AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS 
February, 1912 
style 
An Architects Own House 
By Rutherford M. Nesbit 
Photographs by T. C. Turner 
FE, find many architects to-day whose own 
houses are marked by their personal style, 
imposed by 
them distinc- 
unhampered by restrictions 
clients, and this serves to make 
tive. They may be Colonial, 
English, or Italian in character, 
but whatever they are in style, they express the 
individuality of the designer as perhaps few 
other sorts of houses do. Although the first 
question the home-builder planning for a new 
house appears to be in the habit of asking him- 
self is, “What style of house shall I have?” it 
would be far more wise for him to let the 
character of the site whereon he plans to build 
suggest the style, or, if he is determined upon 
a style, to select a site that will fit it. 
The romantic quality of the splendid and 
stately Florentine villas, standing as they do 
among hills, suggests at once the type best 
adapted for the hillside country house here 
illustrated. There is no doubt that Mr. J. H. 
Phillips was influenced by the impressions he 
received while studying Italian domestic archi- 
tecture in the Tuscan countryside around 
Florence, Italy, where one finds some of the 
loveliest villas in the world, when he designed 
An excellent window detail 
the charming studio house here illustrated, which he de- 
signed and built for himself at Mohegan Heights, Yonkers, 
New York. ‘The house is set upon a hill slope, terraced on 
three sides, the upper garden terrace being practically built 
at the level of the main living-room floor, which 
looks out upon the front of the premises, 
marked by an avenue of Locust trees. The 
house is not large, being only twenty-six by 
forty-eight feet, and it is placed some thirty 
feet back from the tree line. 
As one approaches from the avenue, over 
the brick steps and walk, the simple and 
charming design of the main front is most 
impressive. This front has indeed a Flor- 
entine quality, while the corniced loggias at 
the ends, with their heavy. consols _be- 
neath the sills, are set far apart in true 
Tuscan fashion. ‘The Palladian window of 
the two-storied living-room, designed in con- 
nection with the entrance, and the curved 
balcony forms a detail of great beauty in 
design. 
It is evident that the owner-architect of this 
house took genuine delight in carrying out the 
detail of this entrance, which is perhaps the 
most distinctive note in the architecture of 
