40 AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS 
Front of the house of Mrs. Presby Bisland, at Bronxville, New York 
stretches toward the west, offering almost an endless variety 
of landscape—marsh, plain, hillside, mountain and valley. 
Indeed, the mountain country of New Jersey is so wild in 
parts that it is really possible to hunt foxes there—within an 
hour’s ride of the center of Manhattan. 
The homes which have been built in all these suburban 
districts represent, as one might expect, almost ever i possible 
phase of su- —- 
burban_ do- | 
mestic archi-- | | ES 
tecture, which 
suggests to 
anyone plan- 
ning to build 
a suburban 
home the 
wealth of 
ideas here of- 
fering them- 
selves in the 
various ex- 
amples of 
country-house architecture of the sort which one is able to 
find in the vicinity of New York. Indeed, no other Ameri- 
can city offers so wide a range of examples of suburban 
architecture as does New York, and therefore it cannot fail 
to be of interest to describe in this article some of the repre- 
sentative types of suburban houses to be found in this varied 
section of the country, referred. to in the introduction. 
TERRACE 
PIAZZA 
SS 
Plans of the house of Mrs. Presby Bisland, Bronxville, ENew York 
February, 1912 
It must be borne in mind that varying styles of architec- 
ture do not always harmonize when grouped closely to- 
gether, but in the case of the houses here described, it may 
be said that each has the good fortune to command suf- 
ficient space for itself to provide an environment that gives 
it just that necessary isolation to prevent it from either 
spoiling or being spoiled by the adjacent types of houses 
not planned in accord. 
In the beautiful suburb of Bronxville, New York, one of 
the most charming residence sections of Westchester county, 
one finds the delightful house here illustrated, belonging to 
Mrs. Presby Bisland, which was designed by Messrs. Bates 
& How, architects, New York. Many of the houses in 
this locality are stucco or half-timber, and fortunate indeed 
are they in tending to harmonize, one with another, in the 
general architectural ensemble. The topography of Bronx- 
ville is such that many of the houses to be found there have 
had literally to be fitted to their sites, resulting in some par- 
ticularly interesting architectural effects. The Bisland house 
is set within ample grounds, that are surrounded and pro- 
tected by a hedge of clipped privet. The house itself is a 
stucco, half-timber dwelling, designed on rambling lines, 
though well balanced from every point of view. Its gables 
and picturesque chimneys and the overhang of the upper 
story render it one of the most attractive houses in its vicin- 
ity. It immediately suggests one of the old homes the 
AN traveler in 
E n g loaned 
meets when 
journeying 
through Eng- 
lish villages. 
The Elazae 
bethan effect 
is further em- 
phasized by 
the usienom 
leaded glass in 
various win- 
(___ dows, and in 
the usemou 
square and diamond-paned windows elsewhere. One ap- 
proaches the house by a short path, entering a square hall 
containing the main stairway. To the left a large living- 
room, with broad deep fireplaces and shallow windows, opens 
from the hallway. This bay forms a window-seat, whence 
one looks out upon the lawn and shrubbery through six 
leaded-glass windows of diamond panes. From the living- 
SECOND FLOOR PLAN 
BALCONY 
BEDROOM 
BEDROOM 
BEDROOM 
