ACME OF LIVING 301 



Acme of Living. 



Given a clearing and virgin soil, save for the steel edge of the 

 woodsman and steel point of the plowman, it is the acme of living 

 to reclaim and to build as one desires, absolutely untrammeled. In 

 place of tangled forest and rock-strewn field, to rear a habitation 

 adapted to and in harmony with climatic topography, to gather from 

 the four quarters of the globe the best of earth's products and mold 

 them to one's use; to master savoir faire, and no longer have plan- 

 ning ever synonym compromise this is the acme of living, the "sine 

 qua non" of house building. 



In ideal, hypercritical building, there are three essentials: 



Ample funds; ample land; ample time, and the job to be thor- 

 oughly done must be from under the ground. Even using an 

 old foundation may be a serious handicap, as it is most important 

 that the house angle should suit the site, with the sun where it is 

 needed and the kitchen, one bete noir of the architect, so placed as to 

 neither hide an important view nor over-heat and over-odor the house. 



Remodeling may make for comfort, but effectually bars achieve- 

 ment, and the completed product is always far from ideal. A year 

 is not too long for planning the house, and during that year if your 

 heart is in the work, you will be "bethumped with ideas," and have 

 mind-built a dozen houses, and mind building is not only interest- 

 ing and inexpensive, but profitable. The January house in the light 

 of your December product will generally seem crude and impossible, 

 and the months between may be strewn with dismantled and wrecked 

 dwellings which died a-borning. A year's residential try-out while 

 developing the plans gives ample time to grasp all conditions of an 

 unknown neighborhood and may prevent unnecessary shrinking of 

 one's bank account and heart-breaking disappointments. Buy when 

 you find your ideal site, but sell before building rather than label 

 the completed dwelling and its location a mistake. Keen observa- 

 tion and adaptation to your special requirements are essential guides. 

 Few houses meet one's ideal. With the world from which to choose, 

 the owner-builder, keenly interested in his new home, strives though 

 fruitlessly in the egotism of creation to lead that world if only in 

 one feature, but to carelessly stray afield outside the pale of simple 

 strength in avoiding anaemic architecture and a dull level of same- 

 ness is often to conflict with the canons of good taste, and unduly 

 blot and smear a garden of Eden. 



Life of a House. 



In building, one should aim to compass in all possible measure 

 the three fundamentals of health, comfort, and idealism. In the 

 planning before building days, picture and re-picture your home 

 from every possible vantage ground, remembering that in our climate 

 a wooden house will deteriorate yearly from three to ten per cent., 

 and one of stone or brick, from two to five per cent., and that eternal 



