House and Garden 
the old house, even if it is arranged like a 
railway train. There is always a charm 
about old badly-planned buildings anyway. 
It is quite certain that if a thing is done 
badly enough to have individuality it will 
grow to have a certain picturesqueness and 
interest which cannot be rivalled even by 
perfection itself. So the instant one goes 
into the rambling old house one feels he would 
like to live there, simply because it is differ¬ 
ent. 
It is a pity the old house has to go, as it no 
doubt will, for the streets are crowding it 
so it is losing all its former picturesqueness. 
Its association with three centuries, its charm¬ 
ing Colonial architecture and its location 
among those fine old trees, make it a delight¬ 
ful if not an ideal country house. It would 
be a charming setting for a romance of the 
time of Benjamin Franklin. But now the 
sewers and the trolley tracks and the opera¬ 
tive builder are destroying the romance. 
The cars of the Fifty-eighth and Sixtieth 
Streets line cross the lawn, but few who idly 
gaze at the old house have any idea of its 
history. 
THE STAIR WING 
