164 AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS 
May, 1912 
The country home of Mr. William Adams, at Lawrence, Long Island, New York, built from his own plans 
An Architect's Home in the Country 
he may construct a building whose 
size shall be limited only by the 
number of his blocks. ‘This feeling, 
in so far as it seems to offer possi- 
bilities almost without limit, may be 
felt by an architect who is building 
his own home. Here at last he may 
plan and execute without the cer- 
tainty of having his plans upset by 
some captious client who has ideas 
of his own as to what the house 
should be. Here, too, is the oppor- 
tunity for putting into practice the 
theories which every architect has in 
reserve, where the only limitation 
shall be that imposed by the size of 
his appropriation. All of these pos- 
sibilities were presented when Mr. 
William Adams planned and built 
his own home in a most beautiful 
setting at Lawrence, Long Island. 
The beauty of the shingles upon 
the walls of old buildings upon 
Cape Cod and elsewhere in eastern 
Massachusetts is due in a large de- 
| N architect who has planned and built a great 
number of interesting country houses says 
that his feeling upon beginning such a work 
is somewhat that of a small boy who has ac- 
quired a set of building blocks of every con- 
ceivable size, color and shape, with which 
By Berwyn Converse 
The beautiful entrance porch is made even more in- 
teresting by judicious planting 
gree to the gray coloring which is produced by the salt air 
with its constant dampening and drying. Mr. Adams’ 
home is sufficiently near the south shore of Long Island to 
have felt this “weathering” 
house, while really but a few years old, has much the ap- 
pearance of a very old building. The dwelling is oblong 
effect and the result is that the 
in shape with two shallow wings at 
right angles to the main structure. 
It is two stories in height, with a 
rather steep gambrel roof which, 
with its wide dormers, affords the 
space of a full third story and yet 
keeps the building sufficiently “‘low”’ 
to be in keeping in a rural locality 
where the ground is very nearly 
level and where a three-story build- 
ing, unless it covered a large area, 
would be very much out of place. 
The house is built of cypress shin- 
gles cut out by hand and laid with 
wide courses to the weather. ‘The 
walls and roof with the somewhat 
uneven surfaces thus presented have 
toned down or weathered to a beau- 
tiful silver gray which affords a 
pleasant contrast to the ivory-white 
of the exterior and the dark green 
blinds which are used at most of the 
windows. 
The homes at Lawrence are 
placed in grounds of some extent 
