HOUSE AND GARDEN 
February, 
1910 
61 
Mr. Calkins’ bedroom is furnished in oak to 
match the brown trim; the walls are buff 
Every bedroom has a fireplace, and all 
are faced in rough-textured brick 
White woodwork, blue walls and mahogany 
furniture mark Mrs. Calkins’ bedroom 
the native stone and stucco walls of the 
buildings, the effect of an English cottage 
will be heightened, especially as here and 
there a bit of half-timber work peeps out. 
The house is approached from the east 
by a broad brick walk to the main door, 
and now the grass plots are squared off 
and flanked with native stone walls along 
the roadside. As you cross the quaint 
little vestibule, five feet square, and enter 
a doorway some four and a half feet 
broad, you may look right through it to a 
window at the end of the hall, through 
which, and across the dining-room porch 
(though having come from ground level 
but a step) you see the tree-tops in the 
rear of the house to the west, which is 
occasioned by the house’s being built on 
the very edge of the hill’s crest. 
Indeed this house is a home of sur¬ 
prises as well as delights. The three 
windows, with their mediaeval 
leaded five-inch panes which 
you have seen to the left of the 
front doorway at your own 
height, you will find, once you 
have entered the large living- 
room which they light, some 
distance above your head, for 
the exigencies of the site have 
brought the level of the living- 
room floor six feet, or eight 
steps below the entrance hall, 
which has, in consequence, the 
effect of a gallery. 
The woodwork of the liv¬ 
ing-room, as well as that of 
the hall and dining-room, is 
brown oak, sand rubbed and 
waxed, a treatment that brings 
out the grain of the wood in 
all its beauty. Perpendicular 
oak planks of various widths, 
with slightly rounded edges 
Living-room and ombra are at a level below 
the main floor, the former being fourteen 
feet high 
Sideboard and china-cupboard are built in with the brown-stained 
oak dining-room woodwork 
where they are joined, form the wains¬ 
coting, and their finish gives them pre¬ 
cisely the effect of being time-mellowed. 
The interior walls are all left in rough 
plaster, variously tinted. Those of the 
living-room are a rich pumpkin yellow, 
and the parti-colored tapestry brick of 
the great fireplace, which has an opening 
five feet across, are in harmonious con¬ 
trast with them and with the woodwork. 
Perhaps one of the most striking things 
about this fireplace is the projecting hood 
above it, which is not a smoke hood, but 
suggests certain old Tuscan chimney ar¬ 
rangements, made for attractiveness. 
All the fireplaces in the house—there 
are five-—have the good fortune to be as 
useful as they are beautiful, to be part 
and parcel of chimneys that draw, and 
keep the hearths cheerful in winter time. 
They are all of the same order of brick, 
with tiles of faience set in, 
flush with the surface. 
From the living-room you 
step out upon the ombra, the 
great shaded porch that looks 
directly into the tree-tops and 
makes you feel that you have 
come into the very house of 
Peter Pan and Wendy! Boxes 
of scarlet geraniums add color 
to the tree-scape round and 
about you, and there you may 
sit all the happy summer long 
with birds for nearer neighbors 
than perhaps you have ever 
had before. 
But the living-room is not 
alone in its proud possession, 
for the dining-room too has its 
distinctive porch, where one 
may sit between heaven arid 
earth, but undizzily, and enjoy 
the fat of the land to the music 
