58 City Homes on Country Lanes 



go with large means. It will be interesting, and perhaps 

 illuminating, to inquire what such people have found 

 to be the ideal way of living. 



Up to a generation ago, this element largely pre- 

 ferred the city, with a strong leaning toward brown- 

 stone fronts. Their summers were spent at great re- 

 sorts, in hotels or rented cottages. They were of the 

 town, townish; and almost wholly lacking in rural 

 affiliations of any sort. But, in the last two or three 

 decades, the mental attitude of the extremely well-to-do 

 has radically changed. It happened about the time we 

 began to build good roads, run automobiles, and de- 

 velop other means of rapid transit. These well-to-do 

 people then discovered a new love of rural life. To have 

 a country home then became the proper thing. In 

 many instances the city mansion has been disposed of, 

 or torn down to make room for a skyscraper or an 

 apartment house, and the place in the country has be- 

 come the real home of the family, which retains in 

 town only an option on desirable hotel rooms, or pos- 

 sibly an apartment among the cliff-dwellers. 



These comfortable folk, who do as they please be- 

 cause they have the price, have decided that the way 

 to achieve the utmost satisfaction is to be of the city, 

 but not m the city. They are distinctly metropolitan 

 in their business interests, and in a part of their social 

 interests, as well; but they have learned that the way 

 to get the most out of the city is to come to it each 

 morning, after a restful night among the sights and 

 sounds of the country; and that the way to get the 

 most out of the country is to go to it each night after 



