January, 1912 
HOUSE AND GARDEN 
15 
Now let us turn to the case of the new house. It is built in a 
location of one’s own choosing, to suit the needs and desires of 
him who is to inhabit it. It will fit him physically and tem¬ 
peramentally like a glove. He will get his view, his breeze, his 
heat, light and plumbing, his rooms and their arrangement, 
exactly as he wants them — not as somebody else’s great-grand¬ 
father wanted them; and when the house is finished it is done. 
Like the Wonderful One-Hoss Shay, every place “is uz strong 
uz the rest,” and when the time comes it will go to pieces in much 
the same logical way. 
Everything is clean and fresh and there are no unspoken, 
haunting fears. We have all the comforts and conveniences 
about the house that have become part of modern life — those 
ingenious contrivances without number that help to eliminate 
drudgery and save strength, and present us each day the precious 
gift of extra hours to spend or squander as we will. 
To old buildings is rightly ascribed a charm, a quality, that is 
inseparable from age. The subtle appeal of things over which 
Time has passed his heavy hand is felt even by the most unsensi¬ 
tive. Such venerable piles are altogether lovely and our country¬ 
sides would be barren indeed without them. We delight in them 
as houses; are enthusiastic about them as homes — for others. 
Remodel an Old House 
BY Jared Stuyvesant 
F rankly now, is there any object on this planet that is 
quite so raw as a house fresh from the builders? Is 
there any other thing that so closely resembles an excruciatingly 
sore thumb on the face of nature — if you will overlook the mixed 
A little patching by sympathetic mason and carpenter, plenty of fresh 
paint and a thorough understanding of the house’s personality will 
result in a home that cannot be matched by buildings of to-day 
metaphor and give your undivided attention to the real horror 
of the exhibit itself ? There it stands on its nice little red clay- 
bank, flaunting its new paint, its glaringly fresh roof, its spic 
and span hardware (probably still partly covered with the manu¬ 
facturer’s dirty white canton flannel bags), its great panes of 
plate glass with sprawling labels intact- — there it stands in all its 
garish newness, calling loudly to all who pass, “Come, see my 
fine slippery floors, my patented clothes chute, my leaded glass 
bookcase doors; just see the fine tiled laboratory I have for a 
bathroom and listen to the music of my fourteen electric bells!” 
Is that the sort of thing you would call Home? If so — well, 
you deserve it then, and should be sentenced to it for the rest 
of your life. But before you start to serve your term come down 
the road with me for a moment. I want to take you out of this 
atmosphere of new paint, new shingles, faidtless cement side- 
It is an easy matter to add to an old house, securing additional rooms 
such as a conservatory or breakfast room, without marring in the 
least its character and unity 
f f 
Houses of this kind are not built by the workmen of to-day — it would 
be impossible to duplicate even the charm of the old stone wall 
walks and little spindling maples planted exactly forty feet apart 
along the new granite curb—out along a road that has never 
been straight-jacketed by the surveyor. Let’s follow along its 
great sweeping curves under the shade of those spreading oaks 
and elms, up over that hill where the red cedars and white birches 
huddle together in thickets back of the old gray rail fence. There 
is a tangle of wild asters and goldenrod along the roadside, and 
here and there a great clump of sumach putting forth its deep 
red winter fruits. Just beyond, on the southern slope of the 
hillside, stands one of the homesteads of yesterday. A clump 
of spruces, towering far above its chimney tops, shelters the 
house from the north winds. A white picket fence starts from 
the end of a vine-covered stone wall and marks the long curving 
line of the front boundary. Just opposite the end of the south 
porch a pair of stately white gate posts break the line of the fence 
and a box-bordered mossy brick walk leads in to the quaintly 
carved old doorway bearing its brass knocker that has responded 
to the touch of past generations. Two century-old lilac bushes, 
grown almost to a tree’s stature, lean over the brick walk near 
the gate. On the simple gable end of the house, facing the road, 
a fan-shaped trellis is almost hidden with the ripened foliage 
of a climbing rose. Vines have almost barred the low steps leading 
up to the long porch, and its floor is already strewn with the leaves 
blown down by an early autumn storm. To the rear the roof 
drops down to a lower wing and, still beyond, the shed roof of a 
kitchen extension ties the old building still more closely to the 
ground. Across the entrance roadway that has come in just be- 
{Continued on page 5) 
