68 



AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS 



February, 1908 



Movable Homes 



By Ernest Myer 



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EW persons are so unhappy as those who 

 continually move their homes. These poor 

 unfortunates have, in truth, no real home 

 in its proper sense, but a mere abiding 

 place, occupied for a longer or shorter 

 period, as circumstances may determine, 

 and then left for something else. There 

 can, of course, be no association with the house or place of 

 residence under such circumstances, which thus becomes a 

 mere shell, a temporary shelter, of absolutely no permanent 

 interest and the object of very little temporary regard. 



The movable home is an American product, and if not pe- 

 culiar to the United States, it at least finds its most con- 

 spicuous development within our own borders. The results 

 of this method of living are very much more widespread than 

 may be apparent on the surface, but no aspect of it is more 

 serious than the spirit of unrest, and the lack of love of home 

 that it promotes. The Bedouin with his desert tent is scarce 

 more restless than many an American family constantly on 

 the move. 



The family that has to move should be carefully distin- 

 guished from the family that does so for — shall it be said? 

 — mere pleasure. Unavoidable movings, especially when oc- 

 casioned by unfortunate circumstances, are always to be de- 

 plored and must be regretted by every one. The deliberate 



movings are undesirable ones, the migrations made by people 

 who move from house to house because they may gain a few 

 dollars by the sale of the old house ; those who move simply 

 to escape the payment of rent are, of course, in a class by 

 themselves, indelibly branded with a mark that proclaims 

 their offense. 



The home movers, however, who move into a house only 

 in order that they can move out of it — at a profit — form a 

 considerable body of people who have no idea they are 

 wronging themselves. They do not know they are missing 

 the joys of a permanent home, or that they are thrusting 

 away from themselves some of the noblest of human sensa- 

 tions. They live, of course, and have a place of residence; 

 but of a home that is a true home they have no knowledge, 

 real or imaginary. 



One of the finest sights of England is the old home which 

 has been the family headquarters not alone for generations, 

 but for century after century. That many of these houses 

 are grand and stately is quite true, and these qualities, apart 

 from their individual associations, are often wonderfully at- 

 tractive. But apart from their mere physical characteristics 

 there is a hominess in these old places that saturates their 

 very floors and walls and gives them a quality that, in an 

 equal sense, has not yet been approached by any American 

 dwelling. 



Sunken Gardens of California 



{Continued from ftci^e 62) 



the very center, then it turns to the right. If you follow 

 this, and you can on certain days, the west side of the slope 

 becomes visible, terraced and planted with trees, and down 

 its side flows a little stream. The top of the dome is also 

 planted with a forest of rare trees. By following down 

 toward the arroyo the lower level is seen laid out in lawns, 

 and here is a grove of oaks reaching down to the very water's 

 edge. No better example of private grounds, beautified for 

 the benefit of the public, as the owner is rarely here, can be 

 seen in California. 



This attitude holds to a large extent in Pasadena. There 

 are few if any fences on the Orange Grove boulevard re- 

 ferred to. The lawns are kept up to concert pitch, slope 

 down to the street without any obstruction, and afford a 

 park effect, giving, as a result, a boulevard or street two 

 miles long that attracts much attention for its beauty; but 

 when you analyze it, it is only grass, and of course the 

 verdure of semitropic palms and other trees. 



On this same avenue is a beautiful classic sunken garden 

 on the Merritt estate, as attractive as many seen in Italy, 

 and wholly on conventional lines. 



The spirit or the idea of the sunken garden is carried out 

 in many private places in Los Angeles. The original rough 

 outlines of the land are preserved and adapted perhaps to a 

 Japanese garden, made effective with clumps of bamboo and 

 other decorative shrubs and grasses. One of the most at- 



tractive Japanese gardens out of Japan is seen in Pasadena 

 on the ground of Mr. March. Here the perfection of art as 

 applied to outdoor life is seen: green lawns, undulating like 

 billows, with strange creeping trees, artistic in spite of the 

 degeneration of the type. Indeed in this town sequestered 

 in the valley of the old Mission, one may find many charming 

 gardens; this feature has made the town famous as suggest- 

 ing its outdoor life and possibilities. 



On the same arroyo described is the Barker place, where 

 the natural shape of the hill has been left and the situation 

 similar to that of the Busch place except that the house, a 

 fine example of Colonial architecture, stands on the hill 

 which slopes away to the arroyo on one side and into a 

 street, once a canon, on the other. Slopes of green grass, 

 pines, and indigenous forest trees render the place one of 

 the beauty spots in California. On the summit a conven- 

 tional pergola adds to the attractiveness of the grounds, and 

 affords a lounging place from which to enjoy a series of 

 vistas of distant hills rolling away like billows to the far-off 

 sea; of the main range of the Sierra Madre, grim and un- 

 compromising; of the peak of San Antonio white with snow. 

 From these Pasadena gardens, with the odor of the orange 

 blossom and violet cloying the air, one may see the snow 

 rolling up the north slope of this sentinel of the desert; see 

 it reach the summit eleven thousand feet in the air, and go 

 drifting off over the valleys and orange groves at its feet. 



