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“7 settled down to live 
in that street and evi¬ 
dences of its mental de¬ 
rangement were soon 
forthcoming” 
HOUSES WITH THEIR BACKS TO THE STREET 
A Serious Dissertation in the Interests of Privacy 
ROLLIN LYNDE HARTT 
Illustrated by HERB ROTH 
A MILE or so from the Harvard Yard there are two fine 
houses with their hacks to the street, and I well remem¬ 
ber my astonishment when I first saw them. They reminded 
me of what the painter Gerome once said to a pupil of his: 
“Oh, my dear young lady, six toes on one foot? Somebody 
is mistaken, either I or you, or—the model!” In exactly that 
mood I cried out, there in Brattle Street, Cambridge, “Some 
one is crazy, either I, the houses, or—the street!’’ 
As I am still at large and the houses still there I think the 
craziness was the street’s. Besides, I have more convincing 
proofs. I settled down to live in that 
street and evidences of its mental de¬ 
rangement were soon forthcoming. 
At three in the morning huge, four- 
horse market carts began thundering 
through, the drivers yelling at their 
nags and shouting at one another. 
If I opened a window in rising, dust 
poured in; gasoline fumes likewise 
All day this continued, yes, and till 
far past bed-time. Later on came 
the honks and ear-piercing squawks 
of automobiles returning from the 
Country Club. Before a week was 
out I ceased laughing at the houses 
with their backs to the street and 
wished that my own had been built 
that way. 
Transportation vs. Tranquillity 
It was an extreme case, granted; 
but even when you scale it down to 
the ordinary experience, do you not 
find that the growth of cities, the 
new developments in transportation 
and other changes that have come 
over our American life within recent 
years unite to make the street less 
and less agreeable to look out upon? 
If houses have begun to show it their 
backs, it is because in a sense figura¬ 
tive, but none the less grave on that 
account, the street has turned its back on the houses. It no 
longer smiles and sings. It snarls. 
In the old days there was music in the cheery clatter of 
hoofs and the sociable rumble of carriage wheels. One liked 
to “see the passing,” which consisted of acquaintances then 
and now consists largely of strangers. One could sit on a 
front piazza not only in comfort, but with undisguised pride. 
It was pleasant to indulge in a kind of innocent posing, as if 
to say, “Observe my prosperity as exampled in this tasteful 
mansion, the well-kept lawn, the flower beds, and all that,” 
and the pose was taken in good part by “the passing.” People 
were not inclined to poke fun. They knew you. If you put 
a Rogers Group in your drawing-room window or erected cast- 
iron stags, divinities and philosophers on “the grass,” they 
kept a straight face and enjoyed the show. For a long time 
things went on in that style. There are traces of them still. 
In our newer cities some one is sure to draw you aside pretty 
soon and whisper, “For heaven’s* sake don’t tell who told you, 
but the truth is, this town is just a great, big overgrown vil¬ 
lage.” And yet “the truth” is rapidly losing its truthfulness 
even there. Not only have noise, dust, gasoline and social 
changes spoiled the village idea, but a new development in taste 
has made it seem—well, not ridiculous, exactly, but no longer 
quite becoming. 
This new development in taste began when it became the 
custom for Americans to visit Europe. They were disgusted 
at first with town houses that made 
no show and with village houses that 
had high stone walls to conceal their 
front yards and with country houses 
invisible from the road. It seemed 
that the owners had deliberately set 
out to cheat “the passing.” And 
when they beheld French houses 
built with their backs to the street, 
it was proof positive. But presently 
it dawned on them that perhaps 
there might be something fine and 
delicate and eminently civilized in 
just this. It bespoke modesty for 
one thing, a delight in privacy for 
another. It raised the question, 
“Whose is a house, anyhow—the 
owner’s, or the public’s?” 
It Was Imported 
Returning home they were amazed 
at our American ostentation and the 
strange lack of sensibility it ex¬ 
presses. They could pardon Mr. 
Barr Ferree’s rather caustic remark, 
“America has not yet found out the 
sort of house a gentleman would like 
to live in.” They viewed the garish 
chateau of James Vandeventer 
Smith, the soap man, and contrasted 
it with the house his Grace the Duke 
of Wessex had built for himself in 
London, utterly plain outside, filled with Rembrandts, Titians 
and Veroneses inside. They wondered if maybe his Grace 
were not the better gentleman. Six weeks later, of course, 
they forgot wondering, and yet the idea had taken root deep 
within them. 
Recently another development has tended the same way— 
the development known as “modern efficiency.” We have over¬ 
hauled our factories, our shops, even our colleges, to see where 
waste of effort and material and space occurs, and how to 
stop the waste. Why not tackle our houses? Why not 
demand that they yield the last iota of practicality and ful¬ 
fill their purpose completely? What are comfort and cheery 
brightness unless they are built upon a foundation of un¬ 
wasted effort ? 
Here and there some pretty startling absurdities will come 
to light. At Mr. James Vandeventer Smith’s, for instance. 
The garden view of a house with its 
hack to the street, the Cambridge resi¬ 
dence of Allen W. Jackson, architect 
