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AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS 



September, 1908 



completest harmony in the production of a single dwelling, 

 a fact of itself of sufficient moment to lift this house out of 

 the record of ordinary dwellings, and place it among the most 

 successful and delightful of all American dwelling houses. 

 One may, indeed, go a step further, and express the doubt 

 whether, in any part of our broad land, there be a house 

 which equals this in the ampleness of its artistic resources in 

 construction and decoration. 



Some of the essential conditions and requirements of the 

 house should be set down by way of introduction. One need 

 hardly be told that a large house was desired, and a house 

 moreover adapted to the needs and requirements of a family 

 of great artistic interests. Mr. Frederic Bartlett desired a 

 studio separate from the main dwelling, but closely allied with 

 it. These were the personal conditions the architect had to 

 consider as the basis of his problem. The condition of 



ponderous detail, that this is an Italian house, freely designed 

 with much modification, mixed in with not a little German 

 feeling and variety. This may all be true, but it is quite 

 inconsequential beside the larger, more splendid fact, that 

 here is a house designed for itself, and designed in every 

 part as an individual work of architecture. This is a really 

 wonderful thing in this group of buildings, that the architect 

 has discarded the stock-in-trade of his art, cast out the colon- 

 nade and portico, banished the pergola save in strictly natural 

 utilization as a feature of one of the buildings, thrown away 

 the balustrade and window frame, ignored, in fine, the very 

 things architects seem most to love or which they perhaps 

 find the easiest to use ; and then attacking his problem as an 

 original one — as in truth it actually was — proceeded in his 

 undertaking in a natural and orderly manner, using such ideas 

 as his own study and experience with the historical styles had 



The Lake Front Contains the Loggia and Two Great Bow Windows 



environment entailed no difficulties. There was ample land 

 at his disposal, quite densely wooded with deciduous trees, 

 in which an opening toward the south afforded the most de- 

 sirable outlook, and toward which the open side of the house 

 was forthwith faced. The surrounding woodland forms an 

 essential feature in the environment. 



In designing the house the conventional was set to one side, 

 although with a family of marked artistic interests the 

 Italian, even as sometimes blatantly interpreted in the East, 

 might seem to supply every necessary motif. The designer 

 took the bolder and much more logical course, of studying 

 his problem afresh from the ground up, producing a highly 

 original resultant that met every existing requirement, and 

 which was thoroughly successful and beautiful. 



Stylists, whose first view of a building is apt to be accom- 

 panied with a rush to their dictionaries that its style and 

 origin may be duly classified and labeled, as if nothing was 

 so satisfactory as a catalogue, will doubtless tell us, with much 



given him, and as his own indisputable genius permitted. 

 And so, with much loving care for all that counts most in 

 house designing, the building grew and grew, until to-day 

 there stands beneath the Wisconsin woods as fair a house as 

 America can show, beautiful to look upon, convenient to 

 occupy, a veritable model of all the excellencies that help to 

 make a house desirable. 



It is a stucco house, gray in color, presenting the general 

 external form of a vast rectangular structure. This without 

 only, for the plan discloses the fact that it consists, in reality, 

 of two main buildings connected with a gallery and loggia, 

 while beyond, and at some distance from the main building, 

 is the studio, an essential part of the house design, as we shall 

 presently see, although completely separated from it. The 

 house is approached from the north, and is entered by an 

 archway on the east wing, to which the picturesque name of 

 the "Dog Trot" has been given. There is enough without 

 before passing beneath the arch to hold the attention for 



