FOUR COLONIAL HOUSES 



BY RAWSON WOODMAN HADDON 



THE way by which we may preserve in the domestic 

 architecture of today an undefinable chann — a cer- 

 tain warmth of personality with which American 

 history has invested the wooden house — is what Mr. Joy 

 Wheeler Dow shows 

 us in the buildings he 

 has designed, and in 

 his writings upon the 

 various developments 

 of American archi- 

 tecture, both historic 

 and modern. 



To secure this 

 charm — to build a 

 certain amount of 

 convincing histori- 

 cal atmosphere in- 

 to the house without 

 losing any of the 

 comforts that we 

 have learned to ex- 

 pect in houses of 

 today, and still pre- 

 serve the splendid 

 qualities of the origi- 

 nal Colonial building, is the especial task that this archi- 

 tect has set for himself. How well he succeeds and by 

 what means, we shall see. 



In the very first place materials must be selected with 

 care and with a full knowledge of the possibilities of every 



with it an authoritativeness recognized by architects and 

 homebuilders alike. 



For this reason-it is interesting to know that he says, in 

 connection with the selection of materials for the new 



house, that "if we go 

 further, and by means 

 of accumulated afflu- 

 ence erect the entire 

 structure of the new 

 colonial house in stone 

 — columns, cornices, 

 window and door cas- 

 ings, etc., strange to 

 say we lose an indefi- 

 nable chami — a cer- 

 tain warmth and per- 

 sonality with which 

 American history has 

 invested wood." 



Undoubtedly we 

 do. And the loss is 

 not owing simply to 

 the fact that we have 

 failed to use wood 

 where our forefathers 

 used it, but it is because the wood we have not used 

 has been tried and found since the earliest days of 

 American building to be the ideal building material in 



■KEEPSAKE." AT MARQUETTE, MICHIGAN 



THE BISHOP HOUSE. NORWALK, CON.MECTICUT 



available source of supply. In the present instance, in 

 addition to being an architect of wide experience, the 

 designer of the houses here illustrated is the author of 

 ' ' The American Renaissance, " one of the best-known books 

 on American architecture, and his word, both in his books 

 and as exampled in the houses he has designed, carries 



THE SWARTZ HOUSE, XORWALK. CONNECTICUT 



this country for reasons of looks, and because of its 

 comparatively low cost and plentiful supply, and for 

 economy of maintenance and repair. 



"Keepsake" at Marquette, Michigan, has been known 

 — since it .was built in 1913 — as one of the most suc- 

 cessful buildings yet erected which is based on the 



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