AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS 
LIVING PORCH 
DINING ROOM 
12'%6"x18-G" 
LTHAMAELR 
11% 13" 
LIVING ROOS4 
15% 26' 
STORAGE SPACE 
STORAGE ROWA 
LHAMBER l 
LA'S 
STORALE SPACE 
L"FLOOR FLAN 
2™ELODR PLAN 
3°FLOOR PLAN 
the old house on his march down the Fort Lee hill, and the 
old walls certainly looked their attributed years. ‘The 
grandfather of a present neighbor laid up the walls in clay 
and straw from field stone which he gathered from neigh- 
boring farms for this purpose, and they were well selected. 
In the first place, upon 
considering rebuilding, we 
felt that we desired some- 
thing different and better than 
the old house, and we hoped 
we had energy to carry out 
this desire. The walls, as they 
stood, with ample necessary 
grounds, occupied three lots, 
leaving us two front lots 
meee. . Lhese we decided 
should remain so in case 
necessity made their sale ex- 
pedient at any time. Then 
the reconstruction had to be 
upwards and rearwards. 
Afterwards came the prob- 
lem of the roof in order to 
make possible a number of 
rooms with proper ceiling 
height. The mistress of the 
house having an antipathy for high houses, the problem 
was not an easy one to solve, but the features of design 
were finally decided upon, together with the alloted cost of 
reconstruction. We had asked fwo or three architects to 
submit rough sketches, but to our minds, the sketches shown 
us were pronounced top-heavy, hipped-roof aftairs with slop- 
ing walls and cut-up space. None of them appealed to us 
seriously. Then we set about looking up photographs and 
plans as to maximum effect for the space at disposal, realiz- 
ing that we must have a certain amount of usable space 
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The old house as it stood when purchased before it was burnt. The 
Bookcase in the corner of the living-room 
in a house on a half-acre plot, to say nothing of that re- 
quired for our own needs. We ran across a set of photo- 
graphs and plans in a magazine devoted to homes and 
gardens which clearly proved that we could get more usable 
space by adopting a similar roof line and cornice to that 
of one of the houses de- 
scribed. This appealed to 
us in its simplicity and its 
possibilities of quaintness in 
our case. 
Being Southerners and 
having a fondness for the 
old hand-split shingles, split 
by the negroes and used so 
much throughout the South, 
we decided they should be 
used in the building of our 
new home, for we realized 
their durability and the 
warmth secured by overlap- 
ping. 
The road having been 
made after the old walls 
were laid, they remained 
nearer the street than we de- 
sired, so we decided that the 
front door should be merely an entrance, and that we would 
plan a large and more private living-porch in the rear, over- 
looking a large flower and vegetable garden and a handsome 
old apple tree, which many artists have since asked per- 
mission to paint. Likewise we decided that this living- 
porch would have a French window opening from the liv- 
ing-room and a pergola extending eastward. 
A modernized Colonial portal seemed best to meet our 
requirements and to conform to the simplicity of the main 
body of the house and the few small-paned windows we de- 
comes 
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superstructure had evidently been added to the original stone w 
