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AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS 
1906 
June, 
The Veranda 
By Ethel Swan 
g HE veranda, porch, piazza—call it what you 
will—has long been recognized as one of 
the essential and characteristic features of 
the American house. But it has long since 
passed from being a mere feature, a dis- 
tinguishing characteristic, a convenient ap- 
Oceans e, and is now known and recognized as one of the 
most valuable and useful parts of the suburban and country 
home. It might, indeed, be safer to affirm that the veranda, 
in one or more of its several aspects, is but at the beginning 
of a useful career, destined to be even more amply developed 
in the future than it has been in the past. 
In a somewhat primitive and primeval sense the veranda 
is a roofed annex to the house, affording shelter without it, 
and used, on occasion, as a sitting place. In its latest and 
more developed character it has become so closely afhliated 
with the house that while without it it has usurped some of 
the features of a room. ‘The veranda—using the word in a 
generic sense to cover porches of all sorts—has, in fact, be- 
come an open-air room, reached directly from the house and 
used for family and entertainment purposes throughout the 
whole of the summer season. 
It is this latter aspect of the veranda which has given it a 
new lease of popularity, added a new element to the equip- 
ment of the house, and transformed a partly ornamental, 
little used, hardly understood feature into one of the most 
valuable adjuncts of the home. ‘This new use of the veranda 
has, of course, greatly modified its position, even in structure, 
and certainly the point of view with which it was regarded. 
In houses of the older style the veranda, as likely as not, was 
a simple porch stretched across the entrance front, a place 
where guests could be received, where the parting words could 
be uttered, and where the man of the house could read his 
paper on a Sunday morning, and the lady finish her sewing 
late in the afternoon. ‘The hours of use were small enough, 
the utility of the use was of the slightest. 
The modern veranda is a very different place. If the 
house has an entrance porch it is slight enough and used 
for entrance and exit only. No one ever sits upon it, and it 
is used solely for the purposes for which it was built. But 
the family veranda is a very different place. It is as broad, 
wide and spacious as the lighting of the interior rooms will 
permit. For the veranda must not darken the interior of 
the house, and ample windows and high ceilings are alone 
available for immediately facing such a structure. ‘To be 
inclosed within a railing or not will depend in part upon the 
style of the architecture of the house, in part upon the taste 
of the owner; if there are small children in the family a rail- 
ing will be found a useful adition. Structurally it will be 
thoroughly open with as little shadowing at the ceiling as 
possible, with piers, columns or posts just sufficient to carry 
the weight of the roof; more would hide the view and be 
objectionable in many ways. 
But the structure of the veranda is but a part of the means 
taken to give it charm and make it useful and beautiful. Its 
supports will be covered with vines, its openings shaded with 
foliage or with screens or awnings. ‘The veranda being now 
used at all hours must be made available for use at all times; 
the warm sun must be kept from off it on the hot days, and 
admitted when the weather is cool if the sun permits it. The 
veranda must, therefore, be screened and temporary devices 
to that end will, on the whole, be found much more service- 
able than any permanent expedient. One of the most effec- 
tive ways of screening a porch is to use porch shades made 
of wooden slats closely woven and stained some dark rich 
color. Green and brown, it has been found, afford the best 
protection from the heat of the sun’s rays. Shades of this 
sort modify the heat of the sun, and, in addition to this, 
furnish a seclusion so often desired on verandas when lunches 
are served on them or the porch is used as a pavilion for 
lawn parties or put to other social uses. 
The screens form a part of the useful equipment of the 
veranda; the vines which twine around its supports belong to 
its ornamental equipment. ‘This is completed in many other 
ways. Flower boxes will be used to deck its borders; orna- 
mental plants will be placed upon it in rich jardinieres or 
handsome pots. And then will come the furniture, chairs of 
exceeding comfort and as much variety as the space permits; 
tables will be brought out as part of the permanent fixtures 
and used for all sorts of purposes; rugs, of a special type and 
fabric, will be spread upon the floor; a bell for the servaat’s 
call will about complete the furnishings, and the veranda 
will be ready for use and enjoyment. 
And here at least the two words mean the same thing. 
One can not use such a veranda, so amply provided with 
every household convenience needed in such a place, with- 
out enjoyment. And, the weather being suitable for outdoor 
life, this use and enjoyment will be continuous throughout 
the day and almost—one might say—the night. The 
“sitting-room’’ becomes neglected; the reception-room is 
scarcely more in use; the dining-room even suffers in com- 
parison with the beautiful delights of the outdoor room 
which the veranda has become. It is the new and final use 
of the veranda, the one part of the house used for all pur- 
poses all the time by the whole family. 
The development from a mere weather shelter to the 
favorite place of resort has been rapid. It means that the 
veranda is no longer a narrow covering at the point of 
entrance, but a spacious outdoor room at a secluded part of 
the house where the grounds of the property may be seen 
and where it can be occupied with some privacy. Most im- 
portant of all is the consequent fact that it takes the entire 
family out of the house almost the whole day. The porch 
is continuously used, and it is used more freely, more fre- 
quently and more amply than any other part of the dwelling. 
And this use is bound to extend. Porches were never so 
popular as they are to-day. They are an architectural ele- 
ment which does not properly belong to every style of archi- 
tecture, and those styles which have not developed them are 
necessarily less popular than those to which they belong. But 
so vast is the popularity of the veranda, so urgent is the de- 
mand for it, that architectural purism is overwhelmed in 
the demand for it. At least it would be an odd house in 
America that has not its veranda, equipped and furnished 
for every-day use. 
Porches have so long been used in America and have be- 
come so thoroughly Americanized that it seems at first glance 
hardly just to speak of them as being in the first stages of 
their history. Structurally, of course, this is not so, since 
porches we have had for many, many years, porches of every 
possible shape, size, dimension and other characteristics 
This new epoch in porch development has now opened in a 
manner that may readily be described as brilliant. Its future 
bids likely to be of greater interest than its past. 
