THE ESTATE 263 



There will be also on any estate certain structures which serve House 

 an economic and not primarily an esthetic purpose, — for instance, ^^'^'"^' 

 the various house service arrangements, the laundry yard, and the 

 service court. For convenience they must be near the service portion 

 of the house. Since their economic purpose is not one to which atten- 

 tion should be much directed, any considerable decoration of them 

 would be decoration misapplied. They should, therefore, be at least 

 subordinated and probably screened. This screen frequently takes 

 the form of a fence or wall or formal hedge, and then these areas may, 

 in a sense, form an outlying part of the formal scheme of the house, — 

 outdoor adjuncts to its service portion. The areas themselves should 

 not be visible from the living rooms. Their screens should not inter- 

 rupt views from such rooms, though they may be visible, and may often 

 form part of the enframement of some views from the important rooms 

 of the house. Under these circumstances the screens are more usually 

 formed of shrubbery and trees, or masked by planting which relates 

 in its form to the view rather than to the service area, so that the serv- 

 ice area is not only concealed but no attention is drawn to its existence. 



In larger estates the various necessary service buildings and areas Estate Service 

 commonly form one or more groups separate from the house and its I^ji^ldings and 

 surroundings. Often the garage and sometimes the stables open on 

 the house service court, and consequently form a part of the house 

 group. In this case the architectural style of the house will be echoed, 

 if not exactly carried out, in the garage and other structures. In the 

 large country estate, these service buildings may be at some distance 

 from the house, and so need not be looked at near at hand unless one 

 is interested to do so, but their main mass, at least the silhouette of 

 their roofs, will probably still tell as a part of the composition, includ- 

 ing the house, and it must be designed to tell harmoniously. 



When the entrance to a large estate is far from the main residence, 

 there may be a gate-lodge, partly to supervise the traffic which uses 

 the road, but more to make it evident from the street that the entrance 

 leads to a private place of some importance. The lodge and the 

 entrance gate may be all part of one structure, similar in architectural 

 style to the house. More commonly, in this country, the lodge is a 

 separate building, near the gate, used as a dwelling for the gardener or 



