File:American homes and gardens (1911) (18154513762).jpg

Title: American homes and gardens
Identifier: americanhomesgar81911newy (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

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428 AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS December, 1911
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The broad garden side of the house at St. Martins is one of its most attractive features. A picturesque and well-placed garden-pool enhances the effect of the well-ordered planting that characterizes the good taste everywhere evident about the grounds that surround the house ably diversifies the line of fenestration for the first floor, while the lowering of the wing to suit the lay of the land, which falls away toward the west, shows a rational com- pliance with the natural conformation of the ground and also gives the living-room a height proportionate to its size. Toward the rear of the lot, overlooking the golf links of the Philadelphia Cricket Club, is the most desirable view and it was therefore the logical thing to front the most used rooms where the windows would command the pleas- antest outlook. It was doubly desirable, too, to have the chief living-rooms and the porch on this side because of the southwestern exposure with its winter sun and its pre- vailing summer breeze. Moreover, being away from the road, there is greater privacy. Another feature we must not pass without notice is the hedge along the lane north of the house. It is worth mentioning, both for its own sake and also because its reten- tion is so characteristic of the spirit that makes the most of the things ready at hand instead of seeking farther afield for things artificial. Before the house was built, a narrow strip of wild cherry and dogwood thicket, with a tangled mat of weeds and poison ivy intertwined, bor- dered the land. The weeds and poison vines were grubbed up, the leafy rubbish was cleared away, and lo, there was a hedge already grown, wild indeed, but full of compen- sating charm that proved how sensible it was to save it instead of setting out a new plantation all stiff and prim. We ought to have more wild hedges as an occasional refuge from the wearisome precision of shear-wrought ex- actitude. Well-clipped hedges have their very proper place, to be sure, but one does long for a bit of natural irregu- larity now and then. Besides, a wild hedge has so much body to it and gives an appreciable degree of protection and privacy and doesn't look as though it had been bor- rowed from the children's Noah's Ark outfit and as though Mr. and Mrs. Noah, with very square shoulders and very round hats and perched on round bases, ought to be some- where about, peering over the top at you with their fat, wooden smile. Then, too, what a joy is such a hedge in blossom time, with its riotous profusion of fleecy white! Again, in the fall, it puts on gay attire, the coppery red of the leaves pied with the scarlet flame of the Dogberries. Surely these recurring visitations of color are worth making some sacrifice for, particularly if the sacrifice means giving up only a bit of stiffness. Reference has already been made to the harmonious dis- tribution of the mass of the house to suit the fall of the ground and to avoid seeming too large for the lot. Chim- neys built out beyond the wall line pleasingly break up the mural spaces, while the full-bodied stack from the living- room fireplace emphasizes the rightful position of the hearth as the true center of the family's life. The service end of the house may be said to have a conveniently disappearing quality; it does not obtrude itself at all, your attention would never be unpleasantly attracted thither, and yet there is plenty of it—it takes up the lower part of one whole wing—with ample accommodation for all purposes. Cov- ering the entire western face of the living-room wing is a two-story porch, incorporated within the lines of the house, the gable end supported on four pillars. On the level of the third floor, within that part of the gable directly over the porch, is a commodious trunkroom. On the south or

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