March, 1908 



AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS 



101 



The House Roof and Its Garden 



I. — A Neglected Opportunity 



By Esther Matson 



^HEN we build our houses we forget that our 

 climate gives us the utmost variety of 

 weather for our money, so to speak. We 

 know, if we stop to think of it, that it is 

 now bluff and bleak, now boiling and blister- 

 ing, but how do we accommodate ourselves 

 to these extremes? 

 We know, for instance, that we must put a roof over our 

 house just as a man realizes that he must wear a hat, but this 

 roof over our heads seems to us a mere necessity, a thing of 

 tin or shingle or tile as the case may be and of corresponding 

 expense. We do not take into consideration the immense 

 practical and esthetic value that might be obtained from it. 

 We do not conceive how easily, how inexpensively withal, a 

 loggia could be arranged on any of our roofs, where in hot 

 days we could get a longed-for breath of air, and where of a 

 cold day we could take a sun bath. 



In Germany, instead of wretched tin cornices — features, 

 by the way, acknowledged by all architects to be wholly false 

 and useless — they build beautiful peaks of red or blue tile. 

 They mass these steep roofs in a fashion absolutely bewitch- 

 ing, and they push out low dormers and quaint blinking win- 

 dow eyelets that lend just the needed human touch to make 

 them satisfying. 



In that country roofing is an art; with us it is a commerce. 

 It is high time we waked up to something different. 



In Italy, on the other hand, they build flat roofs, roofs that 

 are not in the least self-assertive, but which are furnished with 

 delightful pillared loggie, spacious rooms where air and com- 

 fort are compatible. This Italian way, considering our 

 climate and our manner of houses, is the one we should study 

 and learn lessons from. 



A Venetian painting, which Ruskin has declared one of the 

 most valuable in all the world, is Carpaccio's representation 



ROSE TRELLIS 



The House-top Garden Walk 



A. — Beds on Bay Windows Filled with Trees and Large Shrubs 



B. — Italian Garden and Carpet Work 

 C. — Large Shrubs and Trees. D. — Light Well. E. — Elevator 



of three or four Venetian women sitting sunning their hair on 

 the roof. Executed with minutest realism the picture intro- 

 duces us into the actual every-day life of the people who lived 

 in the Queen City of the Adriatic several hundred years ago. 

 It is as though we are suddenly brought through the long dull 

 passageways of an Italian home, up the dark stairs and out 

 on to the dazzling roof piazza, there to be presented to those 

 sumptuous golden haired dames. It is as if they invited us to 

 join in their idle gossip and even begged us to twitch that pet 

 spaniel's tail for the mild excitement of a squeak on such a 

 drowsy day. 



Now just the sort of thing Carpaccio painted in a way, hun- 

 dreds of living Italians and southerners of other lands are 

 doing to-day. (With the possible exception, let me add, of 

 the dye the Venetian maidens used to encourage that glorious 

 golden tint.) And what I wish might be emphasized here, is 

 the fact that abroad it is not alone the very rich man who 

 avails himself of his roof privileges. 



I am looking forward to a time in the near future that 

 will be different. We anticipate the day coming when our 

 house tops "shall cry aloud" to be appreciated, when possibly 



