HOUSE AND GARDEN 
20 
July, 
1914 
things for decorative effect, but wonderful settings with mountain to overcome convention and habit of thought, and there are those 
backgrounds, vistas of sea and valley and far blue hills, and a who can follow only to the point where the wood trim was re¬ 
witchery of color that provokes response in an architect who duced to a minimum and treated with the utmost simplicity, 
loves his work and seeks a complete expression of his ideas. The wall finish of these interiors was an inspiration. To the 
The external form of the 
Gill House is the spontane¬ 
ous expression of the 
thought which character¬ 
izes the interior, for Mr. 
Gill began his revolution 
inside the house. He be¬ 
gan it long ago, this ruth¬ 
less simplifying process, 
with the very homely de¬ 
sire of minimizing the la¬ 
bors of the housewife. The 
wish, born in the heart of 
a boy who hated to see his 
mother work so hard to 
keep her house clean, be¬ 
came later in life a fixed 
purpose. Even in his first 
houses of frame exterior, 
before the era of 
concrete, he left 
off picture mold¬ 
ings, chair rails, 
wainscotings, base¬ 
boards, every bit 
of wood not a 
structural neces¬ 
sity, wherever a 
client would permit 
it. Later he grew 
more arbitrary, in¬ 
sisting more and 
more on the elimi¬ 
nation of wood. 
He merely toler¬ 
ated it in door and 
window frames 
and casings for 
wall cupboards, 
setting these flush with the 
walls. Stairways he ban¬ 
ished from entrance halls 
where they have dominated 
so long, and for wood 
floors he substituted ce¬ 
ment, softened by a wax 
polish. 
All this time he was hard 
at work thinking out a steel 
frame that would do away 
even with wood casings, 
jambs and lintels. With 
the perfection of that 
frame came the culmina¬ 
tion of his dreams of 
twenty years. His more 
recent houses have abso- 
The approach is as simple as the house itself, with lines and surfaces of geometric exactitude 
and evenness. Note the composition in the placing of the windows 
Gateways, heavy, austere of fashion and generous of 
proportion 
Unobtrusive interiors wherein are adaptable all types 
of furnishings 
Concrete his medium; hollow tiles his walls. With these elements he constructs houses 
virtually time and fireproof 
color blind it is grayish, 
drabbish, dun, neutral. To 
those who have eyes to see, 
it is like the desert in au¬ 
tumn, without definite color 
but with a subtle sugges¬ 
tion of all colors. Such an 
effect is not produced by 
negative pigments, but a 
mixture of many strong 
colors, blended. 
Outside a Gill house is 
always white. He has a 
delight in color and would 
teach you to find it as he 
does, in the reflected glow 
from the red floor of an 
open court, a bank of flow¬ 
ers, a green terrace, in 
shadows cast by a 
curtain of vines, in 
all the varying 
lights of day and 
evening as they 
call from those 
walls the infinite 
hidden tones of 
the painter’s blend¬ 
ing. 
A Gill house is 
an open scroll 
from which the 
builder determin¬ 
edly effaces him¬ 
self, leaving the 
dweller the widest 
opportunity for 
self-expression. 
Does one find 
pleasure in Oriental rugs, 
they will delight as never 
before; a handsomely 
carved sideboard gains new 
significance in a room that 
seeks not to rival, but to 
embrace its beauty, while 
the simplest furnishings 
adapt themselves with un¬ 
suspected grace to these 
unobtrusive, but by no 
means characteristic, sur¬ 
roundings. 
One of the most remark¬ 
able things about this new 
type of architecture is the 
democracy of it. Without 
and within there is little 
lutely no woodwork on the interior, and yet there results a rich- difference, save in size, between a laborer’s cottage of three rooms 
ness and strength scarcely anticipated even by Mr. Gill during and a city house of twenty; and no appreciable difference in the 
the period of gradual evolution of his idea. finish of drawing-room and kitchen. Every detail of sanitation 
Not every one is prepared to follow this enthusiast to the ex- and practical utility is carefully studied for kitchens of whatever 
treme limit of monastic severity which is his ideal. It is difficult (Continued on page 46) 
