302 



AMERICAN FORESTRY 



been built by an ancestor of yours who fought in Revo- 

 lutionary wars, you would see at a very early stage of 

 your restoration of the building that the work must be 

 carried out along two distinct lines. It is desirable in 

 the first place to restore literally wherever possible and 

 in the second place where such literal restoration is not 



OPPOSITE THE FIREPLACE IN THE LIVING ROOM 



A view of the fireplace side of this room was printed in the December 

 issue of this magazine. 



possible owing to the necessity of enlarged and rear- 

 ranged rooms, the general character and atmosphere of 

 colonial work must be secured by careful reproductions 

 of old work or by the still more troublesome expedient 

 of finding in old houses or in antique shops, material of 

 the period of the house which can be fitted into it. 



This latter course was adopted in Mr. Baer's house in 

 the instance of the living room paneling but to find a 

 suitable door frame being quite impossible, the present 

 front door was designed to take the place of a porch 

 and doorway that had evidently been added in the middle 

 of the last century. 



In its present condition as it is today the house is 

 much larger than when originally built. The extension 

 which is seen in the photograph on the left of the house 

 was added by Mr. Baer. It is true that some visitors 

 have thought the extension an older building than the 

 main house, but this appearance of age was secured 

 through the careful use of and the exact knowledge of 

 the details and the structural appearance of the colonial 

 style. 



Not a little of this appearance of consistency in style 

 and period was secured by the proper use of building 

 materials. The exterior walls are covered with hand- 

 rived cypress shingles which are 24 inches long, of which 

 10 inches are exposed to the weather. It is intended, of 

 course, that this extension will last as long as the main 

 part of the house and in order that these shingles may 

 be preserved in good condition and act as a permanent 

 protection for the structural parts beneath, they were 

 dipped in white lead and oil before they were nailed to 

 the walls and given final coats of paint after laying. 



The roof is also covered with cypress shingles, of 

 which five inches are exposed, and these were dipped in 

 shingle stain before being put on the roof. 



Exteriorally in all respects the old, new and restored 

 parts of the house follow the general tendencies of colo- 

 nial work that are familiar to all students of the period. 



The colonial designer knew well how to design his 

 house and get his formal and dignified effects with no 

 loss of "homelikeness" and he did it with an economy 

 of effort and of material that most modern architects 

 find easier to admire than to reproduce. 



And much modern colonial work lacks these convinc- 

 ing qualities of dignity and homelikeness because the 

 designer of the present day in studying the details of the 

 style has in many cases entirely lost sight of the funda- 

 mental principles of good design and thorough, con- 

 scientious construction upon which the original makers 

 of the period lavished their best thought and care. 



The colonial house was seldom the highly ornamented 

 structure with exaggerated emphasis upon a few well 

 known but by no means typical details that now pass as 

 representative of the style as a whole. 



In the present instance the temptation to use elaborate 

 detail and to tack on "ornamental" porches and the use 

 of distinctly non-colonial shutters has been avoided, and 

 the result, instead of lacking atmosphere, gains very 

 largely by this restraint. 



On the whole, when all is said and done, the house 

 resolves itself in one's mind as one of those pleasant 

 places where good restrained design takes the place of 

 the particular brands of ostentatious display that are so 



A CORNER OF THE LIBRARY 



The panelling in the library was found in a room on the second floor, 

 under many coats of plaster, paper and paint and was reset in this room. 



popular at the present day. It is the sort of house that 

 the ignorant designer sees, admires, and attempts to re- 

 produce "with improvements in the design, of course," 

 with the usual, inevitable failure. 



It may be, perhaps, that all this care and study came 

 about because the architect is the owner and occupant 

 of the house. There always is an interest in "the archi- 



