April, 1 9 13 



AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS 



129 



name, Salisbury Plain. De- 

 spite their monotony these 

 plains, covered with long, 

 dry, tawny grass, have a 

 beauty of their own, a 

 beauty best appreciated, 

 perhaps, from the edge of a 

 great field of turnips or 

 cabbages with the distant 

 cathedral spire cutting into 

 the evening sky against a 

 glorious strip of hazy golden 

 sunset glowing beneath huge 

 fluffy banks of Ruysdael or 

 Hobbema clouds. The sight 

 really transports one almost 

 bodily to Holland and only 

 windmills are lacking in the 

 landscape. The atmosphere 

 of Garden City, however, is 

 not at all Dutch but rather 

 English with its bishops, 

 deans, canons and chapters 

 so that, at times, one quite 

 fancies himself living in 



into three panels, the lower 

 solid, the middle with mov- 

 able slats and the upper 

 pierced with narrow, slant- 

 ing crescent slits. 



From the wide Dutch 

 door beneath the Wistaria- 

 covered portico, a heart- 

 whole welcome seems to 

 radiate and greet the ap- 

 proaching guest. The buxom 

 box bushes, too, flanking the 

 entrance, add their note of 

 cheery greeting even in the 

 dead of Winter when all else 

 is bare and brown. At the 

 south end of the house a 

 piazza has been so felicit- 

 ously managed that, although 

 it does not belong to 

 "Wye's" particular species 

 of architecture, it escapes the 

 objection of incongruity. 

 "And now," someone asks, 

 "what is the particular 



The hallway 



the pages of one of Anthony Trollope's Barchester novels, species of architecture that 'Wye House' represents?" It 



But all this talk of cabbages, cathedral spires and sunsets is Colonial — not Georgian but Colonial, "really, truly" 



is not describing "Wye House," however much of a setting Colonial of the days before there was any Georgian and, 



it may give. Let us, therefore, back to our muttons. by the same token, purely and thoroughly American. 



Just before turning into the driveway, we catch our In all its characteristics "Wye House" faithfully repre- 



first glimpse of a long, gray-shingled house with a gambrel sents a type, frequently to be met with in New England, 



roof and the second floor overhanging the first in the man- that forms a connecting link between the half-timbered house 



ner of some old New England houses, a manner borrowed of Old England and our own early Georgian — a type that 



in turn by the early Colonial worthies from the half-tim- architects might fitly bestow more attention upon than they 



bered dwellings they knew so well in Old England before have hitherto done. The shingled timber framing set on a 



their departure hither. The three square, sturdy, gray stone foundation, the overhanging second floor projecting 



stone chimneys that surmount the roof impart an air of beyond the walls of the first, an unmistakable heritage 



well-anchored solidity to the structure while, on the other 

 hand, any sense of undue heaviness would be allayed by 

 the jaunty "kick-up" of the roof at the eaves. The long 

 slant of the tops of the dormers, merging into the roof 

 just at the gambrel joint, preserves the harmony of 

 line and avoids any suggestion of fidgety unrest — a 

 common failing with 

 dormers. 



Barge-boards, cornices, 

 window-sashes and frames 

 and all other trims are white 

 while the shutters are green 

 so that, with the weather- 

 stained face of the shingles, 

 the building presents an 

 agreeable and restful color 

 scheme o r gray, white and 

 green. e whole aspect of 



the h . as regards color- 

 \r\r osition of mass and 



arrangement of fenestra- 

 te straightforward and 

 »" some. There are 

 plenty of windows so that 

 the house looks wide awake, 

 th .y are of generous dimen- 

 s ons and their placing truly 

 reflects a simple and sensible 

 inside plan. The shutters 

 are of so unusual a pattern 

 that they deserve a word in 

 passing. As may be seen, 

 each one is divided vertically The veranda end of the house 



from half-timber methods of building, the massive chimney 

 construction — the house is literally anchored to its hearth- 

 stones — the breadth of beam and spread of roof-tree, the 

 low-browed staunchness of mien, the severe simplicity 

 throughout from ground to ridge-pole — all these are true 

 earmarks of a well-developed American style long ante- 

 dating the accession of the 

 Hanoverian line in England, 

 a style full of virility and 

 worthy of revival. 



Of course sundry adapta- 

 tions have been made in 

 "Wye House" but always in 

 a spirit fully sympathetic 

 with precedent and, as stated 

 before, the characteristics of 

 two old homes have been 

 interwoven and incorporated. 

 This combining of fea- 

 tures, tried and proved by 

 long experience, has doubt- 

 less made the result so per- 

 fectly satisfactory -and liv- 

 able. All this, be it remem- 

 bered, without doing the 

 least violence to archetypal 

 traditions. 



Directly upon crossing the 

 threshold of "Wye" one in- 

 stinctively feels that here is 

 a house where the furniture 

 of other days is not only lov- 

 ingly and reverently treas- 



