September, 1908 



AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS 



339 



Notable American Homes 



By Barr Ferree 



The House of A. C. Bartlett, Esq., Lake Geneva, Wisconsin 



IT IS easily within the memory of many men 

 now living when a journey into the lands 

 now comprising the State of Wisconsin was 

 a grievous march into the untraveled wilder- 

 derness. To-day — but the census reports 

 will give the details, and the contemporary 

 achievements of this great northwestern 

 State need not here be rehearsed. Of this much we may be 

 certain, that the liveliest of census documents would give no 

 details of the splendid house built for Mr. A. C. Bartlett by 

 Mr. Howard Van Doren Shaw, architect, of Chicago, who 

 was fortunate to have associated with him Mr. Frederic 

 Clay Bartlett, a mural painter of note, and himself 

 an occupant of this extraordinarily interesting and beautiful 

 dwelling. 



The adjectives that one usually employs in describing 

 houses of genuine interest fall to the commonplace before this 

 poetic and charming residence. It is a house notable in every 

 way; large in size, finely placed, beautifully gardened, charm- 

 ingly decorated in color, and withal so completely studied in 

 its architecture as to make it one of the most beautiful and 



most remarkable of recent American dwellings. Almost au- 

 daciously original in its architectural conception, it contains 

 no incongruous elements, no one feature that is simply a 

 "feature" ; no one thing, in short, but has its own proper place 

 in the whole decorative scheme. 



All the arts that go to the making of a splendid home are 

 here developed and combined in a thoroughly harmonious 

 and delightful manner. The architectural parts, should they 

 be divorced from their accessories, would be found ample and 

 adequate in every way. The color treatment in the walls 

 and trim, in the painted fountain of the court, in the wall 

 paintings of the interior and in the furniture, all bear impress 

 of the most delightful study and successful adaptation of ends 

 to means. If sculpture in a modern sense is somewhat absent, 

 there are sculptured ornaments at the entrance and in the 

 court and upon the walls, so that this great sister art of archi- 

 tecture has its own special part to take in the final effect. As 

 for the garden, never was a garden so intimately associated 

 with the house, a garden to live in and which is lived in, and 

 so closely identified with the house as to be an integral part 

 of it. Here, then, are the great decorative arts developed in 



The Spacious Courtyard Is the Heart and Soul of the House, a True Garden Room 



