The Value and Use of Simple Materials in House Building 
is eternal, and simplicity is ever the best 
setting, either for modest utility or most 
exquisite work of art, and human life is our 
masterpiece, deserving the best of our thought 
for its setting. 
The photographs accompanying this article 
are in a large part from the house and 
studios built for Charles H. and Alice Barber 
Stephens at Rose Valley. The studios are 
in an old stone barn the large doors of which 
now form the north windows and skylights 
of the studios, and the house has been built 
at one end of the old barn. It has been the 
effort in this and the other work shown to 
get just such a local character as the article 
is intended to advocate. 
A FOUNTAIN IN CEMENT 
Designed and executed by W R. Mercer, Jr. 
