Title: American homes and gardens
Identifier: americanhomesgar71910newy (find matches)
Year: 1905 (1900s)
Authors:
Subjects: Architecture, Domestic; Landscape gardening
Publisher: New York : Munn and Co
Contributing Library: Smithsonian Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Biodiversity Heritage Library

View Book Page: Book Viewer
About This Book: Catalog Entry
View All Images: All Images From Book
Click here to view book online to see this illustration in context in a browseable online version of this book.

Text Appearing Before Image:
March, 1910 AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS ^5 The color of the exterior merits attentive study: it pre- sents a careful symphony in white and white tones. The house is built of cream-colored stucco. The cement string course or band between the two stories is white. The ex- terior wood trim, including the window frames and the cor- nice, is a very light shade of pearl, a white, delicately tinged with blue. The base of the porch columns are painted red, the pearl of the wood trim being used for their upper parts. The house is entered by a porch which is within its main lines and is an integral part of it. There is a wide central opening, with a column at each end, and a narrow window opening on each side: openings of similar character are on the ends of this projected portion. Originally built and planned as an open porch, a winter's use dictated the pru- dence of enclosing the open spaces with glass, and this has been done since the photographs which accompany this article were taken. This glazing has considerably helped the exterior, although it has shielded, somewhat, the brilliant color- ing of the interior, which has been treated in the Pom- peian style, with a broad red dado, while the gray walls and ceiling are painted with Pompeian designs in brilliant color. The floor is cement, in large squares of white and black. The center inner wall of the vesti- bule, as it must now be called, is solid, the doorway being to the right and a window to the left. The inner door opens imme- diately to the hall, and with the first step beyond the threshold the classic character which has domi- raison d'etre of the two wings is thus clearly apparent: the billiard-room is given light on two sides, and the service department is completely separated from the rest of the house. It is an admirable plan, very beautifully worked out. The hall is treated in green and white. The woodwork is white; the walls are lined with green silk damask. There is a low dado in panelled wood, and a somewhat deep cor- nice which supports the geometric ceiling. At the end of the room on the right is the fireplace and mantel. The for- mer has hearth and linings of gray brick; the latter is con- structed of imitation Caen stone, and has a shelf supported by carved figures and a panelled over-mantel. The elec- tric light fixtures depend from the ceiling. There is a Roman table in the center, with a top of polished green marble. The other
Text Appearing After Image:
The interior of the entrance porch furniture is, for the most part, covered with green damask. A green rug covers the hardwood floor. The dining-room on the left is separ- ated from the hall by square columns, with a wide open- ing in the center, supported by nar- rower openings on the sides, the lower part of which is filled in with the dado of the hall walls, with da- masked panels above. There is a fine sense of open- ness here, the sep- aration not being accomplished by a partition, but by what is practically a permanent screen open at the top. Low swinging doors are applied to the middle piers, but as these are mostly kept open they are not solid means of separa- tion. The dining-room is an apartment of really exquisite charm. It is bril- nated the exterior is left behind, and one finds oneself in a modern house, a house that differs in no way from any other modern dwelling save in the interest of the rooms and the individual and characteristic way in which they are finished and furnished. As a matter of fact, you not only enter the hall, but you enter the whole house. The chief rooms of the first floor open into each other, so that everything is more or less clearly discernible from the entrance door. To the left is the dining-room; almost in the center are the stairs to the second floor; to the right, and beyond, is an apartment you presently discover to be the billiard-room. And when your examination has been finished you will find that the service rooms and kitchen are in the wing parallel to this last. The liantly lighted, the windows, as in the hall, extending to the floor. The farther end has four, two in the end wall and one on each side wall, the whole group admitting a flood of light that is most agreeably arranged. The room is de- signed in the Louis XVI style, and no pains have been spared to make it as consistent as possible. The panelling of the dado and the other woodwork is finished with gray enamel paint. Above are great tapestry panels, chiefly representing wood scenes, in blues, greens, browns and yellows. A narrow cornice supports the plain ceiling. from the center of which depends an elaborate electric light fixture. This has, at the top, six bells of yellowish glass, while from the center depends a brightly jewelled globe. Separate switches permits the lighting of one or both or all

Note About Images