INTRODUCTION 



HE very brief space of ten years has been sufficient in which to develo]) an entirely 

 new type of American country house, the house to which the words "stately" 

 and "sumptuous" may be indifferently applied, with, at times, a quite realizing sense 

 of their utter inadeciuac>'. Country houses we have always had, and large ones too; but the 

 great country house as it is now understood is a new type of dwelling, a sumptuous house, 

 built at large expense, often palatial in its dimensions, furnished in the richest manner, and 

 placed on an estate, perhaps large enough to admit of independent farming operations, and in 

 most cases with a garden which is an integral part of the architectural scheme. The formal 

 garden, in which garden architecture has an important part to perform, is the most usual; but 

 the garden is always present, even though a considerable latitude be permitted in its design 

 and arrangement. 



It is a beautiful thing, this garden-love, which so embellishes the house, gives it a 

 new meaning, adds to its beauty — rationalizes, in a word, the country life. It has opened up 

 new fields of activity to the landscape designer, and, which is much more significant, has 

 created new appreciations of outdoor life and broadened the vision of many an art lover. For 

 the garden, finely laid out, exquisitely planted, suitably ornamented, if space be had, with 

 sculpture, is a work of art, stimulating the imagination, helping mankind wnth its soft, gentle 

 beauty, a source of joy and of unending delight. Garden appreciation in itself is not new, 

 but the great, splendid garden, arranged and planted as a part of the scheme of which the house 

 is itself the center, has, in late years, become so important a factor in American country life as 

 to have fresh significance. 



In a book which, like the present one, is devoted to the architectural and gardening 

 features of some of the more notable of recent American country houses, it might be naturally 

 assumed that the art value of these places — meaning by that term everything that helps in 

 giving beauty — might be considered as the single point of interest; yet, as a matter of fact, this 

 great new building energy is not due to an interest in architecture as architecture, perhaps 

 hardly to gardening as gardening, but to an entirely new conception of country life, and a new 

 appreciation and realization of its manifold joys and pleasures. The movement countryward 

 is not, in fine, a Renaissance of architecture, important as is the place architecture takes in it; 



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