Rural Architecture - Lewis Falley Allen (books recommended by bts TXT) 📗

the reader that the house just described has a lavish appropriation of veranda, and a needless side-front, which latter may detract from the precise architectural keeping that a dwelling of this pretension should maintain. In regard to the first, it may be remarked, that no feature of the house in a southern climate can be more expressive of easy, comfortable enjoyment, than a spacious veranda. The habits of southern life demand it as a place of exercise in wet weather, and the cooler seasons of the year, as well as a place of recreation and social intercourse during the fervid heats of the summer. Indeed, many southern people almost live under the shade of their verandas. It is a delightful place to take their meals, to receive their visitors and friends; and the veranda gives to a dwelling the very expression of hospitality, so far as any one feature of a dwelling can do it. No equal amount of accommodation can be provided for the same cost. It adds infinitely to the room of the house itself, and is, in fact, indispensable to the full enjoyment of a southern house.

The side front in this design is simply a matter of convenience to the owner and occupant of the estate, who has usually much office business in its management; and in the almost daily use of his library, where such business may be done, a side door and front is both appropriate and convenient. The chief front entrance belongs to his family and guests, and should be devoted to their exclusive use; and as a light fence may be thrown off from the extreme end of the side porch, separating the front lawn from the rear approach to the house, the veranda on that side may be reached from its rear end, for business purposes, without intruding upon the lawn at all. So we would arrange it.

Objections may be made to the sameness of plan, in the arrangement of the lower rooms of the several designs which we have submitted, such as having the nursery, or family sleeping-room, on the main floor of the house, and the uniformity, in location, of the others; and that there are no new and striking features in them. The answer to these may be, that the room appropriated for the nursery, or bedroom, may be used for other purposes, equally as well; that when a mode of accommodation is already as convenient as may be, it is poorly worth while to make it less convenient, merely for the sake of variety; and, that utility and convenience are the main objects to be attained in any well-ordered dwelling. These two requisites, utility and convenience, attained, the third and principal one—comfort—is secured. Cellar kitchens—the most abominable nuisances that ever crept into a country dwelling—might have been adopted, no doubt, to the especial delight of some who know nothing of the experimental duties of housekeeping; but the recommendation of these is an offence which we have no stomach to answer for hereafter. Steep, winding, and complicated staircases might have given a new feature to one or another of the designs; dark closets, intricate passages, unique cubby-holes, and all sorts of inside gimcrackery might have amused our pencil; but we have avoided them, as well as everything which would stand in the way of the simplest, cheapest, and most direct mode of reaching the object in view: a convenient, comfortably-arranged dwelling within, having a respectable, dignified appearance without—and such, we trust, have been thus far presented in our designs.

LAWN, AND PARK SURROUNDINGS.

The trees and shrubbery which ornament the approach to this house, should be rather of the graceful varieties, than otherwise. The weeping-willow, the horse-chesnut, the mountain-ash, if suitable to the climate; or the china-tree of the south, or the linden, the weeping-elm, and the silver-maple, with its long slender branches and hanging leaves, would add most to the beauty, and comport more closely with the character of this establishment, than the more upright, stiff, and unbending trees of our American forests. The Lombardy-poplar—albeit, an object of fashionable derision with many tree-fanciers in these more tasty days, as it was equally the admiration of our fathers, of forty years ago—would set off and give effect to a mansion of this character, either in a clump at the back-ground, as shown in the design, or occasionally shooting up its spire-like top through a group of the other trees. Yet, if built in a fine natural park or lawn of oaks, with a few other trees, such as we have named, planted immediately around it, this house would still show with fine effect.

The style of finish given to this dwelling may appear too ornate and expensive for the position it is supposed to occupy. If so, a plainer mode of finish may be adopted, to the cheapest degree consistent with the manner of its construction. Still, on examination, there will be found little intricate or really expensive work upon it. Strength, substance, durability, should all enter into its composition; and without these elements, a house of this appearance is a mere bauble, not fit to stand upon the premises of any man of substantial estate.

If a more extensive accommodation be necessary, than the size of this house can afford, its style will admit of a wing, of any desirable length, on each side, in place of the rear part of the side verandas, without prejudice to its character or effect. Indeed, such wings may add to its dignity, and consequence, as comporting with the standing and influence which its occupant may hold in the community wherein he resides. A man of mark, indeed, should, if he live in the country, occupy a dwelling somewhat indicating the position which he holds, both in society and in public affairs. By this remark, we may be treading on questionable ground, in our democratic country; but, practically, there is a fitness in it which no one can dispute. Not that extravagance, pretension, or any other assumption of superiority should mark the dwelling of the distinguished man, but that his dwelling be of like character with himself: plain, dignified, solid, and, as a matter of course, altogether respectable.

It is a happy feature in the composition of our republican institutions, both social and political, that we can afford to let the flashy men of the day—not of time—flaunter in all their purchased fancy in house-building, without prejudice to the prevailing sober sentiment of their neighbors, in such particulars. The man of money, simply, may build his "villa," and squander his tens of thousands upon it. He may riot within it, and fidget about it for a few brief years; he may even hang his coat of arms upon it, if he can fortunately do so without stumbling over a lapstone, or greasing his coat against the pans of a cook-shop; but it is equally sure that no child of his will occupy it after him, even if his own changeable fancy or circumstances permit him to retain it for his natural life. Such are the episodes of country house-building, and of frequent attempts at agricultural life, by those who affect it as a matter of ostentation or display. For the subjects of these, we do not write. But there is something exceedingly grateful to the feelings of one of stable views in life, to look upon an estate which has been long in an individual family, still maintaining its primitive character and respectability. Some five-and-twenty years ago, when too young to have any established opinions in matters of this sort, as we were driving through one of the old farming towns in Massachusetts, about twenty miles west of Boston, we approached a comfortable, well-conditioned farm, with a tavern-house upon the high road, and several great elms standing about it. The road passed between two of the trees, and from a cross-beam, lodged across their branches, swung a large square sign, with names and dates painted upon it—name and date we have forgotten; it was a good old Puritan name, however—in this wise:

"John Endicott, 1652."
"John Endicott, 1696."
"John Endicott, 1749."
"John Endicott, 1784."
"John Endicott, 1817."

As our eyes read over this list, we were struck with the stability of a family who for many consecutive generations had occupied, by the same name, that venerable spot, and ministered to the comfort of as many generations of travelers, and incontinently took off our hat in respect to the record of so much worth, drove our horse under the shed, had him fed, went in, and took a quiet family dinner with the civil, good-tempered host, and the equally kind-mannered hostess, then in the prime of life, surrounded with a fine family of children, and heard from his own lips the history of his ancestors, from their first emigration from England—not in the Mayflower, to whose immeasurable accommodations our good New England ancestors are so prone to refer—but in one of her early successors.

All over the old thirteen states, from Maine to Georgia, can be found agricultural estates now containing families, the descendants of those who founded them—exceptions to the general rule, we admit, of American stability of residence, but none the less gratifying to the contemplation of those who respect a deep love of home, wherever it may be found. For the moral of our episode on this subject, we cannot refrain from a description of a fine old estate which we have frequently seen, minus now the buildings which then existed, and long since supplanted by others equally respectable and commodious, and erected by the successor of the original occupant, the late Dr. Boylston, of Roxbury, who long made the farm his summer residence. The description is from an old work, "The History of the County of Worcester, in the State of Massachusetts, by the Rev. Peter Whitney, 1793:"

"Many of the houses (in Princeton,) are large and elegant. This leads to a particular mention, that in this town is the country seat of the Hon. Moses Gill, Esq., ('Honorable' meant something in those days,) who has been from the year 1775 one of the Judges of the Court of Common Pleas for the county of Worcester, and for several years a counsellor of this commonwealth. His noble and elegant seat is about one mile and a quarter from the meeting-house, to the south. The farm contains upwards of three thousand acres. The county road from Princeton to Worcester passes through it, in front of the house, which faces to the west. The buildings stand upon the highest land of the whole farm; but it is level round about them for many rods, and then there is a very gradual descent. The land on which these buildings stand is elevated between twelve hundred and thirteen hundred feet above the level of the sea, as the Hon. James Winthrop, Esq. informs me. The mansion house is large, being 50×50 feet, with four stacks of chimnies. The farm house is 40 feet by 36: In a line with this stand the coach and chaise-house, 50 feet by 36. This is joined to the barn by a shed 70 feet in length—the barn is 200 feet by 32. Very elegant fences are erected around the mansion house, the out-houses, and the garden. "The prospect from this seat is extensive and grand, taking in a horizon to the east, of seventy miles, at least. The blue hills in Milton are discernible with the naked eye, from the windows of this superb edifice, distant not less than sixty miles; as also the waters in the harbor of Boston, at certain seasons of the year. When we view this seat, these buildings, and this farm of so many hundred acres, now under a high degree of profitable cultivation, and