Distinctive Devices for House Exteriors 
HOW A HOUSE MAY BE DISTINGUISHED FROM ITS NEIGHBORS BY MEANS OF WELL EXECUTED 
AND ARTISTIC DESIGNS ON ITS OUTER WALLS OR CHIMNEYS—VARIOUS STYLES AND MATERIALS 
by Harold Donaldson Eberlein 
Photographs by the Author 
S EA-HORSES and mermaids, serpents and 
saints are sometimes met with in very 
queer places — places where we shouldn’t at all 
expect to find them. But when we do chance 
upon them in unwonted surroundings vve are 
not likely soon to forget either the circumstance 
or the spot where we discover them. And that is 
exactly one reason why they are there; in other 
words, they are employed to give a note of dis¬ 
tinction wherever they may be set. As wall de¬ 
vices a whole universe of things that grow and 
creep and run and fly and swim can be found 
figuring on the sides of houses or on chimney 
stacks or wheresoever individual caprice may 
elect to put them. 
Between wall devices and overdoor devices, 
however close the similarity, there is an essen¬ 
tial difference. The purpose of the overdoor 
device is ordinarily two-fold; the adornment of 
an important architectural feature and the expression of some 
significant thought, whether in explicit words or by some sym- 
i bolic design. The overdoor device sometimes fulfills only one of 
these objects, sometimes both. The wall device, on the other 
hand, has not the intimate charac¬ 
ter of the overdoor device; it does 
not address itself to the approach¬ 
ing visitor but to the public at 
large; it is not reserved for near 
inspection from the threshold but 
is designed to be seen from afar. 
Above all, its object is differentia¬ 
tion ; it is a distinguishing mark, a 
kind of identification, by which 
one house may be designated as 
differing from another. 
House numbers are all very well 
and necessary in cities and towns but, for sub¬ 
urban and country houses, wall devices are the 
most practical and at the same time picturesque 
means of visible designation. The naming of 
houses has become an almost universal prac¬ 
tice. Why should not the signing them with a 
distinguishing wall device become equally so? 
Devices for house walls are by no means of 
recent invention; at the same time their use is 
far from general. Small and relatively unim¬ 
portant in themselves, they can, nevertheless, 
contribute materially to the character of a 
dwelling. Take, for instance, the copper figure 
of Saint Martin that adorns the chimney of a 
house near Saint Martin’s Church and station. 
Undiscriminating people, to be sure, have been 
grievously at sea in fixing the saint’s person¬ 
ality. Some have mistaken him for an imp and 
spoken of the “house with a devil on the chim¬ 
ney,” others have fancied him an Indian brave and one good soul 
actually thought he was a suffragette shearing off her skirts! 
One and all, however, were duly impressed with the device and 
the house, its location and the figure on the chimney are indelibly 
stamped on their memories—all of 
which simply shows that m this 
case the wall device fullv per¬ 
formed its function of differenti¬ 
ating one house from all the others 
in the neighborhood, besides fur¬ 
nishing a bit of legitimate adorn¬ 
ment in a telling place and supply¬ 
ing a pleasant allusion to the name 
of the locality by depicting Saint 
Martin in the act of severing his 
military cloak with his sword, ac¬ 
cording to the old legend, to give 
A sculptured marble plaque espe¬ 
cially suited to a brick wall 
A wide space between windows may 
be broken by some simple design 
I he seahorse device is appropriate to “The Barnacle,” a 
remodeled house which was originally a barn 
A useless outhouse window filled with 
an inserted concrete medallion 
( 153 ) 
