18 
House & Garden 
^5 in life, so in architecture, mere years do not make 
age. This garden stairs, for example. A hundred? 
Perhaps three hundred years old? Yes, the stones 
are surely that old and the timber and possibly the 
casement windows. For it takes a long time to make 
a stone or a big beam. But the compositic. is a mere 
infant. For the architect’s skill has combined these 
elements which are old in themselves, has given thern 
a relationship and a setting commensurate with their 
intrinsic antiquity. And thus we have—recently com¬ 
pleted—this aged garden stairs leading from the 
residence of George Marshall Allen’s house at Con¬ 
vent, N. J. Charles I. Berg was the architect of 
the house 
