Buildings In and About the Home Grounds 



III. Walls and Piers.— By Phil M. Riley, 



New 

 York 



CHARM in the home does not imply 

 beauty alone; quiet, restfulness 

 and seclusion are equally desir- 

 able. Did I not know this from 

 observation I certainly should have learned 

 it from the emphatic remarks of my grand- 

 father, overheard when a boy. A frank, 

 spirited disposition his; a spade was a spade, 

 and when he explained why he built his 

 simple farmhouse well back from the road 

 there was no mistaking his meaning. 



"Look at Avery's house, " he used to say. 

 "It's a good place for those who want to 

 show off or who can't restrain their curiosity. 

 Surely nobody would accuse them of show- 

 ing off, but I guess Mrs. Avery wants to see 

 everybody that goes by; it furnishes a lot to 

 talk about and that's more important to 

 her than her home. " Probably she never 

 thought, though," he chuckled, "that they 

 all see her too. It's like living in the show 

 window of Bean's grocery — there's no 

 privacy. I like to have my friends come 

 around once in a while, but I don't want to 

 be on exhibition all the time before every- 

 body. That's why you can see only a 

 glimpse of my house from the road." 



Good logic that, if a bit blunt, and it is 

 being put into practice more every day. 

 In country homes particularly, and in the 

 suburbs too, people are building less to im- 

 press passers-by or their neighbors and more 

 to pro\ide for themselves those things that a 



home implies — congenial surroundings and 

 privacy in which to enjoy the home ties 

 that concern only the immediate family. 

 Happily our homes are less show places than 

 formerly, though they may be better worth 

 looking at. 



It is this desire to have the best home 

 aspect within, rather than without, that 

 has led many of us to front our houses not 

 upon the street but upon the secluded, 

 often walled garden at the rear of the lot, or 

 when a house in a large lot already faces the 

 street, to surround it with a high wall or 

 hedge, and to cut off from the passer-by 



Modern bricks with their rough surfaces and wide 

 range of color are admirable for garden walls 



An embankment wall of plastered stone effectively 

 treated with an iron fence between the piers 



all save glimpses of the house by means of 

 mass plantings of shrubs between the taller 

 trees. 



Providing a secluded spot for outdoor 

 living is but one of the several functions of 

 the wall, although an especially important 

 one. When of lesser height it often marks 

 property lines and serves to make trespass 

 difficult and conspicuous; also purely for 

 landscape effect it is sometimes employed as 

 a mark of transition to separate two or more 

 portions of extensive grounds which have 

 been treated in dissimilar manner, as the 

 formal and informal portions. There are 

 embankments or terrace walls where the 

 grade changes, often combined with balus- 

 trades. Then, too, a wall is a good screen 

 for the service yard where clothes are hung 

 and the ash and garbage cans are set out at 

 regular intervals. A wall furnishes a better 

 screen than a hedge because it entails 

 practically no expense of maintenance. 

 Indeed, walls are important adjuncts, not 

 alone utilitarian, but lending beauty and 



246 



distinction to home grounds when the 

 materials and construction are such as will 

 give character to them. To realize this one 



Red roofing tiles are much used in California to 

 cap concrete garden walls 



has only to see the charming brick walls of 

 the South, half clad with clinging vines, 

 softened by many years of sun and storm, 

 and with the shadows of overhanging, moss- 

 festooned live oaks traced upon them. 



Three building materials are commonly 

 used, namely: stone, brick, and concrete. 

 Which to choose depends upon the house, 

 for the wall should be in harmony with it. 

 If the house be of one of these materials, 

 the wall, whatever its nature, is always 

 pleasing when of similar construction. 

 While concrete walls are well suited to 

 stucco houses, very charming effects have 

 been secured by using brick or stone for 

 chimneys, walls, walks and steps. Any of 

 these three materials is appropriate with a 

 wooden house, a good precedent being to 

 select that of which the chimneys are built, 

 thereby ensuring simplicity in the home 

 picture by reducing the variety of construc- 

 tive materials. 



Local stone is always better than that 

 brought from a distance, which, like cut 

 stone, is inappropriate except in large and 

 pretentious houses. Just now there is an 

 absurd fad for round field stones laid up in 

 cement. This type of construction is used 

 for walls, piers, steps, chimneys and even 

 fountain basins. It is not a stone wall, but 

 a concrete wall with aggregates of redicu- 

 lous size, for without the cement the wall 

 would not be secure. Blasted ledges and 

 split boulders provide the flat surfaces 

 necessary to solid construction as seen in 

 stonework of the charming Germantown 

 style. Such a wall will stand without mor- 

 tar and in the country is better so. The 

 absence of slick finished appearance is its 

 principal charm. In autumn the larger 

 crevices. can be filled with soil mixed with 

 seeds, giving in spring a delightful dress of 



