Lyndanwalt is a splendid example of forehanded planting. Vines were started almost before the carpenters left and as a result the 
five-year-old house is thoroughly blended with its site. Oswald C. Hering, architect 
“ Lyndanwalt ” 
AN AMERICAN ADAPTATION OF AN ENGLISH FARM—A COUNTRY HOME NEAR GER¬ 
MANTOWN, PA., THAT WAS NOT CONSIDERED FINISHED WHEN THE BUILDERS LEFT 
by Oswald C. Hering 
Photographs by R. T. Jeffcott 
I T is an unfortunate thing for the general appearance of our 
American countryside that the majority of people feel — when 
they have built a house—that one of their great tasks in life is 
finished. As a matter of fact they have at that stage of the pro¬ 
ceedings merely laid the 
foundation of what can, 
if judiciously handled, 
eventually be made into 
all that the word home 
implies. 
We must as a people 
grasp the idea that the 
mere piling up of bricks 
and mortar of stone ma¬ 
sonry and woodwork does 
not make the home, any 
more than the reading of 
the lines makes the play. 
Just as a comely and 
clever woman accen¬ 
tuates her loveliness by 
dressing in a manner be¬ 
coming to her individual 
style, and is seen to the 
best advantage in sur¬ 
roundings reflecting her 
personality, so a house 
should have a suitable 
environment and a be¬ 
coming dress of foliage 
in order to appear to best advantage. To the “atmosphere” 
surrounding any object is largely due the charm of the impres¬ 
sions received of the object itself. A painting or a piece of 
sculpture may be an admirable work of art, but the full force 
of its beauty will be felt 
only in an appropriate 
situation. In the Rijks 
Museum an entire wall 
is allotted to each of the 
three great Rembrandts; 
the light is trained upon 
the canvases in such 
a manner that none com¬ 
petes with the others 
and the observer’s atten¬ 
tion is thus fixed and 
held spellbound by the 
genius of the Dutch mas¬ 
ter. 
Lyndanwalt, the coun¬ 
try home of Mr. W. E. 
Hering, illustrates the 
point I wish to make. 
The house crowns the 
summit of one of the hills 
overlooking Huntington 
Valley, its broad terrace 
on the south side com¬ 
manding a wonderful 
panorama of the gently 
Unlike nearly all half-timber work in this country Lyndanwalt has been built with 
solid beams rather than the usual strip imitation 
(192) 
