The Possibilities in Half-timbered Houses 
SOME OF THE MANY WAYS IN WHICH THE DECORATIVE QUALITY OF THE EXTERIOR 
MAY BE ENHANCED-THE NEED ABOVE ALL ELSE FOR HONEST CONSTRUCTION 
H eredity has had 
many a blame 
and many a credit laid 
to its charge; fortunate¬ 
ly it shoulders are full 
broad to bear the bur¬ 
den. The weight of re¬ 
sponsibility, therefore, 
will not be overmuch in¬ 
creased if we attribute 
to its influence the prev¬ 
alence of certain archi¬ 
tectural styles in certain 
places, and the choice of 
building materials or 
modes of construction, 
in preference to certain 
other modes and styles 
that may be intrinsically 
just as good. “Far¬ 
fetched and fanciful" 
you say? Not necessar¬ 
ily so. Heredity is un¬ 
questionably a determin¬ 
ing factor in bird’s-nest 
architecture, so why not 
in man's? Besides, for confirma¬ 
tion of this, we need but turn to 
American history. In New Eng¬ 
land, where there was a super¬ 
abundance of surface stone, often 
loose and ready to use without 
quarrying or dressing—so much of 
•it lying around that it was at times 
a positive nuisance—the people, nevertheless, generally built 
their houses of wood. In some of the middle and southern states, 
on the contrary, where stone was not nearly so easily obtainable, 
and where timber was, if anything, more plentiful than in New 
England, it was the prevalent custom to build of brick or stone. 
Why was this? Simply because the people of New England 
came mostly from the parts of old England where for genera¬ 
tions timber building 
had been the accepted 
rule, while the people 
of the middle and 
southern colonies came 
from where brick and 
stone were commonly 
used. Call this caprice, 
heredity, or what you 
will, the fact remains 
that a preference 
(which undoubtedly 
had a reason, as you 
will find all preferences 
have if you seek far 
enough) for one mate¬ 
rial in one place and 
another elsewhere, led 
to a selection ofttimes 
w holly inconsistent 
with the supply most 
plentifully, readily and, 
one may add, naturally 
available. 
May not, then, this 
inherited preference ac¬ 
count for the widespread latent 
fondness among us for the half- 
timbered house, so dear to many of 
our English forebears ? Be that as 
it may—we will not force the point 
—the half-timbered house forms a 
distinct type of domestic architec¬ 
ture that has much to be said in its 
favor. The Elizabethan era was the golden age of the English 
half-timbered house, although not a few such dwellings had been 
built before the reign of the Virgin Queen, and admirable exam¬ 
ples of the type—far finer, some of them, than anything in Eng¬ 
land—w r ere plentiful in the north of France before the Tudor 
period. With the economic conditions that made for the popular¬ 
ity of the half-timbered house we have no present concern. It 
A street cf old half-timbered houses in Chiddington, Kent, marked by the over¬ 
hang of upper stories—a characteristic feature 
by Harold Donaldson Eberlein 
[This article is the fifth of a short series in which the aim 
is to make clear the possibilities in securing distinctive char¬ 
acter through an intelligent and painstaking use ■of the various 
building materials. The author zuishes to give credit to Mr. 
H. L. Duliring, architect, for many helpful suggestions .— 
Editor.] 
modern half-timbered house at Essex Fells, N. J., with the typical 
diagonal end-braces and greater elaboration of timbering in the 
bays 
A Cedarhurst, L. I., example, Barney & Chapman, architects, where 
the horizontality of the building has been accented over the brick 
base 
( 23 ) 
