152 



AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS 



May, 19 1 3 



Shingle and concrete house. El Mora, New Jersey 



daries, but grouping shrubbery about verandas, in the 

 angles of buildings, or in other places where good taste 

 seems to suggest its use. This, of course, requires neigh- 

 borhood co-operation. Many groups of suburban houses 

 have been unified and brought into more sympathetic rela- 

 tions than might seem possible by using upon all the houses 

 trellises of the same design and painted a uniform color, 

 and also by screening the drying yards with tall hedges 

 trimmed to a uniform height. These hedges really connect 

 the houses and the entrances to their service-yards are 

 under arches of green formed by training and clipping the 

 hedges into this form. 



Much of the confused appearance of the average suburb 

 might be avoided if those whose homes are to be built 

 therein would plan with some regard to harmony and unity 

 of effect. The beauty of an English village is due very 

 largely to the fact that the houses, even though they be 

 very small and placed closely together, belong to one 

 definite and distinct style. In several instances in America 

 much the same effect has been achieved, and the wisdom of 

 this plan can hardly be understood unless one has seen a 

 certain suburban village; which must be nameless, which 

 contains houses built in every one of the more popular 

 styles, besides one building in wooden Gothic and another 

 which is apparently a mild suggestion from the Chinese. 



Small house, frame construction, El Mora, New Jersey 



Added harmony of effect may be secured by using the 

 same building material for bouses placed closely together, 

 or, if this cannot be done, by the use of the same colors 

 upon the walls or for such trimmings as may require paint. 

 The house of small or moderate size is the house which is 

 most in demand. The most interesting architecture of the 

 day is in houses of just this type, and no department of 

 American architecture exhibits more encouraging progress 

 in construction as well as in design. Indeed, to any one 

 conversant with the trend of small house and small garden 

 development, it is evident that an eruption of architectural 

 and diminutive landscape or garden talent is sufficiently ripe, 

 to bring about a multiplication of a single house or any one 

 of a group of houses, for instance, such as those which grace 

 El Mora with their interiors all built on the same plan (and 

 which is all so homogeneous), and to place them on lovely 

 curving countryside or suburban roads, streets and lanes as 

 laid out in English villages. The charm and consummation 

 of creations such as these are well within the art of dotting 

 the borders of the lesser thoroughfares with small houses 

 and grounds, which are types in fact and not in ideal, pic- 

 tures that have passed the stage of the first rough sketch and 

 now appear as gems befitting their neighborhood, while ave- 

 nue, boulevard and promenade can be made to put on immor- 

 tality of stone and marble majesty, at the west end of town. 



Small house, shingle construction, and detail of same, El Mora, New Jersey 



