October, 1907 



AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS 



The Seats Overlooking the Tennis Court 



Notable American Homes 



By Barr Ferree 



Millbrook Farm," the Country Home of J. Franklin McFadden, Esq., Haverford, Pennsylvania 



AM not sure but the term "a dear house" may 

 be too exckisively feminine for mascuHne use, 

 but no other words I know so aptly and so 

 completely describe the charming country 

 house "Millbrook Farm" at Haverford, Pa. 



The house is not large, but mere size is the 

 least valuable of all house characteristics, and 

 what may be lost in this respect is compensated for many 

 times by the very real and penetrating charm of the whole 

 place. Very obviously it is the home of the house lover and 

 the garden lover; for the house is a true gem of its kind, 

 charming in a hundred delightful ways, while the gardens 

 abound in picturesque arrangements and beautiful plantings. 



Charm and restfulness, calmness and repose appear to be 

 indissolubly attached to "Millbrook Farm." Its area is not 

 large, for all told it includes but twenty acres, and even these 

 are divided by the roadway by which the house is approached. 

 But the high hedge that incloses the grounds surely shuts 

 out care and trouble — everything, in fact, but quiet and 

 peace; for within, the house broods quietly on a gentle knoll, 

 all white save for its old-green blinds and brown shingled 

 roof, and the vines that climb around its porch piers and on 

 the rough-faced sides. An old-time house it is, quite gen- 

 uinely Pennsylvania Colonial in its massing, its proportions, 

 its detailing, its effect, albeit it was designed only six years 

 ago by those very modern architects, Messrs. Cope & 

 Stewardson, of Philadelphia. 



There are, of course. Colonial houses and Colonial houses. 

 Most of them are Colonial in name rather than in style or 

 spirit; and few indeed there are that are Colonial in furnish- 

 ings, and consistently so, both within and without, in so fai' 

 as riiodern needs and modern opportunities permit. "Mill- 

 brook Farm" is one of those rare houses that can rightly be 



termed truly Colonial; there is so much old furniture of the 

 same period within it, old prints, old bric-a-brac, old articles 

 of every sort, that hardly anything is modern in appearance 

 save the beds, the floor coverings, the kitchen furnishings, 

 the heating plant and the bathrooms. Even the china and 

 glass for daily use are of the period in design though not of 

 origin. The old Canton and Nankeen look out of their 

 cabinets, but for practical reasons known to every house- 

 keeper are not in daily use. 



The doctors of architecture, when setting forth the various 

 rules whereby their art is practised, put down as a cardinal 

 principle that the designing of a house should proceed from 

 its plan : in other words, you begin with the plan and then 

 go on with anything else you have to do. The first step in 

 the building, even before the designing of the house of "Mill- 

 brook Farm," was something quite different from this; it 

 was unique, indeed, if the use of that much-used, and much 

 mis-used, word be permitted, for a part of the interior ar- 

 rangement was determined by the shape and size of the 

 doors ! That is to say, so far as the general plan could be de- 

 termined by such a matter. But this was no idle fancy, for 

 the doors in question — and they are hung at every doorway 

 in the house — are genuine old mahogany doors! Think of 

 that, if you will, and you will the better realize the exceeding 

 care with which an old-time atmosphere has been gi\-en to 

 this house. 



This begins on the very threshold. The entrance porch 

 has a bricked floor, level with the ground. But it is a true 

 porch, embowered with roses and clematis and comfortably 

 furnished with chairs and tables and decorated with plants. 

 Tbc rough white walls — the house is of stone, rough dashed 

 and whitewashed — and the solid green shutters have a de- 

 lightful old look, an impression that is heightened by the 



