"Faulkner Farm" 



Mrs. Charles F. Sprague's House, Brookline, Massachusetts 



TATELINESS-is surely the character note of the great house of "Faulkner Farm." 

 It is a design that combines, in a very marked degree, the qualities of dignity, 

 sobriety, and beauty, the three qualities essential to successful building, in a fine 

 architectural ensemble. It is a house of great size, with wings and outbuildings 

 that themselves cover almost as much area as the great central structure ; but it is a building 

 that attracts one by its very dignified parts, and the thoroughly successful way in which a simple, 

 direct, and straightforward use of good forms and the employment of good materials have been 

 joined in producing an effect that is at once grandiose and without effort or undue enrichment. 

 The garden, which forms so fine a feature of the place, was designed and arranged by 

 Mr. Charles A. Platt after the house and a good deal of the structural work on the grounds 

 had been built. No doubt, from the landscape architect's standpoint, this entailed certain 

 disadvantages, since perfect freedom of design was denied him ; but of the artistic success of the 

 garden there can be no doubt. 

 From the designer's stand- 

 point there may not be that 

 thorough unity which rightly 

 pertains to every great art 

 work ; from the visitor's stand- 

 point there can be only delight 

 that so charming a garden was 

 created in this lovely place. 



"Faulkner Farm" is a 

 large estate, with the varied 

 rural industries that belong to 

 such a property. The garden, 

 however, is in immediate prox- 

 imity to the house, and its 

 design necessitated the com- 

 plete transformation of the 

 grounds in near juxtaposition 

 to it. The general plan is -FAULKNER FARM." 



[131] 



