House & Garden 
THE TRIBE 
A mong the fruits of peace that fell to our portion after the Civil 
^ War was great industrial growth and activity. Americans be¬ 
gan making money. And having made money, they spent it. They 
went in for fine equipages and spans of glossy-coated horses; they 
sent their sons to college and their daughters aspired to the same halls 
of learning. They also built themselves houses of brownstone with 
slanting, dormered roofs. A man came to be known by the sort of 
roof he lived under. If it was a Mansard, he held a place of respect 
in the community. Since all men desired to hold places of respect. 
Mansard roofs grew apace—rows and rows of them all over the land, 
until of the tribe of Mansard there was sealed, yea, more than the pro¬ 
verbial twelve thousand. The houses sealed with such roofs came to 
be more typical of American than did the Colonial, and they held this 
place for two generations until other times brought other customs. 
One might speculate at great length on what architectural mani¬ 
festations the present coming of peace will develop. Granted that 
prosperity will again be our portion, it is logical to believe that men 
all over the country will build them homes. For four years now they 
have been restrained from the attainment of this very natural and 
laudable aspiration; with peace a reality, they may go ahead with a 
clean conscience and fairly good prospects of having the cash in hand. 
Here is an opportunity for the architects of America to show their 
artistry and understanding of our American life. They are wont to 
scoff at the bastard Mansard that was forced on an unsuspecting public 
during the giddy 80’s. But have they something better to offer, some¬ 
thing more adequate to the demands of our modern life? Can they 
now evolve a type of architecture of which 
men will be proud, an architecture that will 
give them standing in the community as did, 
once on a day, the brownstone. Mansard 
house? 
T here is much to be said for the tribe 
of Mansard. It had a noble lineage and 
it was fairly livable. 
The father of the Mansard roof was one 
J. H. Mansart, master architect to Louis 
XIV, who gave the classic dignity to many 
portions of Versailles, where today the peace 
conferees are assembled. Louis XIV greatly 
enlarged the palace, and Mansart designed 
the additions. Others of Mansart’s conception 
of classic forms can be found in the Second 
Church of the Invalides in Paris. His clas¬ 
sicism became the national architecture of 
the Louis XVI period. It was an imposing 
and dignified style, with admirable qualities 
of proportion and alignment of parts. It was, 
in fact, a continuation of the efforts of the 
Renaissance and it almost succeeded in 
cleansing itself of the vagaries and vulgari¬ 
ties of the Baroque. 
The revival of the Mansart style was a 
natural step for American architecture after 
the Georgian Classical efforts had spent 
themselves toward the middle of the 19th 
Century. Some sort of classicism was wanted 
—and lo, Mansart! But in his travel across 
the ages and the sea he lost both his purity 
and his name—as tea loses some of its 
flavor by coming overseas. The style to which 
he fell in the latter part of the 19th Century 
in America was of low estate, and our build¬ 
ers and their publicists even did him the in¬ 
justice of calling his roof Mansard! 
The average brownstone house of the time 
was a box-like affair, crowned with a slant¬ 
ing slate roof in which were dormer windows. 
of MANSARD 
The angle of the roof was acute, and therein lay its secret. 
In the good old days when taxes were imposed for almost everything 
(something like the present), a man was taxed, it is alleged, for each 
story of his house. Our canny forebears, who were as loath to pay 
taxes as are we, got around the restriction by building a house with 
one story and a hip roof. They also found that this style—known 
today as Dutch Colonial—made a roomy upstairs because the roof 
was high. The same is true of the Mansard roof; its angle, plus 
dormer windows, made a roomy third floor. It provided space for 
storage, for the nursery and for maids. It may have made the house 
look as though it had a retreating brow, but then, who cared! Man¬ 
sard roofs were the rage and good folks could see nothing laughable 
or unlovely about them just as you will see nothing unlovely in that 
new hat—until the styles change. 
There’s the word—the architectural style changed! As time passed 
and other architectural conceptions were put forward, the Mansard 
roof went into the discard. Today its name is a mockery. No one 
would dream of putting up a house with such a roof. And yet, how 
fallacious such judgment is! 
A n architecture is good if it serves the needs of a generation. And 
, before it can be good architecture, it should first be good work¬ 
manship. Much good and sincere labor went into the house of the 
Mansard generation. Its woodwork was honest. It stood four squared. 
Its stairs had a dignity of line and a commendable sturdiness of 
structure. Its ceilings were high and its windows looked out upon the 
world with a measured and precise fenestra¬ 
tion. If as much good workmanship goes 
into the houses of our next era of prosperity, 
we need have no fear. 
Architecture is an expression of the cus¬ 
toms and mind of a people. It is an out¬ 
ward and visible sign of an inward feeling. 
The brownstone tribe of Mansard crystallized 
in its every line the mental and moral con¬ 
cepts of its age. It stood for a time when 
life was not so frenzied as it is now, when 
a man felt it his duty to the race to have 
issue, when women were content with their 
family life. Since then we have learned 
many things scientifically, but we have yet 
to find a saner basis for life than that which 
the tribe of Mansard typified. 
Try this—some time when the world has 
been about your ears—try walking down a 
street of brown front. Mansard roofed houses. 
Night time is the best, for then the archi¬ 
tectural idiosyncrasies are lost in the dark¬ 
ness. At first, as you pass, you think scorn¬ 
fully of all those things that such houses 
lacked—telephones, good plumbing, and sim¬ 
ple decorations. Then gradually, you be¬ 
come aware that they stood for something 
very fine—for decent home life, for simple 
pleasures, for children. And deep in your 
heart you are thankful for them. 
We do not suggest that Mansard be re¬ 
vived. Spare us that! But it is desirous 
that-we have an architectural expression for 
our time which will be as effective as Man¬ 
sard was in its day. Once that form of archi¬ 
tecture is attained it will have a singular 
effect on American life. For, in addition to 
expressing the genus of a people, architecture 
also stabilizes their life, and American life 
needs stabilizing. More power then to the 
architects! More power to the men and 
women who plan to build homes! 
REPLY TO AN 
IMAGINARY INVITATION 
What should I go to Greece for 
When I have got mine here ?— 
Bursts of sunny cloud smothering 
Across skies combed and clear, 
Sunshine falling and fading 
Now far of, now near. 
The gay young beech, the sycamore 
Rather yellow than green 
And the deep wind pouring 
All their leaves between 
What more dare I require? 
What better might-have-been? 
There’s a long slope seaward 
Over which the wind flows. 
There is young green corn springing 
And over its sheen goes 
One glossy rock sedately walking 
Turning out his toes. 
The cliff-top dips suddenly 
And below on the broad sands 
A girl in a white fluttering dress 
Runs and halts and stands 
Shouting at a boy on a galloping cart-horse 
And clapping her hands. 
Further out past the breakers’ 
Bright welter and clash. 
Three jolly bathers 
Struggle and splash 
And the sea toward th’ horizon is 
One glitter, one flash. 
If I shut my eyes I see — redness. 
If I open—blue and clear. 
If forward—sea . . . bathers . . . cliff-top 
If back—gay trees near. 
What should I go to Greece for 
When I have got mine here? 
