House and Garden 
“ DEVONHURST,” THE RESIDENCE OF THOS. TAVENOR, ESQ. 
the charge, pro rata, 
public schools are open, of 
course, to pupils from this in¬ 
closure, just as to any other 
residents of the town. 
Another community in this 
same borough, 1 selin Park, 
afterwards called Residence 
Park, found the burden of 
maintaining its separate exist¬ 
ence too heavy, and so re¬ 
nounced its privacy and be¬ 
came a part of the town of 
New Rochelle. But no such 
fate seems in store for Ro¬ 
chelle Park. With its dwellers 
wedded to present conditions, 
and the life insurance com¬ 
pany still holding a large pe¬ 
cuniary interest, the park’s 
future appears assured. 1 selin 
Park, moreover, was laid out less skilfully 
than its rival and survivor. With special 
characteristics to differentiate it from ordi¬ 
nary reservations, Rochelle Park also has in 
the large tract lying north of it a possible 
field for important extension. On the south, 
the boundary will be nearly paralleled by the 
proposed Port Chester electric railway to 
New York, which is to have a station at the 
Park entrance. 
While there is no organized social author¬ 
ity to say who shall and who shall not buy 
lots in Rochelle Park, the insurance com¬ 
pany has been careful, in selling land, to 
preserve proper standards and to consult the 
opinion of those already residents. No one 
known to be obnoxious would find it easy 
to acquire property. The amount of social 
intercourse between park dwellers is based, 
however, on the same laws of natural selec¬ 
tion as in any other place. Congenial folk 
find one another, and though neighborly 
courtesies are not wanting, no close friend¬ 
liness is necessary because dwellings adjoin. 
You may, you must, be civil to the man 
next door, but you need not invite him to 
dinner even once a year unless you like 
him ; you need not even offer to share a 
seat with him in the train to and from New 
York. In short, you may have friends if 
you want them, and the park contains a 
goodly list of forty-five or fifty families to 
choose from, but the matter is pleasantly 
voluntary. 
'Toward the outside world, however, there 
is shown a united spirit that goes far to keep 
alive the park’s character. Most of the 
time, entrance to the tract is free as air, but 
once or twice a year strangers are barred, 
just for the sake of technically recording the 
fact that Rochelle Park is a private place. 
The attitude toward encroachment upon the 
park’s privacy is militant as that of Dickens’s 
delightful old lady whose war cry to her re¬ 
tainer, four times a day, when she sallied 
forth from her front door armed with a broom 
to repel trespassers, was “Janet! Donkeys!” 
It is less troublesome, and also less sports¬ 
manlike, to follow the masculine and civilized 
method of paying a money tax for one’s pri¬ 
vacy ; at any rate, Rochelle Park dwellers 
consider it well worth while. 
^43 
