H ouse and Garden 
of prime value, being virtually the only 
curved thoroughfare in the tract, and confer¬ 
ring upon the property a large share of its 
suggestiveness. Without the Serpentine, 
the design would lack imagination and reserve 
power. It would be too obvious, its possi¬ 
bilities too readily exhausted at a glance. As 
it winds away from the Boulevard, leading 
the eye to a rounded point where trees receive 
the vision, one fancies an indefinable extent 
of roadway through wooded and peopled 
slopes. When the Serpentine reappears on 
its return journey, the passenger along the 
main avenue pictures it as a driveway imbued 
deeply with the rural spirit. So again, with 
the lower link of this road. Each fragment 
of territory, north and 
south of the Boulevard, 
could have been 
reached by a single 
straight street, but at 
what a sacrifice of land¬ 
scape character! The 
Serpentine, next after 
the decision to make 
the main axis of this 
oblong park a diagonal 
instead of a diameter, 
was a touch of the true 
science of the land¬ 
scape architect. 
The roads are all of 
ample width; too feet 
is the boulevard stand¬ 
ard, and 60 for every¬ 
thing else but the 
50-foot Serpentine. The total length of 
drives is nearly two miles. Of entrances to 
the property on the north and south there is 
no present need. At the east end another 
boulevard starts at right angles with the 
Court, and carries a drive under the railway, 
which is soon to be extended to reach the 
arm of Long Island Sound upon which New 
Rochelle is situated. Progressive park dwell¬ 
ers hope that at some future time the tract 
adjoining the reservation on the north may be 
merged with the Park itself, doubling the area 
of the community and making possible an 
imposing scheme of landscape gardening. 
When Nathan F. Barrett chose the half 
acre of ground due him under an agreement 
that included his services in laying out the 
park, his friends urged him to get a plot as 
near to the main entrance as he could. In¬ 
stead, he took by preference the first lot 
west of the circular junction of the Boule¬ 
vard and the Court, touching on the north 
the outer boundary of the Park. This was 
to show his faith in his own handiwork, and 
the move has since been fully justified. 
From his lot to the northeast corner of the 
park stretches unbroken woodland, watered 
by the stream before mentioned. Turning 
southeast, one views from the house the open 
space of the Court. But' the chief formal 
inducement of the location is its command 
not only of this tree-bordered Court, but 
also of the long vista afforded by the Boule¬ 
vard, the large Lawn and the continuation 
of the former to the main entrance. It is 
really the strategic focus of the design. In 
winter or summer, this avenue is pleasing to 
look at. Moreover, Mr. Barrett’s house is 
not the only one possessing this line of 
vision along the Boulevard. In order that 
each residence along the thoroughfare might 
enjoy a share of the view, the landscape 
architect suggested that the several houses 
fronting on the Boulevard be set not quite 
square with its axis. This makes it possible, 
from the corner nearest the street, to look 
along it without being blocked by the build¬ 
ing of your neighbor. 
On the Serpentine, on Manhattan Avenue 
and elsewhere, the original outcropping rock 
ONE OF THE PASTIMES OF THE PARK 
2 39 
