PREVENTION OF VERANDA DECAY 



113 



Translucent glass formed the risers in outside steps as well as 

 back stair flight, flooding the basement and cellar with light, an 

 excusable bit of commercialism. Heavy twenty-four inch fluted 

 columns flanked the entrance hall on either side, and still other 

 features were a niched window on the stairs, the great south plant 

 window with curved top transom of stained leaded glass, and oaken 

 carved griffins a copy of those designed by Richardson for the library 

 building in Burlington, Vermont ornamenting the front door lintel. 



But the prevailing exterior motif was the roof, that with curve 

 and mitred soffit, peak and dormers, tried both purse and patience. 

 As I remember it, six carpenters worked six weeks to close in and 

 finish that roof in all its details, but it was generally conceded to be 

 a thing of beauty. 



The entrance posts built of big boulders were capped by rough 

 stone laid in basket form for flowering plants, and fitted with gal- 

 vanized iron drainage pipes.* 



Prevention of Veranda Decay. 



To dispose of rain water on the piazza a strip of ten-inch-cop- 

 per flashing fastened with copper nails at the edge of piazza floor, 

 formed a slightly inclined gutter, its outer edge cemented into 

 the stone veranda rail as the stone was being laid up and connected 

 with spouts leading into blind drains. This prevented decay in floor 

 and beams and solved the annoying veranda water-drip problem when 

 the veranda abuts against a solid stone railing. The bulkhead cellar 

 doors of wired glass were screened and protected from uncontrolled 

 grass or brush fires by plant-decorated ramparts of rustic-laid-up 

 stones. Twice we lost valuable buildings through burnings-over care- 

 lessly handled. 



THE GABL.ES. 



*Nine hundred dollars was the cost of the posts and short fences which joined them and 

 in three years low evergreens and vines completely concealed their contours Cheap but sub- 

 stantial boulder posts screened with vines would have answered as well. 



