RESTORING A COLONIAL HOUSE 



301 



Brick ? Concrete ? well, yes. But will it be as home- 

 like as wood. This is an important question. Will it 

 "fit" as well into the landscape as this frame house does ? 

 Will it be as economical in final upkeep as the frame 

 house and will the brick or concrete house, in spite of 

 their substantially greater cost, last any longer, or as 

 long as this bright homelike house nestled down among 

 century old trees. And there are thousands of other 

 examples of wooden houses that were built by our fore- 

 fathers which are, today, in quite as good condition as 

 this one. 



It is a fact, and one well worth our attention, that 

 practically all the famous American houses covering the 

 wide range from stately Mount Vernon to Lincoln's log 

 cabin house have been wooden buildings. And the oldest 

 houses of all, the Fair- 

 banks house in Dedham, 

 Massachusetts, built in 

 1636; the Paul Revere 

 house in Boston, the splen- 

 did old Longfellow house 

 in Cambridge, as well as 

 the old S c h e n k-C rook 

 house in New York City 

 (built in 1656) are all built 

 of that as we are asked to 

 believe short-lived and 

 flimsy material, wood. 



So, when you build your 

 house, and select wood or 

 when your architect ad- 

 vises wood as the most 

 sympathetic material, you 

 need not worry about the 

 alleged unsubstantial qual- 

 ities of it. You need not 

 be afraid that not so many 

 years after it is finished it 

 may be necessary for your 

 son or your daughter to 

 have the house torn down 

 and a more substantial one 

 built in its place. 



You need not think that 

 wood is an extravagant 

 material that will last "but 

 a generation," but you all 

 remember those ancient 

 houses that I have men- 

 tionedincluding Mr. Baer's and you will know that 

 your own frame house, if it is properly constructed, will 

 last for. three or four or even five generations and that 

 it will be as good and sound in the end as it was on the 

 day the builders left it new and ready for the first occu- 

 pants. 



Mr. Baer is an architect who has designed some of the 

 most important buildings in New York City and his 

 house at Westport is the latest addition to the long list 

 of Colonial houses that are owned by architects 



THE NEW FRONT DOOR 



A skillful bit of design, redolent of the atmosphere of Colonial days. 

 It replaces an ugly porch which had been added during the Civil War. 



and which have been restored for their own use. 

 In this particular instance the house was, before its 

 restoration, just the sort of place to attract the interest 

 of an architect and it offered him an opportunity for ex- 

 citing research and discovery. Interest in the house 

 itself, after its unusually favorable location in one of the 

 most picturesque of old Connecticut towns is taken into 

 consideration, was by no means aroused by conditions 

 of nearness to the original colonial layout or design. 



For, during many generations during which the house 

 had been in the possession of farmer-owners, the build- 

 ing had been changed and altered and added to so largely 

 and so frequently that little except the main outlines of 

 the original structure remained. Even these had been 

 interfered with by many additions and changes, while in 



the interior so many old 

 partitions had been re- 

 moved and new ones added 

 that it took all the knowl- 

 edge gained in studying 

 dozens of old houses of the. 

 same original type to bring 

 the place back to anything 

 like its original character 

 and feeling. 



This, like all restorations 

 of early houses, was not a 

 matter for careless or half- 

 interested consideration. It 

 was evident at the very 

 outset that the problem was 

 to be one of removing new 

 or comparatively new ad- 

 ditions and by scraping to 

 the very core of the house, 

 to determine just what had 

 been originally built, and 

 then to make restorations 

 accordingly. 



Problems in restoration 

 are further complicated by 

 the fact that most colonial 

 houses as originally built 

 are not so arranged as to 

 be at all fitted for present 

 day modes of living. 



To cite a single instance 

 of this, the placement of 

 the kitchen in the original 

 plan, with its close communication to all the rooms on 

 the first floor, was a good and practical arrangement at 

 a time when the farmer, his family and the farm help 

 used the kitchen as a dining and living room as well, 

 but it is not a satisfactory arrangement at the present 

 time and under the changed social conditions that exist 

 today. 



Supposing you were to purchase a Revolutionary farm 

 house (one that Washington had stopped at, perhaps) 

 or, if you were fortunate enough to inherit one that had 



