284 



AMERICAN HOMES AMD GARDENS 



August, 1 9 13 



"The Homestead," country home of Mr. William L. Otis, Waterford, Connecticut 



The Homestead 



The Country Home of Mr. William L. Otis, Waterford, Connecticut 



Photographs by T. C. Turner 



ORTUNATELY most of us have our ideals, 

 ideas of what for ourselves an ideal home 

 should be, and happy are those of us who 

 come so near to the realization of an ideal, 

 as has the owner of "The 

 Homestead," the country 



home of Mr. William L. Otis at Water- 

 ford, Connecticut. 



Mr. Otis came upon the house he now 



occupies while on a visit one day in New 



London. 



"Do you know," he chanced to remark 



to a friend, "it has always been my desire 



to buy a farmhouse, the older the better, 



and to remodel and beautify it. But it 



must be a really old house, worth doing 



over, and it must stand overlooking the 



water. Lake, river, ocean or bay, I 



don't care which it is that creeps into my 



landscape, but water I must have." "Why," 



exclaimed the friend, "I know of just such 



a place." And so it was, briefly, that 



"The Homestead" of to-day began its 



evolution. 



Now, if one goes to Waterford, one 



may see it. A restful .rambling. house,, ex- Entry. 



kground, a gay 



id green lawns 



the shore of 



>arkling reaches 



om window or 



1 one fail to see 



iere out in the 



quisitely set with a big old forest as 



old-fashioned garden around its doors^ 



dotted with fine old trees stretching do 



Jordan Cove, beyond which lie the broa 

 of the Sound. Never, 

 door of the Homestead, 

 a white sail dancing some 

 expanse of the world of wa?fi 



One counts live lighth 'ves from its 

 lawn. Fisher's Island and Kim Island are 

 in sight, and at evening the suRet gun comes 

 booming across to reverberaf-^. against the 

 walls of the staunch old hous^.\ which has 

 stood there so long and see} so many 

 changes. 



For the very oldest part of the house 

 was built in 1635. Then the littk cove on 

 which it stood was still often call q by its 

 odd old Indian name, Poquyo ^h, or 

 Poquang, though later it was named Robin 

 Hood's Bay, and later still Jordan Cjpve, as 

 it remains to-day. ':• 



Then "The Homestead" was a little 

 house, with just a big kitchen downstairs, 

 fourteen by twenty, with two bedrooms bf 

 hind it, and above two tiny bedrooms, 



