CHAPTER I 

 THE COUNTRY PLACE 



THOUGH the country places of America may lack the traditions 

 of English estates and the grandeur and magic of the Italian 

 villas, everyone familiar with the open country must admit that 

 our country homes have a certain charm and individuality that keeps 

 their memory a pleasant one for the visitor and resident. The student 

 and lover of the open country, after a visit to country places, feels that 

 even without centuries of traditions, these places have the fundamental 

 organization of plan that brings one to the same basis of study as one 

 arrives at after a study of the Old World gardens. The houses are in 

 such a relation to the broad sweep of the landscape that it is brought 

 in and included as a part of the composition. This close relation of the 

 house to its surrounding landscape and to its real utility is the secret of 

 the successful English estate or Italian villa. 



The basis of a country estate plan as in all design is the "layout" 

 or structural lines. Perhaps the greatest weakness of country place 

 planning at the present time is the neglect of proper organization of its 

 plan and the use of the principles of design or composition in its relation 

 to natural conditions. The tendency has been to emphasize other features 

 of the work at the expense of this fundamental one of design. The 

 most common mistake has been the emphasis of horticultural or natural- 

 istic side of the work to such an extent that there is often such a poor 

 organization of the plan that the enjoyment of even the features that 

 the gardener may have considered the important ones of the estate 

 have been lost. 



Examples of this are where the gardens have been placed so as to 

 interfere with the best views, and the service so poorly handled, that 

 it destroys a real enjoyment of the natural scenery. Any attempt to 

 create natural scenic effects in landscape work has, as we know, cer- 

 tain limitations, but such an arrangement of a plan as to give emphasis 



