182 



AMERICAN FORESTRY 



Colonial house of the earliest type. It reproduces the 

 general characteristics of the houses built during the 

 days of Hawthorne's "Scarlet Letter." It fairly breathes 

 the spirit of Salem witchcraft days, and "Colonial 

 governors who sheltered the regicides, or indeed Whalley 



of many historic examples, and a typical chimney, large 

 enough to accommodate many large fireplaces, was used. 

 The construction inside "Keepsake" is the same as 

 that found in the old houses of Salem and other New 

 England towns. And yet, remarkable enough, the cost 

 of this house, with all its good design and construction, 

 was not as great as that of the poorly built and slill more 



FRONT VIEW, "WITCHWOOD," HIGHL.WD MILLS. NEW YORK 



and Goffe themselves, might for all we know" — save 

 that the house is not quite five years old — have found 

 refuge in it. 



The means taken to secure this family resemblance to 

 houses of two and a half centuries ago were neither costly 

 nor complicated. In the first place the exterior clapboards, 

 which are cypress, have never been painted. After the com- 

 pletion of the work, they were 

 simply oiled to preserve the 

 wood and to bring out its fine 

 natural color. 



On the side of the house it 

 will be noticed that the clap- 

 boards in the gable are wider 

 than those below. The upper 

 ones are eight inches wide and 

 the lower ones are four. These 

 lower boards are beaded, or 

 moulded, on the lower side, as 

 most early siding was. 



On the whole, no tricks or 

 "stunts" of design were at- 

 tempted and the building from 

 top to bottom was simply pat- 

 terned after the usual manner of 

 early work. An overhang at 

 the second floor (see page 181) 

 is designed as all old ones were. 

 The windows in the first floor 

 rooms are brought high up in 

 the room and well under this 

 overhang, and at the second 

 floor the windows are near 

 the cornice. The brackets 

 under the overhang were care- 

 fully designed after the study 



FIRE-PLACE AT ■■WITCHWOOD." THE CANDLE-STICKS, 

 MUGS AND THE CHAIR ARE UNFORTUNATE; NONE ARE 

 COLONIAL 



DETAIL OF THE PORCH AT "WITCHWOOD'^ 



poorly designed "Colonial" houses found in every subiu-b 

 and small (and large, too, for that matter) city or town. 

 Its cost, at a time however when labor and materials were 

 less expensive than they are at present, was $6000. 



Another successful example of early design is "Witch- 

 wood" at Highland Mills, New York. In this instance the 

 building might have been put up as late as 1700, or in the 



" Middle Period " as architectu- 

 ral historians call it. The door- 

 way is an unusually successful 

 one of its kind, and the treat- 

 ment of the porch at the side 

 of the house is well worth stud}- 

 — and reproduction on houses 

 that make no pretence of being 

 Colonial. 



The Bishop house at Nor- 

 walk, Connecticut, is an exam- 

 ple of a later type. The roof 

 is reminiscent of those found in 

 certain parts of the South. 

 The sides of this house are 

 covered with hand -riven white 

 pine shingles laid nine inches 

 to the weather. Both here and 

 at the Swartz house the roof 

 shingles are cypress. The inte- 

 rior trim of both is white wood, 

 painted, and the floors are oak. 

 In the Swartz house the stairs 

 are oak and the handrail is ma- 

 hogany. The Swartz house, 

 built in 1907, cost $12,000, 

 and the Bishop house which 

 was built a year earlier cost 

 $11,000. 



