70 FLIGHT FROM THE CITY 



true. As a result, we found ourselves building of stone 

 the natural building material for a county with the 

 name Rockland at a cost not much higher than that 

 of good frame construction. 



My enthusiasm for many of Flagg's ideas has not 

 abated. For instance, he calls attention to the absurd- 

 ity of cellars under houses built in the country. The 

 cellar usually represents a fifth of the cost of the 

 house. For much less money, the storage space ordi- 

 narily furnished by a cellar can be provided by adding 

 to the area of the building. Except where the contour 

 of the ground calls for a basement or cellar, all our 

 houses are built on what are virtually concrete plat- 

 forms, over which the regular floors have been laid. 



Another idea of his has been the building of one- 

 story houses, without attics and with low walls, using 

 dormers over doors and windows to secure height 

 where height is needed. This makes it possible to build 

 outside stone walls which are not more than four or 

 five feet in height for the most part, so that stone and 

 concrete do not have to be carried up to a considerable 

 height and scaffolds erected on which to work. The 

 use of what he calls ridge dormers or ridge skylights 

 makes it easy to ventilate these one-story houses in 

 summer. 



But one of the things most attractive to me in 

 Flagg's type of construction is the number of designs 

 which can be built around courts, section by section. 

 This makes it possible to build a part of a house to 

 begin with, and add to it as means permit. When we 



