| January, 1910 
HOUSE AND GARDEN 
!5 
One of America’s most notable country home groups—the Breese place, 
Southampton, L. I. Designed by Stanford White 
far as mere appearances are con¬ 
cerned. These are form, style and 
color. Your house should serve as a 
key to all the problems you may find 
connected with these matters, at least 
if you are about to build. If, on the 
other hand, you are living in a house 
that has been built some years and 
believe you can make it more attrac¬ 
tive by harmonious surroundings, it 
sometimes happens that you must 
reverse the order of things, and make 
your house harmonize with its out¬ 
buildings. 
Sometimes this can be done through 
a color harmony being brought about 
by repainting, by the addition or subtraction of ornamental 
architectural detail, or by remodeling. Finally a sense of 
proportion, often utterly lacking in a group of small scattered 
outbuildings, may be restored to them by the happy introduc¬ 
tion of such connecting links as properly planned fences, walls, 
roofed walks, pergolas, etc., which give form to such a group and 
dignity to its new conception. 
By architectural harmony one must not suppose mimicry is 
meant. The writer has seen stables that were simply either smaller 
or larger editions of the house, with monotonous annexes that 
were miniature editions of themselves. I n a certain Massachusetts 
village there is a house which some sea captain, more versed 
in sailing than in styles, built some years ago as a monument to 
his happy fortunes. It boasts a cupola, which is a faithful model 
of the house itself, a bird house which is a faithful model of both, 
and a barn below it that is twin to the house. On each side of the 
driveway approaching the house are two fieldstone posts, each 
capped by a tiny model of the captain’s house, and a fountain 
A New Haven'house and its garage as designed by Hoggson Brothers 
on the same order ingeniously spurts water out througlvthe"win¬ 
dows and up through the chimneys of its tin premises as a family 
diversion during rainy days — in drought water cannot be coaxed 
into' the community for any purpose, 
let alone fountain spurting. 
The captain is very proud of it all, 
and he believes, without doubt, that 
a wonderfully harmonious arrange¬ 
ment has been effected in this man¬ 
ner. One hardly has the heart to 
disabuse his mind, but his example 
may well serve as a warning of what 
not to do. 
However, instances of this sort are 
becoming less and less common, for 
architects throughout the country have 
been giving much attention to the 
matter. Perhaps no architectural 
factor has had a greater hand in 
determining the modern trend of ideas 
in this connection than the widespread introduction of the use of 
concrete as a building material. Many a large American estate 
has come to be as picturesque as an European village through 
judicious planning of the outbuildings, and so, too, have much 
less pretentious places likewise found their attractiveness enhanced 
by the care and thought that have been given to such matters. 
In beginning to plan for the home one should ask himself what 
buildings beside the dwelling will be necessary to keeping it up. 
He should not wait until the house is built before he begins to think 
about the outbuildings. Quite possibly the house could accom¬ 
modate itself to accessory buildings very nicely if these entered 
into initial plans, whereas many a house-builder lives to regret his 
thoughtlessness in not planning for future outbuildings and finds, 
all too late, that he has not provided for their proper location 
as he might have done in the first place by accommodating the 
dwelling under possible conditions to a relationship with them 
when they should come to be built. 
Again, outbuildings may be arranged with some idea of serving 
as wind-breaks, or to furnish shade where required for certain 
convenient kitchen and stable yard operations. 
When fences and walls are needed for the protection of build¬ 
ings and yards, one cannot be too careful about selecting plans 
for them. Nothing is more unsightly than walls or fences between 
outbuildings that carry in their design no sense of relationship 
to anything else about. It is not enough that your stable wall, 
for instance, should hide the stable yard, but it should enter into 
the decorative scheme of the whole group of outbuildings, and 
this cannot be accomplished if one gives the matter no particular 
thought. 
Taking the whole matter into consideration, one cannot do 
better than to explore his premises and ask himself if there is 
not something he can do to enhance their beauty of livableness, 
or practicability by better attending to the problem of harmoniz¬ 
ing the outbuildings. 
A stable and poultry house of concrete, harmonizing with the Pabst 
house, Oconomowoc, Wisconsin 
