March, 1907 



AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS 



91 



^l^S^fe^^fEN, fifteen years ago the 

 architect could have de- 

 signed this cottage to be 

 here described, but no one 

 would have taken the 

 plans, no, not even as a 

 gift. And so fearful was 

 he of their non-acceptance, at the present 

 day, by Mr. and Mrs. Cromwell, that not a 

 sketch or outline of the elevations was al- 

 lowed to escape his studio until the floor 

 plans, which scarcely suggested the Goodey 

 Coles atmosphere In old Ipswich of the in- 

 spiration, were accepted, and the blue prints 

 formally delivered. We can not but admit 

 that what is being confided might establish 

 a dangerous precedent to allow the mere 

 reputation of an architect to invest him with 

 the prerogative of designing a cottage — a 

 home for a client, without the customary pre- 

 liminary sketches in perspective, at least. 

 We honestly believe there would be but one 

 chance in a hundred of the owner's being either pleased or 

 satisfied with the result. 



The art of this cottage or of any other cottage or thing 

 equally pleasing to those inner susceptibilities which must be 

 touched in order to be a success, is entirely a matter of luck, 

 however, in the opinion of those — and they are In the ma- 

 jority — who, believing that the secret of success in most 

 things depends upon personal endeavor and perseverance, 

 exempt the indescribable charm of beauty as something in- 

 tangible unattainable without formulas. And it may sound 



The Semi-enclosed Piazza Has Plain Colonial Columns Like Its Prototype 



as heretical as it once did for Galileo to say the earth moved, 

 for any one to contradict and reverse the accepted theory, 

 and say that while esthetics may have no mathematical rules, 

 nor Indeed grammatical rules, there Is a sensltometer — bor- 

 rowing a photographic term — with which some people are 

 born, whereby the hand Is controlled unerringly as it is in a 

 geometrical problem with T-square and triangles. It is the 

 luck of temperament — the luck of circumstances at birth that 

 means success or failure In life, and human endeavor will 

 avail nought without it. 



