88 



AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS 



August, 1906 



cither side of the fireplace there are arches, in one of which 

 there is built an attractive china closet provided with a glass 

 door, and in the other a door leads into the butler's pantry. 

 The butler's pantry is fitted complete with all the best sanitary 

 appointments. The rear hall has a staircase built of solid 

 concrete. 



The kitchen is also fitted with the best sanitary improve- 

 ments. The old fireplace in the kitchen was retained from 

 the old house, and the Daughters of the American Revolu- 

 tion have erected a tablet over it to commemorate the fact 

 that it was used to cook food for the soldiers during their 

 stay in that vicinity at the time of the Revolutionary War. 



The second floor contains the owner's suite of one bedroom 

 and bath, and two guest rooms and bath. This floor is treated 

 with white enameled trim, plastered walls covered with artis- 



been erected a concrete house, which is in many respects a 

 pioneer in fireproof residence construction. With walls and 

 partitions of hollow concrete blocks, floors and roof of rein- 

 forced concrete, it was the first building of this character to 

 be constructed in New York City. There have been a num- 

 ber of reinforced concrete buildings erected in this city, and 

 some in which concrete blocks are used as a facing, but this 

 is believed to be the first in which hollow concrete blocks 

 were used as supporting walls. The New York Building 

 Code is very strict upon the subject of concrete blocks, be- 

 lieving that there is such a chance to make poor blocks, or 

 blocks without a sufficient quantity of cement, that it is w T iser 

 to condemn them all at the start than to permit them to be 

 used in such a manner as to jeopardize the use of them for 

 building purposes. 



-The Living- Room has White Enameled Paneled Walls, and a Fireplace Fitted with an Old Colonial Mantel Removed from the Eighteenth 



Century House Which Stood Upon the Site of the Present House 



tic wall papers and open fireplaces. The bathrooms have 

 tiled wainscotings and porcelain fixtures and exposed nickel- 

 plated plumbing. 



The wing over the kitchen extension contains two servants' 

 bedrooms and bath, with a rear hall and stairway to the 

 first story. 



The cellar contains the heating apparatus, fuel rooms, cold 

 storage, etc. 



Architecturally, the building is designed to meet living re- 

 quirements, and its particular beauty rests in the simple, 

 straightforward fulfilment of its purpose. Strong, sub- 

 stantial construction, inexpensive with no hint of cheapness, 

 and, above all, supreme usefulness, is the keynote of the 

 whole. 



In the building of Mr. W. J. Steel's house at New Dorp, 

 Staten Island, N. Y., as shown in Figs. 12 and 14, there has 



The requirements which such blocks must meet are un- 

 usually severe, and it was only after many satisfactory tests 

 that the blocks were permitted in the present building. 



This building, of which we are able to show a number of 

 views, was also erected after the plans of Mr. Robert W. 

 Gardner, architect, of New York city. 



The blocks of which the walls are constructed were made 

 on a Normandin machine; a small shed supplying the nec- 

 essary shelter for the blocks until hardened enough to be 

 piled in the yard, where they were kept wet for about ten 

 days. While the blocks were hard enough to be laid in the 

 wall in two weeks, it was possible to make enough in advance 

 so that the majority were nearer a month old before moving 

 them from the yard. Three sizes of blocks were used, 12- 

 inch for the basement walls, 8-inch for the walls above the 

 basement, and 6-inch for the interior partition walls. The 



