lighting and transport are an abso- stances even screens may be omitted, lute requirement, taking unconscious pre- with advantages for picturesqueness tes- cedent of any other. To them must be tified, for instance, by the open loggias sacrificed, if the money available is lim- and canopies of the Rogers house on ited, dimensions and number of rooms, Long Island (Architectural Record for quality of materials, number and very January, 1916). The house of this class, presence of servants, and even size of costing a hundred thousand dollars or families. Thus where there is not money indefinitely more, is distinguished from for both, the confort moderne has the small house less by any greater num- brought the loss of the confort an den ber of living rooms than by greater am- the grand dimension, sterling quality, 319 FIG. 25. RESIDENCE OF J. B. VAN HAELEN, ESQ., HARTSDALE, N. Y. FRANK J. FORSTER, ARCHITECT. FIG. 26. RESIDENCE OF J. B. VAN HAELEN, ESQ., HARTSDALE, N. Y. FRANK J. FORSTER, ARCHITECT. FIG. 27. RESIDENCE OF J. B. VAN HAELEN, ESQ., HARTSDALE, N. Y. Frank J. Forster, Architect. ample service, hospitality. Although ly following, with the washing machine these consequences were scarcely fore- and the mangle where commercial laun- seen and not incurred consciously, any dry service is unavailable or unsatisfac- voluntary return to former conditions is tory. Such equipment, of course, brings unimaginable. a large additional increase in first cost, The most drastic of these curtailments augmented still further by the American is in the matter of service. The trouble readiness to make technical development here is not merely that money is avail- an end in itself. able for only very few servants, or per- This whole development is best seen in at but the which with the reduction of haps only one, present wages ; that kitchen, this reduced number of servants tend to personnel and the substitution of gas and regard the work as too great and will electric cooking, is fast becoming in the not stay at all, if indeed the absorption North a little galley, bristling like a lab- of the limited supply by larger establish- oratory with technical devices. In the ments permits any to be secured in the South, negro help earning lower wages first place. Thus, a constantly greater and also of less technical capacity per- number of housewives are forced to petuates, on the whole, the conditions of carry on the work with little help or an earlier day. none at all. In either case the resulting In the ordinary business and profes- trend is toward a still further reduction sional circles two establishments are the in the scale of the establishment, and most that can be afforded, and the pres- toward the adoption of laborsaving de- sure is to emphasize but one, or even to vices. The vacuum cleaner and many concentrate wholly on one, especially if other electrical appliances, recommended the advantages of both city and country also by other advantages, are already can be secured there. For some whose very widespread, the dishvasher is rapid- occupation or retirement permits, a per- 322 THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD. manent in residence the country is pos- while its head spends the middle of the sible. For those whose occupation is in week in town. With the large suburban the city, two schemes for enjoyment of estate, on the other hand, the impulse to life are country practicable: a house at spend the summer elsewhere is greatly some distance used for vacations and reduced and the briefer vacation trips week-ends, in connection with a house or may be spent at hotels and camps. Thus, apartment in town, or a house on the although one type is primarily a residence FIG. 28. RESIDENCE OF J. B. VAN HAELEN, ESQ., HARTSDALE. N. Y. Frank J. Forster, Architect. outskirts of the further suburbs with for the summer, the other for the win- daily trips to the city by rail or motor. ter months, heating and other facilities In the former case neither establishment of a permanent residence are introduced can be as ambitious as if there were but into the "summer cottage," porches and one, and, with the migratory apartment related features are multiplied to make life of cities, the trend is to make the the suburban place thoroughly livable in country house principal, to regard it as summer, and both become fundamentally the true home, occupied by the family one with the permanent country resi- continuously during the good weather dence. 323 FIG. 31. RESIDENCE OF HORATIO GATES LLOYD, ESQ., HAVERFORD, PA. Wilson Eyre & Mcllvaine, Architects. FIG. 32. RESIDENCE OF HORATIO GATES LLOYD, ESQ.. HAVERFORD, PA. Wilson Eyre & Mcllvaine, Architects. Q9A FIG. 29. RESIDENCE OP HORATIO GATES LLOYD, ESQ., HAVERFORD, PA. Wilson Eyre & Mcllvaine, Architects. FIG. 30. RESIDENCE OF HORATIO GATES LLOYD, ESQ.. HAVERFORD. PA. Wilson Eyre & Mcllvaine. Architects. 325 FIG. 33. SOUTH FRONT FROM LAWN RESIDENCE OF DR. EDWARD B. KRUMBHAAR, WHITEMARSH VALLEY, PA. Arthur H. Brockie, Architect. FIG. 35. NORTH FRONT RESIDENCE OF DR. EDWARD B. KRUMBHAAR, WHITEMARSH VALLEY, PA. Arthur H. Brockie, Architect. 326 THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD. In a suggestive note in the Architectural New Jersey many examples of such Record for October, 1914, Mr. Herbert essentially suburban country places might Croly spoke of the large suburban place be cited, but about smaller Eastern as a development specifically Middle cities they are very numerous, and should Western. It is true that the type is nec- be regarded as characteristic rather of the essarily uncharacteristic of New York size of the city than of any particular with its monstrous urban extent, al- section. So far as social requirements though in Greenwich, Conn., in West- are concerned, then, there is likewise no chester County, N. Y., and in Northern need of a sectional division. FIG. 34. SOUTH FRONT RESIDENCE OF DR. EDWARD B. KRUM- BHAAR, WHITEMARSH VALLEY. PA. Arthur H. Brockie, Architect. 327 FIG. 36. MAIN ENTRANCE RESIDENCE OF ED- WARD C. DELAFIELD, ESQ., RIVERDALE-ON-HUDSON. NEW YORK. DWIGHT JAMES BAUM. ARCHITECT " Artistic Conditions TradiKons & tendencies of Sme practical conditions de- mother, consoles herself for her own termine the main types and the sterility by an unbridled course of adop- WHILEaccommodations of our country tion." houses, artistic conditions the traditions In current American domestic archi- and tendencies of- style have a decisive tecture the extreme range of accepted influence not only in fixing the character precedent does not extend beyond Re- of the exterior and interior treatment, naissance or post-Renaissance architec- but even in determining the plan. That ture in certain of its manifestations. they are not unified to the degree to Italian, English, Colonial and, to a less which national traditions were in less degree, French and Spanish. Whatever omniscient ages does not make them less the case in ecclesiastical or collegiate vitally felt does not make our modern work, domestic Gothic is now felt to be situation fundamentally unique. In so an anachronism, and even French work far as they involve a conflict between in- of the Valois, with its strong mediaeval herited forms and novel or exotic ele- tinge, has come to seem exotic and is ments they but continue an age-long pro- scarce attempted. Perhaps it is hardly cess. What is novel in the last century too much to suggest that even Tudor and is merely that the inherited forms them- Elizabethan treatments in any strictness selves embrace a wide range of selection. no longer appeal to us as quite capable The eclectic theory as developed by the of American naturalization. The dom- nineteenth century was that choice be- ination of the classic spirit which this in- tween all these "historic styles" is per- dicates is revealed also in the general dis- fectly free, to be exercised by client or taste for anything florid or baroque the architect according to unrestrained per- expurgation of styles in the direction of sonal preference, even in such isolated classical purism. experiments as the Pompeian house at The Tudor style, to be sure, has had Saratoga. Within a single design also recently superlatively sympathetic exem- the principle permits a combination of plification in two houses by Mr. John elements of different styles, a fresh com- Russell Pope the Stuart Duncan resi- position with elements of one style, or dence (Fig. 5) at Newport and the Allen the literal reproduction of an individual S. Lehman house at Tarrytown, but by historic example. In its application their very perfection in the reproduction there have always been certain favored of motives, textures, and weathering they styles that have the advantage of con- seem mirages of old England rather than formity to practical needs or cultural in- growths in American soil. It is only heritance. Even among these at any through its modern adaptations at home given moment a consensus of preference by Lutyens, Voysey and others, that the tends to older tradition becomes as- reestablish the old unity of style ; English really a changing fashion continues the old similable by us. These retain of the evolution of style at a quicker tempo. mediaeval elements no more than the For better or worse this eclectic princi- casement window, the steep roof with ple is still dominant in American design, gable and chimney stack, and the flexible which, as Mr. Henry James has said of mode of composition, accepting without New York, "like an ample childless reluctance every possibility of adaptation 329 FIG. 37. FORECOURT RESIDENCE OF H. P. WHITNEY, ESQ., GLEN COVE, L. I. Charles Willing of Furness, Evans & Co., Architect. FIG. 39. WEST AND SOUTH FRONTS RESIDENCE OF H. P. WHITNEY, ESQ., GLEN COVE, L. I. Charles Willing of Furness, Evans & Co., Architect. 330 B 6 O HH *Q 00 J- fc i 1 - - 28 og U EH M Q OK K^ - Wgrj HBH W ci oo THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD. to practical requirements, and turning and to the right hand man of Richardson them to picturesque advantage on the ex- came the impulse responsible for their terior. In this vein Mr. Lewis Colt first executed works of classic character, Albro and Mr. Alfred Hopkins, among the revived Colonial houses of Newport other architects, have had notable suc- and Lenox. It was the decisive impulse cess of recent years; and this issue con- of the great movement which, gathering tains interesting examples by Mr. Frank strength by reverting to the Italian J. Forster and others. sources in the Villard houses, the New Similarly we find, as the sole versions York clubs, the Boston Library, and then of the French chateau which are now ac- finally to the classic fountain-heads them- ceptable, adaptations of such Louis XIII selves, has swept all before it. buildings as les Grotteaux, most success- Appreciation of the basic importance fully in Mr. Platt's house at Rockville of the Colonial revival in this movement and Mr. Pope's house for Commodore gives added significance to the work of Gould. In them the steep roofs and tall the long line of its exponents, from the chimneys do not preclude the level cor- late Robert S. Peabody and Arthur Little nice lines, wooden sash bars, and pure onwards. Beginning with the copying if simple detail which connote modernity. and compounding of isolated details, The central body of forms in Ameri- with a consequent overloading of motives can style of the present is beyond dis- very far from the simplicity of the orig- pute the academic vocabulary of the Ital- inal work, they have made constant ad- ian Renaissance, of Palladianism and vances in sympathetic knowledge and classicism in France, England and the employment of the styles. The initial early American republic, and their more enthusiasm for the properly "Georgian" vernacular expression in Georgian Eng- buildings of about 1750, from the James land and the American colonies. River, Annapolis, Charleston, Philadel- How this came to be, within twenty- phia, Newport and Massachusetts Bay, five years from the date we still incline has widened into catholic appreciation of to regard as the close of the dark ages all the work from the time of settlement of American architecture, is a story the down to 1830. Study and publication, incidents of which in the realm of monu- the necessary prerequisites to revival, mental building are familiar enough. To have recently made familiar the seven- understand its bearings in domestic archi- teenth century houses; and, in spite of tecture, however, we must give attention the difficulty of adapting these mediaeval to a phase much less known. The obscure survivals to modern requirements of liv- origins of the neo-classic renaissance in ing, there have been already a few ex- America are to be sought long before the periments in imitation. Much more dazzling object lesson of the World's fruitful so far has been the revival of Fair of 1893 in domestic architecture. post-Colonial work, whether the delicate It was the stirrings of the much tra- Adam detail of Bulfinch and Mclntire, vestied "Queen Anne" movement in Eng- or the more classic Jeffersonian porti- land the initial program of its founders, coes of the South. Whereas at first ele- Neshfield and Shaw, was the revival of ments from widely different periods were the native vernacular materials ,and de- combined, greater discrimination has tail of the period of Anne which led brought a greater consistency which Charles F. McKim, with Meade, White makes the work of each generation seem and Bigelow, to make in 1876 what they illiterate to the one that follows. While came afterwards to call their "celebrated most designers have nevertheless contin- trip" along the New England coast to ued the effort to use the Colonial forms sketch and measure the American work as the vocabulary of a living language, of Anne and the Georges so that it might there have been an increasing number of furnish a similar inspiration. Thus to direct reproductions, such as Mr. Platt's the young Beaux-Arts eleves, with their of Wes.tover. A model of special attrac- portfolios full of high-roofed chateaux, tion has been Mount Vernon, which has 334 Ha? 3s "B ri 00fa ^ I I OHa !z;Q H B - - S fe H . w B -"B been followed with greater or less strict- Louis XVI has so far found more ap- ness in a multitude of examples, notably, plication in city houses than in the coun- though here with the freedom of a new try. Indeed it must be realized that in creation, in the Tracy Dows house at country house architecture, even where Rhinebeck (Fig. 6). it remains academic, French influence is The lack of luxuriousness and ampli- waning; and the Grand Trianon, which tude in the Colonial style, as exemplified inspired the Oelrichs house at Newport, in the simplicity and extreme smallness would scarcely be selected for reproduc- of scale even of such houses as Mount tion today. Vernon and Whitehall, has led designers Italian precedent, on the contrary, has to seek inspiration or reinforcement from been steadily invoked, both to supplement the English, prototypes of the early the Colonial and to replace it. It was American work. Here also Georgian in- in the gardens by Mr. Platt that Italian fluence has recently been succeeded by influence first made itself strongly felt a vogue of Adam detail and character, in the American country place. His initiated in the Ritz-Carlton hotels and in houses in connection with them were at several houses of Mr. Pope, such as that first almost purely Colonial or Georgian, of Mr. James Swan Frick at Guilford and it has only been later, for instance, (Fig. 8). The related French work of in his McCormick house, that he has car- 336 K63 -EH o5 a W - 00r u 38 V3TOB ^H r^ H 5 w Is FIG. 46. RESIDENCE OF S. W. MOORE ESQ., KANSAS CITY, MO. Van Brunt & Hertz, Architects. ried the style consistently through tion, the Deering villa at Miami, Florida grounds, house and interiors, even to (Fig. 9). In spite of the virtuosity the extreme of an open interior court. and fantasy of its architects, Messrs. The phase of style adopted not the Paul Chalfin and F. Burrall Hoffman, it Roman of Peruzzi, as with McKim, but seems so far to have remained without the early Florentine of Michelozzo in imitators. San Marco and the Villa Carregi has With these retrospective tendencies of advanced rapidly in public favor and is broad or nationalistic scope is related an- beyond doubt the mode of the moment. other which manifests itself in the con- The needed material has been furnished scious revival or perpetuation of local by new publications on the smaller Ital- traditions of style, materials, and work- ian villas and farm houses and, in addi- manship. The idea, originating in the tion, on Italian furniture, which have last generation of English architects and been avidly taken up by furniture makers brilliantly exemplified in Lutyens' earlier and decorators. Such notable works as work, is one of the dominant forces in the remodelings at "Shallow Brook the whole architectural world today, Farm"(Fig. 10) by Mr. Benjamin Wistar widely influential in Germany before the Morris have established a vogue attested war through the efforts of Otto March by several of the houses here illustrated. and Hermann Muthesius, and now taken In view of this vogue of the Italian up officially for the rebuilding of the dev- house and of the Italian garden it is astated sections of France. In America, specially significant of the strength of while a similar idea lay at the root of the the classic spirit that the architecture as- whole Colonial revival, in general the sociated par excellence with the gardens emphasis has lain on the universal rather of Italy and with their creation, the than the local characteristics of the style, Baroque, except in Spanish treatment, and any strong emphasis on Colonial tra- has had but a single notable exemplifica- ditions peculiarly local came first with the 339 THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD. group of Philadelphia architects under and Long Island, have likewise had an English influence, such as \Yalter Cope interesting renaissance. and John Stewardson. Thus has arisen The return to Spanish traditions in the revival of the ledge-stone houses of Florida, begun as early as 1879 by Messrs. FIG. 47. GARDEN FRONT RESIDENCE OF S. W. MOORE, ESQ., KANSAS CITY, MO. Van Brunt & Hertz, Architects. Pennsylvania, developed especially in late Carrere and Hastings, has found expres- years by Messrs. Mellor and Meigs and sion in domestic architecture in their Okie and well house others and in Duhring, Ziegler, and Flagler and many ; illustrated by several works in this num- California a similar inspiration has stim- ber. Other local variants of the Colonial, ulated some of our finest classic work, in especially the Dutch work of East Jersey houses by Mr. Robert Farquhar, Mr. 340 FIG. 48. EAST FRONT RESIDENCE OF C. E. McINNES, ESQ., RYDAL, PA. Duhring, Okie & Ziegler, Architects. Myron Hunt, Mr. Elmer Gray, Mr. earlier houses, such as Mr. Shaw's Bart- Goodhue and others. In both these re- lett house at Lake Geneva, the spirit of gions the style of Spain itself has been freedom or invention was dominant, but drawn upon freely, and the influence of it is noteworthy that in their recent works the local heritage of old buildings appears respect for precedent tends to have the chiefly in the simplicity and restraint upper hand. To an even greater degree which lack of means forced on Spanish Mr. Charles Barton Keen has abandoned builders in these outposts of empire. In the individual blend of native and orig- New Mexico, on the other hand, where inal elements with which his first tri- such limitation was even more pro- umphs were achieved, in favor of the nounced and the resulting style took on relatively impersonal Georgian seen in more the character of the native Pueblo the Leas house (Fig. 61). than of Spain, its recent revival at the The striving for a style which shall be hands of Mr. William Templeton John- specifically modern and American has son and a few colleagues has strictly re- had to face heavy odds since the over- tained this character, with such interest- whelming popular victory of the classical ing products as Mr. Sylvanus G. Mor- at Chicago in 1893. But in spite of this ley's house at Sante Fe. defeat in the heart of their own territory, It remains to speak of those eclectic coupled with the death of their leader, designers who, while drawing largely on Root, the "progressives," rallied by Mr. traditional sources for their elements, Sullivan and Mr. Wright, have estab- have aimed at a free and personal mode lished a certain sovereignty in the vicin- of expression for example, Mr. Wilson ity of Chicago, and have even secured Eyre or Mr. Howard Shaw. In their recognition by foreign powers while still 341 P Q FIG. 53. NORTH FRONT RESIDENCE OF E. H. FITCH, ESQ., MEADOWBROOK, PA. Tilden & Register, Architects. regarded by our own ruling artistic au- of living rooms, bedrooms, guest rooms, thorities as rebels beyond the pale of the service, and so on, in individual suites with law. The attraction of the "merely light and air on three sides. No- where is this better seen than in Mr. novel" or the "bizarre" is not enough to Wright's own place at Spring Green explain this vitality, which rests partly (Fig. 14), where studios and draughting on the fundamental appeal of the pro- rooms, living quarters for assistants, and gressive argument, partly on the fact farm buildings are included in the en- that, while the academic school has semble, the consistency and personal tended to subordinate functional to for- character of which make it beyond most mal considerations, the progressives have in America an authentic work of creative steadily emphasized the suggestions of art. Though acceptance of the progres- function. Thus the wide, ramified plans sive principle does not necessarily imply of Mr. Wright unconventional in a imitation of this or any single formula, strict sense though they are do not rest and few designers have pushed its appli- merely on caprice but on acceptance of cation to such logical extremes, there is the current preference for rooms all on a body of work of related impulse im- a single floor and on a logical grouping pressive in its mass and cohesion. 344 o &, ll w FIG. 56. SOUTH AND EAST FRONTS RESIDENCE OF E. H. FITCH, ESQ. MEADOWBROOK, PA. Tilden & Register, Architects. FIG. 57. FORECOURT RESIDENCE OF MRS. ALBERT B. KELLEY, RADNOR, PA. Wilson Eyre & Mcllvaine, Architects. 346 FIG. 60. BREAKFAST TERRACE AND EAST FRONT RESIDENCE OF MRS. ALBERT B. KELLEY, RADNOR, PA. Wilson Eyre & Mcllvaine, Architects. V FIG. 63. RESIDENCE OF BENJAMIN ODELL, ESQ., KENILWORTH, ILL. George W. Maher, Architect. 348 FIG 61. RESIDENCE OF LEROY P. LEAS, ESQ., OVERBROOK, PHILADELPHIA. PA. Charles Barton Keen, Architect. FIG. 62. RESIDENCE OF LEROY P. LEAS, ESQ., OVERBROOK, PHILADELPHIA, PA. Charles Barton Keen, Architect. 349 3" She Disposition ^ IfeatmentJ House &* op Surroundings the solutions of the country house In the general disposition of the INproblem of today in America econom- American house the idea of separation of ic and social conditions determine the functions of approach, living and ser- general type of house and its accommoda- vice rules in a general way, without be- tions, while natural conditions deter- ing carried out with the same minuteness mine many details of its construction as in England. Thus there is a broad and equipment; but in the disposition separation between the entrance front and treatment, artistic motives dominate and the opposite garden front, along to an unusual degree. In England, at which lie the principal living rooms, but least until the most recent years in which it is not regarded as a positive objection technical development and a recrudes- that some of these run through and com- cence of academicism in style are bring- mand the entrance. The service quarters ing a similarity to American conditions, are isolated in a wing with their own this has not been the case ; natural condi- drive and entrance, but the limitations of tions and minute considerations of con- our formal planning make it not unusual venience have largely governed the even in the largest establishments that choice of site, the orientation and the the servants must traverse the dining grouping of rooms, the outline of the room to reach the body of the house and plan being less preconceived than re- that the hand luggage of guests must be sultant. If, for instance, in placing the taken in at the main door and carried up living rooms choice were necessary be- the main stairs. tween the usual southern exposure and In the arrangement of the plan the di- a fine prospect to the north, the outlook versity of artistic tradition leaves room would inevitably be sacrificed to the need for the greatest variety of schemes, and of courting the sun. The mediaeval, pic- no single one has the almost univer- turesque mode of composition has per- sal acceptance of the Elizabethan U, E, mitted, even invited, the most accidental or H plan of the larger house in England. resultant combinations of exterior forms, Nevertheless among the prevailingly for- and even the fondness for using a wing mal plans one scheme is clearly predom- of the service quarters to frame an inant. It is that of a rectangular main Elizabethan forecourt has been due not mass with entrance and garden fronts on only to romantic revivalism but to desire the longer sides and with wings for to give the butler easy oversight of the porches and service at opposite ends, as arrival and departure of guests. With seen in the Hess (Fig. 64) Leas (Fig. us, on the contrary, mechanical develop- 69) and many other houses in this num- ment permits climatic difficulties in the ber. In the smaller houses with the ser- choice of site or orientation to be dis- vants' quarters limited to kitchen, pantry regarded in the interest of prospect, and and a room or two above, these wings our academic tendency of twenty-five may be perfectly symmetrical, at least years standing generally dictates the in apparent mass, as in the Gaylord resi- adoption of a plan of formal regularity. dence. With greater development of the 350 FIG. 67. FIRST FLOOR PLAN RESIDENCE OF E. H. FITCH, ESQ., MEADOWBROOK. PA, Tilden & Register, Architects. FIG. 68. FIRST FLOOR PLAN RESIDENCE OF C. E. McINNES, ESQ., RYDAL, PA. Duhring, Okie & Ziegler, Architects. 353 fLOOC. PLM\ f-tnyr -FLooa-PLAd -OVEfiBDDQK.-PHlLA-PA JIG. 09. FIRST AND SECOND FLOOR PLANS RESIDENCE OF LEROY P. LEAS, ESQ. OVERBROOK, PHILADELPHIA, PA. Charles Barton Keen, Architect. COVNTRY HOV.5L FOR. H.P.WHITNEY I5Q, AT GLEN COVE. LONG 15LAND H. P. GLEN COVE, L. I. FIG. 70. FIRST FLOOR PLAN RESIDENCE OF WHITNEY. ESQ., Charles Willing, of Furness, Evans &, Co., Architect. 354 FIG. 71. FIRST FLOOR PLAN RESIDENCE OF DR. EDWARD B. KRUMBHAAR. WHITEMARSH VALLEY, PA. Arthur H. Brockle, Architect. FIG. 73. FIRST FLOOR PLAN RESIDENCE OF JOHN A. HITCHCOCK. ESQ.. NASHVILLB, TENN. Dougherty & Gardner, Architects. 355 FIG. 74. SECOND FLOOR PLAN RESIDENCE OF JOHN A. HITCHCOCK, ESQ., NASHVILLE, TENN. Dougherty & Gardner, Architects. FIG. 72. FIRST AND SECOND FLOOR PLANS RESIDENCE OF MRS. ALBERT B. KELLEY. RADNOR, PA. Wilson Eyre & Mcllvaine, Architects. 356 FIG. 77. FIRST FLOOR PLAN RESIDENCE OF JOHN B. VAN HAELEN, ESQ. HARTSDALE, N. Y. Frank J. Forster, Architect. FIG. 78. SECOND FLOOR PLAN RESIDENCE OF JOHN B. VAN HAELEN, ESQ., HARTSDALE. N. Y. Frank J. Forster, Architect. 358 FIG. 79. FIRST FLOOR PLAN RESIDENCE OF T. I. WEBB, .ESQ., NASHVILLE, TENN. Dougherty & Gardner, Architects. J$an> d I. NASHVILLE. TENN. FIG. 80. SECOND FLOOR PLAN RESIDENCE OF T. WEBB, ESQ., Dougherty & Gardner, Architects. 359 FIG. 81. RESIDENCE OF T. I. WEBB, ESQ., NASHVILLE, TENN. Dougherty & Gardner, Architects. service end the dissymmetry may be ig- of a forecourt there, the two examples nored if the main mass is sufficiently of this English feature which are shown strong; or may be masked by trees, as in here being both from the firm of Mr. the Hess (Fig. 64) house, or by treating Wilson Eyre. In exceptional cases with the service as a primary wing of the same the entrance at the end of the house, as weight as the porch wing, with a secon- in the Hitchcock house at Nashville, dary, subordinate wing, perhaps of con- (Fig. 73) both long sides may be free siderable length, beyond. The latter and the service wing may still be retired scheme appears, almost identically, in the from the approach. Fitch (Fig. 67) and Mclnnes (Fig. 68) In more informal planning associated houses, in each of which a small dining usually with styles outside the academic porch fronts the beginning of the service canon when this basic scheme and es- wing, and, by balance with the living pecially the idea of two symmetrical porch, heightens the symmetry of the fronts is abandoned, it is common to find garden fagade. The setting back of the the service wing brought into closer con- wing itself tends to open the view from nection with the entrance hall, making a the living rooms even on this fourth side plan pronouncedly L-shaped. The Zenke of the house. The secondary service house at Riverdale, illustrated in the Ar- wing generally continues in the length- chitectural Record for October, 1917, is wise direction, so as not to obtrude either a small house of this sort in which the on the entrance or on the garden front, living rooms are kept toward the garden but it is occasionally carried at right and the service wing projects beside the angles toward the entrance side, as in entrance. In general, however, this the Leas (Fig. 69) and Whitney (Fig. scheme is felt to cramp the entrance too 70) houses. Only rarely, however, is much, and the wing is reversed, bringing this wing long enough to form one side the dining room on the entrance front 360 Hoi/jt-rot IOVAU C.4VDM* VWTCHUTZt- CO-H-Y- JUILt.')'- '/'-" FIG. 82. FIRST.FLOOR PLAN RESIDENCE OF EDWARD C. GUDE, ESQ.. WHITE PLAINS, N. Y. William Lawrence Bottomley, Architect. PIG. 83. FIRST FLOOR PLAN RESIDENCE OF 8. W. MOORE, ESQ., KANSAS CITY. MO. Van Brunt & Hertz, Architects. 361 FIG. 85. RESIDENCE OF DR W. D. HAGGARD, NASHVILLE, TENN. Dougherty & Gardner, Architects. FIG. 84. FIRST FLOOR PLAN RESIDENCE OF DR. W. D. HAGGARD, NASHVILLE, TENN. Dougherty & Gardner, Architects. 362 FIG. 86. GARDEN FRONT RESIDENCE OF DR. W. D. HAGGARD. NASHVILLE, TENN. Dougherty & Gardner, Architects. and making the house conform more to topography. The most common of such a conventionally suburban scheme in irregularities is the placing of the service which the "street front" is principal. wing diagonally so that it shall be less This is illustrated by the Walker house obtrusive on the garden side and still shall (Fig. 75), which nevertheless retains a not encroach too much on the entrance clear view from the living room over the front. Something of this sort is seen in garden to the rear. In the Van Haelen the plan of the Haggard house in Nash- house at Hartsdale (Fig. 77) the scheme ville (Fig. 84). Coupled with pictur- is fundamentally the same, although esqueness of style, however, the irregu- turned at right angles to the street. The larity often goes further, as in the Sher- T. I. Webb house at Nashville (Fig. 79), man Hall residence (Fig. 86). on the other hand, has an ingenious ir- In the disposition of all but the main regular scheme which surmounts all prac- living rooms other considerations beside tical difficulties, placing all living rooms those of plan make themselves felt. Or- toward the garden without allowing the dinarily there is one full story above the service wing to crowd the entrance. A ground floor, but occasionally bed rooms scheme with one of the sides adjacent to as well as living rooms are kept on a the entrance front developed as the gar- single floor. In the North this involves den front with a resulting plan rather much added expense for foundations, and more "chunky" than would be otherwise it is not an accident that the scheme is desirable, appears in the Moore house more in favor in California and the near Kansas City (Fig. 83). South. Wide ramification of the service Among informal plans there is an in- quarters on the ground floor level made teresting group in which the right angle necessary in England by the omission of is abandoned where this is desirable in cellars is likewise only practical in the interests of adaptation to outlook or southern latitudes, and since in the old 363 FIG. 87. FIRST AND SECOND FLOOR PLANS- RESIDENCE OF SHERMAN^R. HALL, ESQ.. PORTLAND, OREGON. LAWRENCE & HOLFORD, ARCHITECTS. < OB 5 FIG. 91. RESIDENCE OF SAMUEL D. STEVENS, ESQ., MARBLEHEAD, MASS. Allen W. Jackson and Charles M. Baker, Architects. FIG. 92. RESIDENCE OF SAMUEL D. 8TEVEN8. ESQ., MARBLEHEAD, MASS. Allen W. Jackson and Charles M. Baker. Architects. 368 FIG. 93. RESIDENCE OF SAMUEL |D. ISTEVENS, ESQ., MARBLEHEAD, MASS Allen W. Jackson and Charles M. Baker, Architects. FIG. 94. SOUTH FRONT RESIDENCE OF EDWARD C. GUDE, ESQ., WHITE PLAINS, N. Y. William Lawrence Bottomley, Architect. 369 FIG. 95. EAST END RESIDENCE OF EDWARD C. GUDE, ESQ., WHITE PLAINS, N. William Lawrence Bottomley, Architect. South few servants live in the house, a-half" house, such as the Colonial farm scarcely occurs outside of California. house with its eaves at the second floor On the other hand, the cellars made nec- level. First used with notable success essary in the North by artificial heating, by Mr. Keen, and afterwards widely which are relatively inexpensive owing popularized by Mr. Embury as "Dutch to the deep foundations required in any Colonial," this essentially modern effort case, take care of many minor phases of to provide livable rooms in a roof by service. Motives of economy and con- the aid of wide eaves projection or the venience, of course, suggest that the ex- employment of the gambrel, although cavation be carried no lower than below now a trifle hackneyed, still has many ad- the frost level, giving the "light cellars" herents. It involves the development of so beloved of the American philistine of the "long dormer" and the "sunk dor- the nineteenth century; but appreciation mer" and has advantages for the unity of of the aesthetic merit of keeping the the whole in permitting a single eaves house close to the ground has now made level for house and porches. Interesting deep excavation and lighting by areas variants on it appear in the Witherspoon universal in good work. This gives the (Fig 89) and Stevens (Fig. 91) houses. further advantage of permitting direct A novel experiment in placing two stories access to terraces and lawns on all sides of minor rooms against the Hving room by means of French windows which have is seen in Mr. Bottomley's Gude house on thus multiplied rapidly in recent years, Long Island (Fig. 94), with its pseudo- when not forbidden by close adherence Connecticut doorway. When there is a to a chosen style. full second story the desire for lowness The desire to keep the house low has and appreciation of the superiority of led in the past fifteen years to a wide re- unbroken roofs fends increasingly to version to the scheme of the "story-and- cause the suppression of dormers, even 370 FIG. 96. HOUSE DOOR RESIDENCE OP ED- WARD C. GUDE. ESQ.. WHITE PLAINS. N. Y. WILLIAM LAWRENCE BOTTOMLEY. ARCHITECT. co ft E- K O O CQ S (a * Q ff P5 fe < - ^ - THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD. though, in the case of hip roofed houses, terior of the house is governed in general this involves the loss of all habitable by the tendencies of style discussed room in the third story. With a funda- above. The choice of historic suggestion mentally mediaeval style such dormers once made, sympathetic interpretation of can be managed, and dormers and gables this is, except in the modernist work, al- are utilized in the Watson Webb house most the principal effort, and the range MICH. FIG. 98. RESIDENCE OF DR. R. BISHOP CANFIELD. ANN ARBOR. Louis H. Boynton, Architect. of includes mat- (Fig. 20) to make the whole third story personal liberty chiefly and detail. available for comfortable guest rooms. ters of proportion, texture, servants' themselves, however, these offer wide In general, however, even By of success or as well rooms are now rarely provided there, possibilities failure, to their as of of effects. In the wall to- being placed, with better relation variety of hand use, in the second story of the service day simplicity membering goes in hand with search for and wing or even on the ground floor. novelty texture. form of In its architectural treatment the ex- beauty of Any pilaster 373 w < W Q FIG. 99. RESIDENCE OF WALTER RICH, ESQ., ATLANTA, GA, Hentz, Reid & Adlor, Architects. FIG. 101. RESIDENCE OF I. HELLER. ESQ., CEDAR LAKE. WIS. Brust & Philipp, Architects. 375 THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD. treatment in country houses is now of which are obviously overstrained. Stuc- extreme rarity, and detail is concentrated co, widely recommended not only by its on doorway, porch and cornice as exclu- technical development but by Italian and sively as in early Colonial days. 'When English vogues, has numerous poten- wood is retained as a material the effort tialities. Smooth floating, pebble dash, FIG. 102. RESIDENCE OF I. HELLER, ESQ., CEDAR LAKE, WIS. Brust & Philipp, Architects. is to escape from banality by the use of and brushing all have their adherents, wide clapboards, long shingles or cover- but the fashion of the moment is for the ings of trellis. In brick the rage for rough trowelling seen in the Appleton textures has run riot to such an extent (Fig. 109) and Lloyd (Fig. 29) houses. that, along with many commendable for Tinting and washing to show selected ag- their richness and softness of color, -a gregates give a welcome opportunity for multitude of striking effects are secured color. In stone the popularity of the 376 FIG. 103. RESIDENCE OF J. A. HITCHCOCK, ESQ., NASHVILLE, TENN. Dougherty & Gardner, Architects. FIG. 104. RESIDENCE OF SIGMUND MOXTAG, ESQ., ATLANTA. GA. Hentz, Reid & Adler, Architects. 377 Z c5 E"1 P O >-* **< COE.Whrt B. Zi fy E- E-I riS^ g O H fc W FIG. 106. HOUSE DOOR RESIDENCE OF 8IGMT7ND MONTAG, ESQ.. ATLANTA. GA. HENTZ. REID & ADLER. ARCHITECTS. o O E-" OK f ~i: v. 1*1 FIG. 110. RESIDENCE OF ROBERT APPLETON, ESQ.. EAST HAMPTON, L. I. FRANK E. NEWMAN. ARCHITECT. FIG. 111. DINING ROOM RESIDENCE OF SIGMUND MONTAG, ESQ., ATLANTA, GA. Hentz, Reid & Adler, Architects. FIG. 112. LIVING ROOM RESIDENCE OF SIGMUND MONTAG, ESQ., ATLANTA, GA. Hentz, Reid & AdJer, Architects. 383 FIG. 113. LIVING ROOM RESIDENCE OF LEROY P. LEAS, ESQ., OVERBROOK, PHILADELPHIA, PA. Charles Barton Keen, Architect. FIG. 114. DINING ROOM RESIDENCE OF LEROY P. LEAS, ESQ., OVERBROOK, PHILADELPHIA, PA. Charles Barton Keen, Architect. 384 FIG. 115. RECEPTION ROOM RESIDENCE OF WALTER MACH, ESQ., ANN ARBOR, MICH. Louis H. Boynton, Architect. Pennsylvania ledge-stone has led to wide- not accidental as is proved by the pref- spread imitations with local materials, erence which the modern English archi- often with violence to their own proper- tect and housewife alike give to it. Case- ties, and even, in some instances, to trans- ment and sash window are both small- portation of the Pennsylvania stone to paned, almost without exception. Only distant States such as Michigan, not only in the work of the modernists is there in violation of the very principle of its any attempt to give greater interest to use but to the neglect of an extremely their treatment by substituting varied de- interesting rusty native ledge-stone. signs for the stereotyped equal rectan- local flC3.IPS Were the principle of using ma- fe terials really more widely applied, far In roof treatment the academic spirit more good stone work would be done makes the level cornice line normal and than at present. the hip roof frequent. The eaves at Window treatment perhaps more than present are rarely given the extreme pro- any other feature is dependent on choice jections of a few years ago, seen here of style, and leaded casements appear only in the Moore house in Kansas City on the in with the adoption of any mediaeval sug- (Fig. 46) ; contrary, we find, gestion. In spite of the advantages of the Hess house (Fig. 41), Mr. Howells casements in increasing ventilation and using as his cornice the single great the overcoming of some of its difficulties moulding of the Villa Madama. Roof by improved steel sash, our constant re- parapets and eaves balustrades are almost version to the double hung window is wholly lacking, whether in Elizabethan 385 FIG. 116. STAIRCASE HALL RESI- DENCE OF WALTER MACH, ESQ., ANN ARBOR, MICH. Louis H. Boynton, Architect. FIG. 117. ENTRANCE HALL RESIDENCE OF DR. EDWARD B. KRUMBHAAR, WHITMARSH VALLEY, PA. Arthur H. Brockie, Architect. or post-Colonial revivals. On the other ceilings. Mantels and occasional door- hand great attention is given to the tex- ways of carved stone, gates, lanterns and ture and color of the roof itself. The sconces of metal, floors of tile, and spar- shingles of the Colonial style are sawn ing furniture heavily carved carry out and laid with slight irregularity; the so- the effect. Such fashions are not adopted called "thatched shingle" with its bolder instantly or universally, and a number of curvature, while somewhat discredited by fine Georgian and Adam or Mclntire in- rank imitations, is still undergoing fresh teriors are still being done, especially in development, as in the Appleton house regions of strong Colonial tradition (Fig. 109), with its heavy mass of witness the Montag house at Atlanta shingles not steamed but shaped to the (Fig. 112) and the house at Overbrook roof as laid. Graded and variegated (Fig. 113). The hall of the Krumbhaar slates and tile, both flat and curved are an house at Whitemarsh Valley (Fig. 117), ever increasing resource. The Moore however, shows how even in a panelled residence has a variegated "fire flash" Georgian room furniture of an earlier Spanish tile, the Hess house a remark- and more Italian character replaces the able special tile sprayed with moss green. work of the eighteenth century cabinet The handling of interiors has under- makers, and in Mr. Rich's living room gone a change of fashion in the last five at Atlanta (Fig. 118) the victory of the years, the dominant vogue becoming Italian is complete. Most interesting in Italian instead of Georgian or Adam. their illustration of the new tendency are Under the leadership of Mr. Platt and the rooms of the Baker residence at Ke- Mr. Henry Forbes Bigelow, paneling has wanee (Fig. 119), with their plain walls, given way to broad surfaces of plaster, rich plaster ceilings, and dependence al- enriched only by an occasional tapestry or most entirely on the carved or painted heavily carved mirror in old gilt, and furniture for their success. A novelty crowned by groined arches or coffered is the treatment of the sun room in Delia 387 FIG. 118. LIVING ROOM RESIDENCE OF WALTER RICH, ESQ., ATLANTA, GA. Hentz, Reid & Adler, Architects. Robbia faience. The old French treat- mental is indicated than a change of ment of the living room of the Gaylord fashion itself destined to become equally house at Lake Winnebago (Fig. 124) is banal tomorrow. To be "in good taste" really but a variant of the Italian man- in interior decoration and furnishing ner; and Elizabethan suggestions, nowadays seems to consist, like being in whether strict or free, are today rela- fashion, in doing what everyone else is tively rare. preparing to do, and stopping before The studied chastity of the Italian they begin. work, or the feeling which underlies it, The surroundings of the American is responsible also for a new simplicity country house are at once less intensively in Colonial interiors, which shows itself developed and less formal than those of by a reversion to the homespun work of the English house. For this there are the earlier eighteenth century farmhouse. several causes : the relatively lesser fond- Bare plaster, with paneling only on the ness for flower gardens and the greater chimney walls, mantelless fireplaces, rag expense of maintaining them, the dislike rugs, and with more regard for arch- of near neighborhood of the kitchen gar- aism than for consistency of style the den and stables, the absence of the Eliz- hewn beamed ceilings of the seventeenth abethan tradition of formal paneling out century, mark the Gude (Fig. 128), of the whole immediate surroundings in Whitney (Fig. 129), Kelley (Fig. 132) sharply marked rectangular areas for and one or two other houses. While in definite purposes, and, finally, the strength all this there is no doubt a healthy re- and saneness of American traditions of action from the extreme formality and informal landscape design, based not on stereotyped repetition of the Adam work artificial picturesqueness but on preser- of the day just past, no conclusion should vation and expression of the native and be formed that anything more funda- local character. Italian influence in re- 388 251 00 -I sg o st KM FIG. 121. DINING ROOM RESIDENCE OF E. E. BAKER, ESQ., KEWANEE, ILL. Frederick W. Perkins, Architect. FIG. 122. LIVING ROOM RESIDENCE OF E. E. BAKER, ESQ., KEWANEE, ILL. Frederick W. Perkins, Architect. 390 FIG. 123. SUN ROOM RESIDENCE OF E. E. BAKER. ESQ., KEWANEK, ILL. Frederick W. Perkins, Architect. FIG. 124. LIVING ROOM RESIDENCE OF G. S. GAYLORD, ESQ., NEENAH, WIS. Childs & Smith, Architects. 391 - EH H FIG. 126. BREAKFAST ROOM RESIDENCE OF ROBERT APPLETON. ESQ., EAST HAMPTON. L. I. Frank E. Newman, Architect. FIG. 128. DINING ROOM RESIDENCE O* EDWAKD C. GUDE, ESQ.. WHITE PLAINS. N. Y. William Lawrence Bottomley, Architect. 393 FIG. 129. LIVING ROOM RESIDENCE OF H. P. WHITNEY, ESQ., GLEN COVE, L. I. Charles Willing, of Furness. Evans & Co., Architect. FIG. 130. STAIRCASE RESIDENCE OF H. P. WHITNEY, ESQ., GLEN COVE, L. 1. Charles Willing, of Furness, Evans & Co., Architect. 394 FIG. 131. DINING ROOM MANTEL RESIDENCE OF MRS. ALBERT B. KELLEY. RADNOR, PA. WILSON EYRE & McILVAINE. ARCHITECTS. FIG. 132. LIVING ROOM RESIDENCE OF MRS. ALBERT B. KELLEY. RADNOR. PA. Wilson Eyre & Mcllvaine. Architects. FIG. 133. HALL AND STAIR RESIDENCE OF E. H. FITCH, ESQ.. MEADOWBROOK, PA. Tilden & Register, Architects. 396 FIG. 134. MASTER'S ROOM RESIDENCE OF E. H. FITCH, ESQ., MEADOWBROOK, PA. Tilden & Register, Architects. cent years has restored the formal gar- treated as an isolated unit at some dis- den and the house terrace to important tance from the house, is now generally places in the scheme, to its great advan- laid out in intimate connection with it, tage, and there has been thus some of accessible directly from the living rooms that extension of the house proper by or from a terrace on which these open. out-of-door living rooms which is so at- The necessity of a sense of enclosure tractive in England and on the Conti- and privacy for the true effect and enjoy- nent but such features are con- is ; generally ment of a garden now also more widely fined rather strictly to a single "garden recognized, and such solecisms of our side," and elsewhere lawn and grove early attempts at formality as the con- sweep uninterruptedly to the base of the founding of garden and forecourt are walls. Thus the approach drive, now happily rare. In its own treatment whether straight, balanced, or irregular, the garden shows a welcome reaction seldom terminates in a formal forecourt. from the obtrusively architectural char- An enclosed service court or yard is acter of too many of the first "Italian" more common for practical reasons, but designs, and it is realized that vegetation there is rarely an attempt to give it an rather than masonry is the essential fea- architectural character in connection with ture of a garden. A garden unique in the buildings of the service wing. The spirit is that of the Appleton house on garage may be attached to the house or Long Island, where hooded walls make form a single composition with it, but a fertile little oasis in the wind-swept stables and farm buildings, if present at sand, and justify its name, "Le nid de all, are generally placed at some distance papillon." in a group wholly distinct, and often of To sum up current tendencies in the most interesting individual character. design of the country house we need only The garden itself, formerly often emphasize its fundamental character of 397 FIG. 135. RESIDENCE OF HORATIO GATES LLOYD, ESQ.. HAVERFORD, PA. Wilson Eyre & Mcllvaine, Architects. FIG. 130. RESIDENCE OF HORATIO GATES LLOYD, ESQ., HAVERFORD, PA. Wilson Eyre & Mcllvaine, Architects. 398 FIG. 137. DETAIL RESIDENCE OF H. BELLAS HESS. ESQ., HUNTINGTON. L. I. HOWELLS & STOKES, ARCHITECTS. FIG. 138. GARDEN RESIDENCE OF E. E. BAKER, ESQ., KEWANEE, ILL. Frederick W. Perkins, Architect. simplicity. There are no rooms not in that the strictness of the regimen is not every day use, there is no ornament, even permanent. If the choice of forms is no "architecture," and the fundamental retrospective and dependent, we may expression for which even the parvenu quiet our artistic conscience by reflecting learns to strive is that of unpretentious that our civilization itself is still funda- decency and comfort. If for the moment mentally that of a passing era. and that this sound renunciation is carried to the a truly creative art can triumph only verge of asceticism, we may rest assured with a new social order. 400