380 
AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS 
November, 1912 
This house was built by its owner to be in architectural keeping with the Colonial furniture that adorns it 
A House Built for Colonial Furnishings 
By Mary H. Northend 
Photographs by the Author 
HERE is a peculiar fascination which few 
can resist connected with the old-time 
houses, more particularly those of the 
seventeenth century. I mean the charm of 
those dignified square types that came into 
vogue as prosperity increased in the colonies. 
The advent of this type of house 
marked an epoch in the architectural 
world, which has given it a distinc- 
tive place in house-building—in fact, 
so distinctive that the architect of 
to-day harks back to those old an- 
cestral homes, finding there features 
which can be successfully copied in 
modified Colonial twentieth’ century 
homes. It is this artistic interming- 
ling of the old and new that never 
fails to find favor with the house- 
builder of to-day. 
Perchance much of this style has 
been brought into favor through 
the coming into fashion of ancestral 
furniture, which had for many years 
been delegated to attic and store- 
house. These large, heavy pieces 
The balustrade of the stair in the hall is especially 
interesting in design 
are entirely out of taste as introduced into modern homes 
which have been designed without thought of Colonial ideas. 
Sir Christopher Wren “fathered” many of those old 
houses, and it is to his wonderful artistic designs that we 
owe much that is attractive to-day. For it must be taken 
into consideration that our Colonial forefathers had little 
chance to study architecture and 
therefore had to bring into play 
shrewd common sense, combined 
with old-time ideas. 
One of the best examples of the 
modified Colonial house is to be 
found at Wellesley, Massachusetts, 
one of the suburbs of Boston. This 
house was carefully planned, in con- 
junction with the architect, by Mr. 
Herbert Gage, for an_all-year- 
around home. The house is es- 
pecially interesting in having been 
planned to fit its furniture, rather 
than the furniture bought to fit the 
house. 
The location is ideal, for the 
grounds are situated between two 
parallel streets, giving as it were, 
