182 
Below the walls are massed the hollyhocks and larkspur and 
other plants, and, looking back, the whole descent seems 
ablaze with flowers and green foliage. 
Everywhere is life and vitality. In the center, at the base 
of the terraces, is an open circle of thickly growing achillae. 
A lovely flowering scheme is arranged here, with blue of the 
larkspur, yellow of the primrose, and white of the achillae. 
In the center of one semicircle is a bronze sun-dial—a small 
cupid on a globe, designed by Mr. Clarke. Above are the 
two terraced walls, and the cedar pergola at the summit, 
the house walls and gables—the latter singularly interesting 
in their variety and arrangement—form an immensely eftect- 
ive background and inclosure to the beautiful picture. 
The grassed space at the base comprises an ample area. 
Generally rectangular in form, it is outbordered with Japa- 
nese barberry, beyond which are fine poplars, widely spaced. 
In the center is a rustic arbor that serves as an archway, and 
stone steps down to a long shaded path leading to the brook 
and children’s log cabin in the wood at the foot of the hill. 
There is so much beauty here, and it is all so lovely that 
it is both difficult and unnecessary to single out any one gen- 
eral feature as especially worthy of admiration. The really 
great point is that it is all worthy and all admirable. Each 
part has its own charm and its own attractiveness, and this 
is always of distinctive beauty and interest. From every 
point below the house one has but to turn to it for the eye 
to be saturated with its cultured beauty; and from the house 
one looks out constantly, and in every direction, to natural 
beauty of the most delightful kind. ‘This is as true of the 
front of the house as of the back; and it is as true of the 
north aspect as of the south. There are hills and mountains 
everywhere. Behind the house rises the great bulk of “Yo- 
kun Seat,’ a name derived from Yokun, an old Mohican 
chief. It is covered to the top with oaks, chestnuts and hem- 
locks, and is included within the limits of ‘““Fernbrook”’ farm. 
On the other side, be- 
yond the Housatonic Val- 
ley, with its farms and 
hamlets, one sees ‘‘Octo- 
ber Mountain” and _ the 
far-distant mountains of 
Vermont. 
There is nowhere a 
sense of inclosure, and 
everything is on the lar- 
gest scale, a scale of real 
vastness and of great open- 
ness. The world seems bet- 
ter because there is such a 
place to live in, and Mr. 
Clarke, in his open- 
hearteq artistic way has 
done more than his share 
to make his part of it even 
more beautiful than Na- 
ture at her best could have 
accomplished unaided. 
Yet the aids here are 
natural aids. Nature has 
been adorned in the 
gentlest fashion and only 
with her most delicate 
deckings. The mere erec- 
tion of the house presup- 
posed and necessitated a 
treatment of the immedi- 
ately adjacent grounds 
that would wield it into its 
environment, join it to the 
soil, as it were, and give 
AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS 
Rustic arbor and poplar trees 
May, 1909 
the whole the character of a natural growth. At no time 
and in no place is this an easy task. The best of houses is an 
artificial construction, and the most artistic of them fails in 
destroying the notion that it occupies space nature intended 
for something else, something of her own making and grow- 
ing, something she herself had created and nourished. Every 
house must, in fact, be adjusted to its environment, and for 
this purpose we have trees and shrubs, vines and flowers. 
But no good house needs to be hid or covered with vegeta- 
tion, least of all so fine a house as Mr. Eyre has designed for 
Mr. Clarke. Yet Mr. Eyre’s own rare taste in building de- 
sign would be quite incomplete without the outer final dress- 
ing of Nature’s own garment. The problems here involved 
Mr. Clarke set himself to solve, as has been stated, and 
once more I must draw attention to the delightfully beautiful 
way in which this has been done. 
‘‘Fernbrook,” to repeat, is a property of some size. Great 
broad fields stretch away from the house on every side. 
These fields are so broad and spacious that the lofty moun- 
tain behind the house, which actually incloses the property 
on that side, is literally fixed at some distance from it. There 
is a splendid absence of “‘nearness” here that gives the house 
a remarkably distinct individuality. Everything is amaz- 
ingly remote from everything else. ‘The place is thus too 
large for complete cultivation, nor is universal treatment 
essential. After all, as Mr. Clarke himself says, it is but a 
simple farmhouse, and if the broad acres are not laid down 
in corn or wheat or potatoes, there is at least an abundance 
of grass and meadow, and an inexhaustible supply of pure 
sweet country air that comes only with the great open spaces 
of the real countryside. 
Thus the planting problem quite naturally concentrated 
itself immediately around the house. The entrance drive- 
way is marked out, but not inclosed; there is ample space 
between the sugar maples to see the wide fields beyond. And 
the floral planting is close 
by the house, some in 
front, some at the ends, 
more within at the ter- 
races. And it is all beau- 
tifully done with flowers 
and plants whose names 
are commonplaces to most 
florists, yet whose beauty 
is eternal and none the less 
because often so familiar. 
I am very sure that 
could one but hover about 
this lovely estate in an air- 
ship it would present the 
aspect of a great sheet of 
the deepest emerald, on 
which, somewhat toward 
one side, would appear a 
vast floral wreath, a bit 
gay in color, perhaps, but 
with fine masses of fair 
loveliness, surrounding the 
house, brooding amid this 
beauty like a fine jewel set 
in the rarest enamels. Yet, 
after all, such a delightful 
vision, or even the fine pho- 
tographs which appear on 
these pages would not 
compare with interest with 
the place itself as Seen 
from the ground, or as ap- 
proached by carriage or 
automobile. 
