28 
House & Garden 
AN ENGLISH HOUSE FOR AN AMERICAN FAMILY 
Half-timber and rough stucco combine to make 
unusual walls. The roof is of vari-colored slates 
laid at random, with the valleys rounded out 
and with a kick-up at the eaves. The bedroom 
windows are equipped with sliding slatted 
shutters 
Above the entrance is an uncommon handling 
of dormers. This break in the roof is repeated 
below to form a narrow covering for the en¬ 
trance vestibule. Leaded casement windows 
maintain the architectural atmosphere. Vines 
cover a latticed leader pipe 
Grithow Field, Close by Cambridge 
COSTEN FITZ-GIBBON 
B ritish architects have a frank ad¬ 
miration for American public build¬ 
ings. 
It is pleasant to feel that the praise 
they sound is deserved. 
On the other hand, it is equally true 
that much of what is best in modern 
American domestic architecture is trace¬ 
able to inspiration drawn from the work 
of many British architects, whose skill in 
home-building is preeminent. 
There is almost always something 
worth while to be learned from a close 
study of the houses^ whether large or 
small, being built in the Mother Countr\’, 
something that may contribute materially 
to the facility of our own domestic ex¬ 
pression. 
A Lesser Country House 
Grithow Field—from Saxon times the 
name has clung to this little plot of land 
on the outskirts of Cambridge—is one of 
the happiest examples of moderate-sized 
British domestic work completed just be¬ 
fore the war. In general treatment the 
adherence to local tradition is sufficiently strong to 
ensure complete harmony with the environment. 
Adherence to local tradition, however, has not 
been so rigid at Grithow Field as to trammel the 
play of originality and to hinder the exercise of obvi¬ 
ous common sense in dealing with the requirements 
of the case. There is no attempt at archaeological 
pedantry. The structure was designed to enclose a 
series of interiors that the New England mistress of 
the house conceived as desirable for embodiment in 
her home in Old England. The outcome of this 
