January, 19 13 



AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS 



17 



chimney standing out from the eastern wall. 

 The metal device on the face of the chim- 

 ney is a true lovers' knot, in allusion, no 

 doubt, to the conjugal felicity that should 

 reign within the house. The windows, as 

 might be expected, are casements. 



A sturdy, sensible English yeoman air 

 this cottage has and ought to have; there 

 are no meaningless frills anywhere about 

 it, it is solid and honest to the core, and its 

 stone walls, coated with pebbly rough-cast, 

 are twenty-two inches thick. It is a four- 

 square domicile not to be budged by the 

 blowing of winds or the beating of rains 

 and coming of floods. It is hospitable 

 looking because it sits firmly on the ground 

 and you can walk right in without climbing 

 up stand-offish steps; it doesn't teeter on 

 French heels like houses perched aloft on 

 foundations that are nearly one-half above 

 ground. Because a house has not protrud- Floor plans of 

 ing, overgrown foundations, there is no reason that its 

 cellar should be either damp or dark. Areas around the 

 cellar windows settle all that and obviate this too frequent 

 source of awkwardness. 



Some houses are good to look upon but lack in sensible 

 arrangement; others are chock-full of practicality but want- 

 ing in comeliness. In either case, it is pleasant to direct 

 attention to merits, but it is doubly grateful to point to a 

 union of both qualities such as the Krisheim Cottage pos- 

 sesses in an eminent degree. It is comfortable, livable and 

 in simple good taste at all points. Light-hued walls, flecked 

 with playing shadows, contrast pleasantly with the dark 

 cypress-shingled roof, whose soft tones and easy lines blend 

 with the setting of great surrounding trees and seem to knit 

 the whole structure to its environment. 



Half-way down a steep hillside that shelters from 

 north and northeast winds, the cottage hangs at the 

 edge of an abrupt descent into a deep-wooded glen. 

 Southwest and northwest the land falls suddenly away 



'3e.como Floor Pua 



First Floor Flah 



leaving a little level garden-plot on the 

 north front at the foot of the upward slope 

 of the protecting hill. This tiny garden, 

 with its trim borders and minikin walks, all 

 surrounded by a low pale-fence of quaint 

 design, is for all the world like the garden 

 before the Gingerbread House in "Hansel 

 und Gretel." 



The type of architecture meets the simple, 

 homely requirements of the case much better 

 than the more formal, stately Georgian 

 would have done. Instances there are 

 where the Georgian spirit does not fit, and 

 this was one of them. Nothing more ex- 

 actly suited to the site could have been de- 

 vised. However strong may be the claims 

 of the Georgian type to our consideration, 

 however fully we may be in sympathy with 

 its genius — and few of us do not keenly 

 admire it when well executed — we never- 

 Krisheim Cottage theless err in not making a larger use of 

 sundry other English types which are quite as much a part 

 of our national architectural heritage. 



Garden and house, hanging on the brink of the glen, 

 are both together so delightfully suited to each other that 

 it is a satisfaction to look on them. Either one without 

 the other would be incomplete and curtailed of its full mean- 

 ing. The fact that the garden, small though it is, has been 

 made the most of, is worth taking to heart in a good many 

 quarters. Not a few of us are apt to neglect a little garden- 

 ing opportunity like this just because it is so little that we 

 think it won't count. It does count, though, and Krisheim 

 Cottage garden shows how much. The cultivation of a 

 wee plot gives the cultivator a most valuable store of ex- 

 perience in economy and arrangement while a refusal to 

 improve the chance is just like the conduct of the man in 

 the parable who went and wrapped his one talent in a nap- 

 kin and buried it in the ground. Among the sundry lessons 

 to be learned from a study of Krisheim, not the least is the 

 lesson of appreciation of small excellences indoors and out. 



Halfway down a steep hillside Krisheim Cottage hangs at the edge of an abrupt descent into a deep wooded glen 



