The Livable House 



offer no end of delightful little views of its own, which are far 

 more entertaining and various than the impersonal and tiring (if 

 seen constantly) panorama of the whole countryside. This view 

 would be much more effective reserved as an occasional treat to 

 be seen from a garden house reached by climbing a winding path 

 up the hill, than it would be if constantly spread out before one. 



From the point of view of economy, a hilltop usually means 

 more road construction and steeper grades than a hillside, and, 

 if one happens to be concerned about this item, more landscape 

 work. By the time the house has crowned the hilltop it is apt 

 to have surmounted all of the trees, and sticks up bare and com- 

 manding above their tops. Down a little lower among the foliage 

 of the trees, with the hillside as a background, it would fit 

 much more agreeably into its surroundings and form an infinitely 

 more pleasing picture than outlined starkly against the sky. 



Drainage would seem on the face of it to be taken care of by 

 nature for the house on the hill; as a matter of fact it has prob- 

 lems of its own, especially if the hill be steep, quite as difficult 

 as the house on bottom land with a marsh to be drained. Rain 

 torrents, which rush down the road carrying its surface along, 

 must be provided for by frequent catch basins and adequate drains. 

 Lawns are apt to be difficult to get and maintain, complicated 

 often by the necessity of steep terraces or their costly alternative, 

 retaining walls. The problem of too little water with which one 

 is confronted on the hilltop is less easily and more expensively 

 solved than that of too much, which dampens one's enthusiasm for 

 a bottom land site. Agricultural tile drains are simpler, much 



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