RURAL ARCHITECTURE. 



313 



window fixtures, the houses may also be made of the most 

 comfortable description in winter. 



The Italian chimney-tops, unlike the Grecian, are always 

 openly shown and rendered ornamental; and as we have al- 

 ready mentioned, the irregularity in the masses of the edifice 

 and shape of the roof, renders the sky outline of a building 

 in this style, extremely picturesque. A villa, however small, 

 in the Italian style, may have an elegant and expressive char- 

 acter, without interfering with convenient internal arrange- 

 ment, while at the same time, this style has the very great 



[Fig- 23. The .New- Haven Suburban Villa.*] 



merit of allowing additions to be made in almost any direc- 

 tion, without injuring the effect of the original structure : in- 

 deed such is the variety of sizes and forms, which the differ- 

 ent parts of an Italian villa may take, in perfect accordance 

 with architectural propriety, that the original edifice frequent- 

 ly gains in beauty by additions of this description. Those 

 who are aware how many houses are every year erected in 

 the United States, by persons of moderate fortune, who would 



* New-Haven abounds with tasteful residences. " Hillhouse Avenue "in 

 particular, is remarkable for a neat display of Tuscan or Italian Suburban Villas. 

 Moderate in dimension and economical in construction, these exceedingly neat 

 edifices, maybe considered as models for this kind of dwelling. Fig. 28, without 

 being a precise copy of any one of these buildings, may be taken as a pretty ac- 

 curate representation of their general appearance. 



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