368 AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS October, 1911 
Mr. Hopkins’ house be- the problem awaiting him was one of reconstructing a single 
fore remodeling. house out of this old double one. 
The architects very wisely decided to pursue the ex- 
Bedroom floor plan of : : ; ae 
Mr. Hopkins’ house after tremely simple and severe exterior lines which gave the 
remodeling. house individuality and character and have merely accented 
certain features of the building 
which were necessary in making 
the house into a home for one fam- 
ily. The interior required much 
altering, much tearing down of par- 
titions to make broad and spacious 
rooms of the tiny spaces which suf- 
ficed a century or more ago, much 
1 
Old Hall, 
Rear Hall 
‘ce 
= 
3° 
[=) 
Own, Bed Room 
Roof installing of plumbing and of light- 
ing and heating apparatus to an- 
a swer the demands of modern life, 
Upner Part and the making over of an old 
— New England attic into a servant’s 
| | quarters sufficiently ample for a 
family. One cannot but be impressed with the Bo large country house. The altering and furnishing of 
inherent sense of nice proportion and taste in | this old country house has been planned and executed 
many of these early dwellings. However, those with rare taste and discrimination, and the Hopkins 
old New England farmhouses, to which additions came to home is a place of singular beauty and charm. The exterior 
be made from time to time, rather exhibit the owner’s first is low, broad, and generous in effect, but as plain and severe 
thought, which was in detail as the char- 
one of comfort and acter of its original 
convenience, rather builders. A row of 
than one of archi- rough, flat, irregu- 
tectural beauty. lar flagging stones 
Distances between embedded in the 
the dwellings were ground leads to an 
then nearly always entrance-porch of 
great, roads poor, simple but unusually 
and transportation pleasing design. 
facilities meagre, There are benches 
dependent upon the at either side of this 
stage-coach or the of the sort that ap- 
riding-horse in the pear to have been 
earlier period of the as popular in New 
country’s growth. England as in New 
Again, the few set- Amsterdam, where 
tlers in the lonely they were always to 
country had_ bleak be found either side 
winters and all the of the doorways of 
discomforts incident the old Dutch farm- 
thereto to face, by houses. This en- 
trance-porch leads 
reason of which it 
sometimes happened into a broad, low- 
that one of these Mr. Walter Scott Hopkins’ house, at Reading, Mass., after the alterations ceiled hall, entered 
early-day New Eng- through a_leaded- 
land farmhouses would be constructed with a view to hous-_ glass door, with fanlight above, at the end of which is a 
ing two families instead of one, each section of the house deep-set fireplace, and a heavy beam lies across the ceiling. 
being separate and distinct in essentials, 
but under connecting roofs. Examples of : H 
such houses are often met with in the vil- — =| 1 
lages scattered throughout Cape Cod, the [I even frorenl | com Aes 
old Winslow house, in North Brewster, Beer kins’ cece 
being one of the most interesting examples Sine: foone Soa eat remodeled. 
that has come to the writer’s attention. ge Hz ee Ue 
One of these old New England farm- = = [= 
a a ea Office = 
houses, in Reading, Massachusetts, built a 
hundred and twenty-five years ago, with 
some later additions, chanced to attract 
the attention of Mr. Walter Scott Hop- 
kins, its present owner, for Mr. Hopkins 
saw in it possibilities for transforming it 
into a delightful modern home—a home 
that would yet retain some of the charm of aur 
the home-feeling of yesterday. Mr. Hop- Ground plan of Mr. Hopkins’ house before 
kins found here an old countryside dwell- resodclng 
Passage 
Sitting 
Room 
Living Room 
Bedroom floor plan of ing, designed originally to accommodate two families, and © 
