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AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS 



November, 19 13 



The Collier house with its broad veranda and the slender columns extending to the cornice line at once suggests the simple dignity of Mt. Vernon 



An American Country Estate 



By Robert H. Van Court 



r is frequently said that the popular form of 

 American country living varies greatly with 

 the passing years. A generation ago the 

 architects whose names "lead all the rest" 

 were building at Newport and elsewhere 

 highly ornate structures, adapted, where not 

 actually copied, from palaces of the Renaissance or chateaux 

 of France. In the language of the day these sumptuous 

 residences were known as "cottages," although by reason of 

 their size, magnificence and cost they may well have chal- 

 lenged comparison with the most elaborate of city resi- 

 dences. Very few of these costly and beautiful homes are 

 placed within grounds of more than very modest extent for 

 ground in Bellevue Avenue or upon Ochre Point is not 

 often in the market and where it is, the prices demanded 

 are such as to dampen the ardor and chill the enthusiasm of 

 any but the exceedingly affluent. 



The present tendency of home building in the country 

 has been brought about chiefly by the increased importance 

 which the motor has come to occupy in affairs to-day. Its 

 use renders one wholly independent of time tables, and the 

 constantly shifting suburban train service, and if one be 

 clever and fortunate enough to evade arrest for too fre- 



quent violations of speed limit laws it is possible to link 

 city activity with life in the far distant and truly rural 

 country in a way which might seem almost incredible. All 

 this has resulted in the building up of the country upon and 

 even beyond the extreme limit of what may be called sub- 

 urban area with large and important country estates. This 

 is particularly true of the country about New York, and 

 especially of certain localities into which by reason of in- 

 adequate railroad transportation or for some other cause 

 the activities of suburban land development companies have 

 never penetrated. 



The country estate of Mr. Robert J. Collier at Wicka- 

 tunk, New Jersey, is notable in many ways. As the home 

 of a man of varied and manifold interests, it represents the 

 American country home in a degree which is astonishingly 

 complete. For the same amount of money which would 

 have purchased a much smaller tract of land nearer New 

 York, Mr. Collier has secured a domain of several hundred 

 acres in a part of New Jersey which is wild and remote, 

 but which may be easily and quickly reached from the city 

 by motoring over the excellent roads which the importance 

 of motor use has secured. Here, with great space at his 

 command, Mr. J. Russell Pope, the architect, has created 



