The terrace front overlooks the lawn, with a maryelous view beyond 
situation, a house that belongs here. It is very well studied, 
but with that supreme care that gives no hint of it. Now 
that it has been built one realizes that any other sort of a 
house than this would haye been impossible in this situation, 
and, one may also believe, quite impossible of occupancy by 
the distinguished artist whose loving care and fine apprecia- 
tion of the beautiful has embowered the house with grounds 
and plantings of unusual interest and beauty. 
Notwithstanding the importance of the house in any coun- 
try region, it is but the simple truth to say that one lives in 
the Berkshires for the outdoor beauty and not for the ele- 
gance and costliness of the houses. Mr. French has de- 
veloped this idea with singular beauty and complete success. 
There is no vast estate decoration, no formal gardening in 
an architectural sense, but, what is very much more delight- 
ful, a multitude of interesting spots and unexpected beauty, 
The hall, with its fine old furniture and tapestry paper 
AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS 
some of them related to each other in a connecting sense, 
some seemingly sporadic, yet all distinguished by an har- 
monious feeling for beauty that is at once distinctive and 
penetrating. In short, the mind of the artist, his creative 
sense, his feeling for beauty, his love for nature are abun- 
dantly apparent at every point. This is the supreme quality 
of this beautiful estate, a quality as rare as it is fine; for one 
realizes, as one wanders through these grounds, that here 
is something beyond the unusual, and actually in the realm 
of the artistic. 
Beyond the house is the studio. ‘This is a rectangular 
building with lofty windows and high, shingled, skylighted 
roof, carrying a central louver. On the north a lower part 
serves as a reception-room. Here, in the center, is a door- 
way, with a high glazed semi-circular tympanum rising aboye 
the cornice. As in the main house the walls are plain; on 
The breakfast room 
cach side of the door is a green trellis that supports clematis; 
beyond, at the ends, is Virginia creeper. On the step are 
two grotesque marble dolphins, and at the base are two small 
red terra-cotta jars, each containing a mimic Scotch pine. A 
great gray-pebbled circle lies before the door; in the center 
is a marble block supporting a large yellow-brown pottery 
jar. The further border of the circle is arranged as an 
exedra, with a semi-circular seat of concrete with marble 
ends. In the center are marble steps to a higher pathway; 
here and at the ends are red pots containing small bushes of 
pyramid box. Above the steps is a grassed path that pres- 
ently loses itself in the distant woods. At the beginning it 
is bordered with peonies, high-growing lilies and tree 
hydrangeas, which are continued to two stands of clematis 
and a couple of poplar trees. Then comes an apple orchard, 
and here the path border consists of large ferns; further off 
The dining-room has blue walls and rare Colonial furniture 
A modest simple dwelling: stuccoed, light granite gray in color 
these give way to mountain laurel, and finally, when the 
path has penetrated the dense wood, the border is low hem- 
locks. On the left, at the beginning of the path, is the tennis 
court, so overshadowed by the woods as to be completely 
without sun in the afternoon. 
One enters the enchanted space in which all this simple 
beauty lies through a picket gate in a brick wall, drab painted 
and overgrown with Virginia creeper. Just without are 
two shaped hemlocks. On the right is a low stone wall, 
capped with white marble, above which is a hedge of clipped 
lilacs. Inside a brilliant Hower border of hardy phlox, golden 
glow, larkspur, poppies, lilies and other gay Howering plants 
runs to the exhedra and beyond it. The forespace there is 
arranged with great simplicity but in quite a formal way. On 
the left is a square of lawn; sunk in it, near the studio, is a 
small square lily pond with white marble border. The lawn 
The drawing-room mantel is red Numidian marble 
