AMERICAN ESTATES AND GARDENS 



some utilitarian purpose? 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 they have been given regular form and have been 

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

 which they bear the relationship of a crown and ornament. 



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

 territory, the view being 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 back of 

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

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

 the land beyond. 



The first terrace above 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 several hundred feet long. It is of such ample size that room is 

 afforded for quite extensive floral embellishment. It is, therefore, laid out in typical formal 

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



A TERRACE. 



[304] 



