HOUSE AND GARDEN 
November, ign 
290 
A Swiss mountain chalet, which has features evident in the two American adaptations below it. 
The dovetailing of the timbers at the corners is noteworthy 
taineer—whose life is spent among the 
heights and broad vistas and who lives 
a simple frugal, happy, sincere life. 
It is too much to suppose that the 
Swiss chalet will become extremely pop¬ 
ular outside of its Alpine home. There 
is too much complexity in the vastly 
predominant and populous lowlands to 
give it great vogue, too much tendency 
to improve on nature instead of co¬ 
operate with it, to scatter Swiss chalets 
through the land. And yet, in America, 
especially along the Western coast, the 
Swiss chalet is becoming more and more 
observed. 
Probably there is no place outside of 
its native land where the Swiss chalet 
may be more advantageously used than 
along the Pacific coast hills, particular- 
ly those around San Francisco Bay, 
where many interesting examples are to 
be found. 
Of course there is little snow in Cal- 
make them clear enough to serve as a working hypothesis. 
There is about the Swiss chalet a rugged, honest picturesque¬ 
ness, a simple, candid strength that I find in no other type of 
habitation. Because of this impression, I mention the sentimental 
consideration first. It seems to typify—as plainly as a house can 
ever hope to represent a man—the hardy, fearless, simple moun- 
1 bis picturesque house shows how American ideas in plaster and 
timber may be applied to the chalet type. The enclosed balcony 
is an elaboration of the little balcony in the Swiss chalet above. 
L. C. Mullgardt, architect 
The Reese house, in Berkeley, Cal., was built from a model executed 
in Switzerland. The timber ends and balconies show a similar 
construction to those in the picture above. Maybeck & White, 
architects 
ifornia except in the extreme northern portions. This brings 
us to a consideration of the fact that climate alone did 
not produce the Swiss chalet. Perhaps, indirectly, it did, 
after all, for the Swiss mountaineer is the product of the in¬ 
vigorating climate which the Alps provide. But, out of his 
rugged, honest, sham-hating, art-loving heart and brain has 
come that picturesque style of habitation which is as nearly dis¬ 
tinctive as architecture may be. His love of out-door life pro¬ 
duced the broad veranda, (forerunner, undoubtedly of the mod¬ 
ern winter-and-summer-sleeping-porch), the wide eaves to pro¬ 
tect this veranda and the court below, where he sat of an evening 
with his pipe. He courted the open at all times possible, this old 
Tyrolese, and the Californian is in agreement with him, as far 
as that goes. 
But, more than all else, the Swiss chalet co-operates with na¬ 
ture. How many times does one see a house that seems a part 
