House^Gardei 
MiMnnnrT-irT-n^ r" —— 1 —— t hseh 
V o 1 . Ill MARCH, 1903 No. 3 
LONG ISLAND COUNTRY PLACES 
Designed by McKim, Mead & White 
II—“ THE ORCHARD” AT SOUTHAMPTON 
John A. Gade Photographs by Henry Troth and G. W. Morris 
Text by '] 
T HE stranger that passes “ The Orchard ” 
generally drops the reins until he has 
looked long enough to carry the impression 
away with him. Though house-building 
may have been as foreign to his thoughts as 
opium smoking, he imagines himself convert¬ 
ing his savings into one long, sunny expanse 
of white shingle, and the saner philosophy of 
his less impressionable moments has been 
summersaulted by his glance through the 
picket gate. For the effect of the whole 
place is strikingly happy and suggestive of 
peaceful domesticity, and absolutely different 
from anything surrounding it. One might 
not have been surprised to have suddenly 
looked in upon it through some old Virginia 
hedge, but upon the wind-swept Long Island 
shore, its impression becomes doubly vivid. 
A drive, forming the central axis in a wav 
to delight the most fastidious academician’s 
heart, leads straight to the entrance and cen¬ 
ter of the house from the broad village 
street in front. Here is a tall picket fence 
sufficiently open to admit the view, the con¬ 
cave curve ot the white spiked tops broken 
by slender posts. Inside everything is green 
and white : an American country house with 
almost tropically luxuriant vegetation all 
around it. 
On either side of the entrance drive the 
lawn stretches as broadly as do avenues in 
England towards a two-storied columnar 
portico. But the grass has not the velvety 
appearance of English lawns. We shall never 
have that until we learn to weed. On both 
sides of the lawn are regularly planted rows 
of maple and pear trees and white fan-shaped 
stands for climbing roses; beyond these, 
broad fields dotted with country houses and 
rambling farms. The drive terminates in an 
oval in front oi the house, with green-tubbed 
orange trees and laurels at its borders, stand- 
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