January, 1912 
The Colonial portico possesses a classical dignity, but does not take away from the exterior the homelike appearance that is its great charm 
AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS II 
A House [That Tells Its Story 
The Home of Robert Cade Wilson, Esg., Summit, New Jersey 
By Henry Morton Blake 
Photographs by T. C. Turner 
HERE are few houses of its size more attrac- 
tively located upon the area of ground at its 
disposal than the home of Robert Cade 
Wilson,. Esg., at Summit, New Jersey, de- 
signed by W. L. Stoddart, architect, New 
York, which stands back from the roadway 
over four hundred feet, partially concealed from the street 
view by a screen of well- 
placed shrubbery, leaving a 
great expanse of lawn that 
leads invitingly to the classic 
portico that gives the house 
its definite Colonial note, 
further carried out by the 
shingled walls, which are set 
off by the white Doric col- 
umns and entrance-face of 
the portico, the white corner 
and window trims, and the 
dormer windows. A roadway 
to the right of the well-kept 
lawn, which lawn reminds 
one of an English bowling- 
green, leads to the house, 
whose foundations are slight- 
ly above the soil level and 
screened by carefully chosen 
The spacious living-room, with 
beamed ceiling and abundant light 
shrubs, planted with reference to their not obscuring the 
outlook from any of the windows of the lower story. 
The exterior of the house suggests the hospitable warmth 
one finds in Virginian domestic architecture, and in houses 
of other southern states—a happy intimation of repose 
about it that is sometimes lacking even in some of the finest 
and most perfectly designed Colonial houses modeled after 
types of the period of the 
Revolutionary War. Attrac- 
tive as) one. of ‘these= last 
named may be, there is. too 
often about the old Colonial 
house the suggestion of mili- 
tant historic connection, that 
leads one to wonder, first, if 
some patriot of 1776 ever 
hid from the Loyalists in its 
cellar, and then to be sure, 
from its newness, no patriot 
ever dida) oo it 1s that the 
house along Colonial lines 
that does not attempt to sug- 
gest a history to which it is 
not entitled, but which, on the 
other hand, has a distinction 
conferred upon its modern 
inception in the matter of its 
OSS A ett 
