House and Garden 
VoL. XIII JUNE, 1908 No. 6 
“The House of the Seven Chimneys” 
By C. H. CLAUDY 
PART I 
O verlooking Bass River, an arm of Nan¬ 
tucket Sound, and located in the beautiful 
village of South Yarmouth, Massachusetts, 
stands “The House of the Seven Chimneys,” per¬ 
haps the most individual country home in America. 
It is the summer residence of Charles Henry Davis, 
mine owner and engineer. It is constructed—built is 
not the word—of three houses and a barn, and pos¬ 
sesses some features which make it entirely unique 
among houses which are homes first and monuments 
to the expenditure of money and brains afterwards. 
For “The House of the Seven Chimneys” is first and 
foremost a home. While the visitor cannot help but 
be impressed with the cleverness which has utilized 
every bit of space for a purpose, and provided heat¬ 
ing arrangements and plumbing facilities which are 
both modern and models, what stands out most clearly 
as a memory is that the money and effort spent have 
produced a place to live in, and enjoy the living, 
not a palace which is all for show and splendor and 
not at all for comfort and peace. 
To what is known as “The Old House,” a typical 
Cape Cod structure, was connected the barn, both at 
present occupying the same positions they did when 
built, some seventy years ago. The connection, 
now known as the wood room, or well-way, was 
once occupied by the well supplying the “Old 
House” when it was a home in itself. Such a con¬ 
nection is, in Cape parlance, a “porch,” and what 
is generally understood to he a “porch” is here a 
piazza. Thus, what was the stable to the barn is now 
a “piazza,” or as Mr. Davis calls it, the screenway. 
THE APPROACH TO THE HOUSE FROM RIVER STREET 
185 
CopyrUjlit, PJOS, hy The John C. Winston Co. 
