218 HOW TO MAKE A COUNTRY PLACE 



Looking down on the sunken gardens, the eye covers a wide 

 range of rare trees, shrubs, and plants, while on the outskirts are 

 evergreens, interspersed with silver birches, imitating Nature, who 

 often uses them as a foil against evergreen backgrounds, this planting 

 forming a natural setting for brilliantly massed azalias, rhododen- 

 drons and peonies. 



The sunken garden was developed and embellished as sunken 

 gardens generally are, with centred pool, half-circled seats, colonnade, 

 pergola, fountain, vase, and statuary. Yew and privet were trimmed 

 to the extreme of formalism in cube, cone, oval, pyramid and mound, 

 and even in bird and animal forms, and niches cut in the ten foot 

 high privet hedge to frame and canopy faun and satyr, Greek god, 

 and mythological hero as well as a Cleopatra and a Caesar. 



Arbre-arched foot gates with garniture of bloom pierced the big 

 boundary hedges, and tempted the stroller in that fair garden to 

 wider wandering through sylvan realms of meadow, dell, and wood, 

 threaded by babbling brook and foam-flecked waterfall that faintly 

 murmur in the distance. At the horizon line loom the hills. 



An entrance from one side of the living room led to a secluded, 

 columned, and arched patio, whose courtyard centre was grass-sown, 

 pathed, and shrubbed, save where fountained lily pond partially 

 reflected arch, column and tiled roof line. We never transplanted 

 weed-filled sod but used grass seed except for path borders, which 

 were sodded wide enough for satisfactory use of the ordinary lawn 

 mower. 



Two large settles flanked the living room's twin fireplaces, and 

 a most comfortable bit of furniture was a big double-sided club 

 davenport, with concave end, in which fitted a movable round table 

 for books and writing material. Foot wide mirrors in the corners 

 to window top height gave no ill-bred, staring reflections, simply 

 fleeting glimpses of persons and objects. In fact, in arranging this 

 interior we tried to produce that "round the corner" feeling that 

 destroys the sense of barrenness felt when every detail of a large 

 room is seen at a glance. 



The fluted columns and pilasters were ornamented four or five 

 feet from the floor with inset pressed wood in appropriate design. 



Ancestral Portrait Gallery. 



At one side was a long corridor dignified by the term "Ancestral 

 Hall," its ceiling slightly groined, and over the portraits of "cavalier 

 and ladye faire" were grouped pike, asbolt, hauberk, and cuirass bat- 

 tered and slashed in battle before the beginning of our present Ameri- 

 can civilization. 



Integral with the living room was the red, quarry-tiled loggia, 

 with its chimney corner, settle, and easy chair. As many meals were 

 to be eaten in the open it also connected with the serving pantry. 



