THE ESTATE 



259 



Estate 



grasped in a short time, without particularly inviting to long enjoy- 

 ment of minor interests. 



The garden is ideally a place inclosed, protected, restful, a private The Garden as 

 area for the leisurely enjoyment of outdoor beauty.* It has, therefore, %}jj^j'j ^^ '^^ 

 some functions similar to some of those fulfilled by the house, and 

 is in effect often an outdoor living room. 



The garden most commonly is located so that it is visible from the 

 house. It is possible, where a house relates directly to an informal 

 design, to have the garden, though visible from the house, consist of an 

 informal arrangement of turf, flowers, shrubbery, and trees. More 

 usually, the closeness and dominance of the house is likely to require 

 a formal treatment of the garden and its formal relation to the house, 

 and this consideration is strengthened by the practical fact that fences, 

 shelters, and flower beds are more readily made and managed in formal 

 shapes. On the smaller estates, where the architectural mass of the 

 house is inevitably dominant and visible from all parts of the grounds, 

 this is especially true, but this relation will often be desirable in the 

 case of larger estates as well, not only from the point of view of design 

 in grouping the various formal units together, making the house and 

 its immediate surroundings a dominant unity, but from the point of 

 view of use in grouping together those units which have similar func- 

 tions, and in arranging the most finely wrought and interesting units 

 of the outdoor design so that they shall be visible and easily accessible 

 from the place where the owners spend most of their time, — the house 

 and especially the living room. 



If the garden is to be a place inclosed, private, offering many small 

 interests in itself, it is not easy to make it serve also as the best fore- 

 ground for a distant view. A flower-decorated terrace may readily 

 fulfill this function, but a garden so used is likely to lose some effect 

 of intimacy. Whether the gain is worth the sacrifice, only a study of 

 the particular case can determine. For similar reasons a garden is 

 commonly not bettered by being made to serve purposes of access for 

 any considerable traffic, particularly for persons other than the owners. 

 The treatment of a forecourt as a flower garden is seldom the best 

 arrangement possible. The garden may lie beyond the forecourt, 



* Cf. p. 234. 



