H ouse and Garden 
MR. MCELVERY S WATER-GARDEN 
It still stands staunchly and still holds its 
subtle charm. But the eye of affection is 
the first one to see that it is doomed, and that 
the rapid changes of the new century are 
little likely to reverence the hedges and the 
cedar of Lebanon and the fifteen-foot box- 
tree that has lived out halt of its second 
century. 
A scant half mile away is a venerable 
dwelling whose sturdy oak flooring, fastened 
to the beams with wooden pins, was laid 
almost a hundred years before the Botanic 
Garden and the tall box-tree put out its first 
shoot. Its simple pitched roof presents its 
end to the broad avenue that 
takes its name from the origi¬ 
nal builder ; and high up be¬ 
neath the little window under 
the eaves the date, 1661, stands 
out black in the dense shade 
of a thick maple-tree. An 
ugly modern picket fence cuts 
it off from the broad, quiet 
street whose superb avenue of 
oaks, elms and maples (their 
trunks green with moss and 
shade dampness), is a luxury 
to the eye. At one corner is 
a decorative wrought-iron sup¬ 
port from which dangles the 
old, original, broken and 
weather-beaten sign, now em¬ 
blazoned with the name of the 
architect whose sense of beauty 
and charm has helped to pre¬ 
serve the building in its pris¬ 
tine simplicity. In the back 
is a tangle of long grass and 
vines hanging from trees and 
shrubbery; in front, a huge 
bifurcated elm stands sentinel 
before a little porch over 
which,as over the solid w'ooden 
shuttered windows, vines 
clamber in delightful grace. 
Three little windows termin¬ 
ate as many sloping flat-roofed 
gables. The sense of perma¬ 
nence, of home, of quiet, rest¬ 
ful serenity that hangs over 
all is enhanced by the appeal 
which its two hundred and 
forty years makes. Here the early Quakers, 
in spite of the stern disapproval of their Dutch 
neighbors, held their meetings for nearly forty 
years—until their growing affluence and in¬ 
fluence brought about, in 1698, the erection 
of a meeting-house. This strange-looking 
relic still stands, a quarter of a mile away, 
half a dozen tall pines guarding it, its roof 
sloping up from every side to a sharp point 
in the center. 
Inside the dwelling which this replaced as 
a place of worship are many reminders of 
the past, though the modern addition of gas 
and water pipe are strikingly at variance with 
the small rooms, low ceilings and steep stairs. 
AN OLD HOUSE WITH KITCHEN-GARDEN AT FLATBUSH 
29 
