AMERICAN ESTATES AND GARDENS 



some utilitarian puqDOSe? And if the planting is to be varied, in what way and to what 

 extent shall it be done? 



The relationship of the garden to the house, and its own natural declivity, vetoed at 

 once any suggestion for broad terraces with considerable horizontal surfaces. A rising series 

 was, therefore, determined upon, as at once the most natural and the best basis of design. 

 The terraces are artificial in so far as the}- have been given regular form and have been 

 leveled and faced with grass, liut they closely follow the basic outline of the natural slope, to 

 which they bear the relationshi]) of a crown and ornament. 



Standing, as it does, on a hillside, the front of the house overlooks a vast stretch of 

 territorv, the view Ijeing over lawns and roads, fields and trees, with New York itself — a mere 

 speck in the landscape — dimly visible at the farthest point. The terraces are at the Ijack of 

 the house, rising far above it to a lofty grove of trees, where a pleasant summer house, 

 reached liy the long succession of steps, affords another lookout upon the country below and 

 the land l)eyuml. 



The first terrace alxjve the driveway is a sloping grass bank, adorned with a marble 

 fountain, copied from an Italian church font. The second terrace is a true formal garden, 

 some fifty feet wide and se\-eral hundred feet long. It is of such ample size that room is 

 afforded for quite extensive floral embelHshment. It is, therefore, laid out in typical foiTnal 

 style, with graveled paths arranged in a geometrical design, paths bordered with box and low 



A TERRACE. 



1.304] 



