May, 1 9 13 



AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS 



161 



Directly opposite this 

 point on which Mermaid 

 Lane Cottage stands, in an 

 angle of the road and 

 nestling at the foot of a bluff 

 is a building known as the 

 Ice House — it was one in its 

 original state of existence — 

 successfully remodeled into 

 a most comfortable and con- 

 venient human habitation by 

 Messrs. Duhring, Okie & 

 Ziegler, of Philadelphia. 

 The house is small and there 

 is almost no garden. On the 

 steep slope at the foot of the m 

 bluff there is only room for The acreage of the site for the small house may be limited, but it often 



„ f„™ u„^„ „„J u~_Jl„ „ ,,„ presents a commanding location, as in the above instance 



a rew beds and borders up- K 5 



held by most interesting dry stone retaining walls, in the 



crevices and crannies of which grow and bloom all manner 



of rock plants. 



You will probably hold up your hands in horror at our 

 third example unless you are blessed with a good imagina- 

 tion and some powers of visualization. It is a little de- 

 serted laborer's cottage close beside the bottom of a rail- 

 road bank. It is more than a hundred years old and has 

 been in a state of woeful and untenanted decay for many 

 seasons. However, the stone walls are staunch and the oak 

 woodwork, pinned together with big wooden pins, is sturdy, 

 u-hile the moss-grown shingle roof, all things considered, 

 needs amazingly little repair. In the dooryard are several 

 great cherry trees and a tremendous horse-chestnut. A 

 shady road winds by the place and but a few paces distant 

 there is a deliciously cool and clear spring. The house is 

 small and the grounds are tiny, yet an architect of great 

 ability and marvelous good taste is looking with longing 

 and covetous eyes at the property and hoping to get pos- 

 session of it. He fully realizes what possibilities it em- 

 braces. 



Of the thousands who pass daily within forty feet of it in 

 the suburban trains, scarcely one knows of its existence and 

 few would ever suspect it, so concealed and sheltered is it. 

 Nothing could be more humble in present appearance and 

 positively uninviting 

 withal. Its owners 

 had so little regard 

 for it that they were 

 on the point of tear- 

 ing it down. Not- 

 withstanding all this 

 it made a strong ap- 

 peal to the discerning 

 taste of the architect 

 and it only serves to 

 show how many un- 

 suspected possibilities 

 in small house sites 

 there may be all 

 around us. At any 

 rate it is worth while 

 keeoing one's eyes 

 wide open and the 

 imagination busy. 



It should be said 

 further of this ne- 

 glected opportunity, 

 the long deserted 

 problem of laborer's 

 cottage, that the site 

 is healthy, that it is 



Alth 



oug 



the small hou 

 importance. 



fully accessible, being not a 

 five minutes' walk from the 

 station, with excellent train 

 service and, finally, that the 

 necessary cost of repair and 

 remodeling would be ex- 

 tremely moderate. That it, 

 along with many other 

 equally attractive small sites, 

 has not been snapped up 

 eagerly long ago only goes 

 to show how blind the gen- 

 erality of people are to the 

 opportunities for doing de- 

 lightful, interesting and 

 artistic things that are under 

 their very noses. 



Another house that never 

 fails to delight those who see it, much more those who 

 know it within as well as without, thrusts its simple white, 

 vine-trellsed front right out into a well traveled road — 

 really a street in a suburb of one of our largest cities. It, 

 too, was once but a laborer's rough cast cottage. On one 

 side is a small stretch of garden, on the other there is 

 scarcely more land than to allow of a lane into the place. 

 On the side away from the road there is a tiny walled ter- 

 race and below that a diminutive garden and a tennis court. 

 Below these stretches an inviting meadow with a babbling 

 brook. The meadow, however, does not belong to the 

 property in question, which is really very small. Except on 

 the west, the side towards the meadow, high hedges sur- 

 round and ensure entire privacy, even to a house standing 

 so near a constantly traveled road. Truly, with a small 

 house and site of this quality one may well be content with 

 small things. 



Another exceptionally pleasing small house on a small site 

 developed itself from a stable on the rear lot of a large 

 house in the semi-suburbs. By clever remodeling the archi- 

 tects converted a substantial but altogether unpicturesque 

 stable into a really interesting and attractive cottage and 

 what was before a grassy desert of side-back yard was 

 changed into a pleasant garden. 



Small sites present themselves in all sorts of ways. Some- 

 times an old building 

 on a well situated bit 

 of land can be re- 

 modelled and won- 

 derful results pro- 

 duced. Sometimes a 

 hitherto unappreci- 

 ated point will strike 

 somebody as desir- 

 able and they will set 

 to work and do 

 miracles with it and 

 you wonder why 

 someone else hadn't 

 the inspiration to do 

 the same thing long 

 before. Under hun- 

 dreds of guises in 

 suburbs, in country 

 and even in city suit- 

 able small house sites 

 are waiting recogni- 

 tion. The only quali- 

 ties needed to detect 

 them are a willing- 

 nesss to forsake the 

 worship of bigness. 



may nave an extensive site, its location is one of the utmost 

 Here we see how successfully this house was placed 



