IN FLORIDA 15 
In the temperate zone we live inside our houses the greater 
part of the year; in Florida we live mostly outside of them. 
At the north we go outside and use the porches for a brief time 
during the warm season; here we only go inside to eat and sleep, 
and for shelter during northers or severe storms. It goes without 
saying then that a dwelling in this region should consist largely 
of verandas. If one can run a porch entirely around his house 
so much the better; it will make a delightful place to walk and 
look out over his garden. With such an arrangement one can 
always have a chance to promenade unless the weather is very 
boisterous. I love to walk around my veranda and enjoy my 
plants, especially by moonlight or during showers. I can rejoice 
with them when they are being deluged with rain. 
Many persons in Florida screen in all or part of a porch and 
make a sun parlor of it. Such a room is a delightful place in 
good weather, but it ought to be furnished with heavy roller 
curtains which can be tightly closed in time of hard storms. 
Such screened rooms make fine places to sleep in and are all the 
more desirable if they are located so that one can look out over 
attractive grounds. 
If possible arrange for lovely views when building a dwelling. 
Everything of beauty on the place or in the immediate neigh- 
borhood should be visible from the windows or porches if that is 
possible. As a general thing the house should be simple in style 
and an excess of scroll work or furbelows of every description 
should be avoided. It is true that there are elaborate buildings 
which are finished most ornately and are at the same time very 
beautiful; the great cathedral at Milan, which Mark Twain has 
called ‘A poem in stone” is an example, but there is not one man 
in a million who can design such a structure, and there are thou- 
sands who can create a tasteful simple building who would fail 
with an elaborate one. 
I have introduced an illustration of my own house which I 
designed and built. Some of the best architects in the country 
have pronounced it an atrocity and I present it to my readers 
_in order that they may know what an atrocity is and be able 
to distinguish one at sight. It shows some of the ideas I have 
mentioned; the living part elevated well above the ground, the 
