IN FLORIDA 15 



In the temperate zone we live inside our houses the greater 

 part of the year; in Florida we live mostly outside of them. 

 At the north we go outside and use the porches for a brief time 

 during the warm season; here we only go inside to eat and sleep, 

 and for shelter during northers or severe storms. It goes without 

 saying then that a dwelling in this region should consist largely 

 of verandas. If one can run a porch entirely around his house 

 so much the better; it will make a delightful place to walk and 

 look out over his garden. With such an arrangement one can 

 always have a chance to promenade unless the weather is very 

 boisterous. I love to walk around my veranda and enjoy my 

 plants, especially by moonlight or during showers. I can rejoice 

 with them when they are being deluged with rain. 



Many persons in Florida screen in all or part of a porch and 

 make a sun parlor of it. Such a room is a delightful place in 

 good weather, but it ought to be furnished with heavy roller 

 curtains which can be tightly closed in time of hard storms. 

 Such screened rooms make fine places to sleep in and are all the 

 more desirable if they are located so that one can look out over 

 attractive grounds. 



If possible arrange for lovely views when building a dwelling. 

 Everything of beauty on the place or in the immediate neigh- 

 borhood should be visible from the windows or porches if that is 

 possible. As a general thing the house should be simple in style 

 and an excess of scroll work or furbelows of every description 

 should be avoided. It is true that there are elaborate buildings 

 which are finished most ornately and are at the same time very 

 beautiful; the great cathedral at Milan, which Mark Twain has 

 called " A poem in stone" is an example, but there is not one man 

 in a million who can design such a structure, and there are thou- 

 sands who can create a tasteful simple building who would fail 

 with an elaborate one. 



I have introduced an illustration of my own house which I 

 designed and built. Some of the best architects in the country 

 have pronounced it an atrocity and I present it to my readers 

 in order that they may know what an atrocity is and be able 

 to distinguish one at sight. It shows some of the ideas I have 

 mentioned; the living part elevated well above the ground, the 



