April, i 9 i 6 
17 
The street and its noises and prying eyes are cut 
off from th is house because its living quarters have 
faced the garden in the rear 
Just because the house has its back to the street 
does not militate against its architecture. This is 
the street view of Mr. Jackson’s house 
“ Theoretically , at least , Bridget 
rise in her wrath and leave.’ 
In order to obtain a spacious front 
lawn, Mr. Smith has planted his chateau 
far back on the lot, but how does the 
spacious front lawn benefit Mr. Smith, or, 
for that matter, Mrs. Smith and the girls? 
They cannot sit there. It is too noisy, too 
dusty at times, and at intervals invaded 
by unwelcome fumes, to say nothing of the 
publicity. All the Smith family derive 
from it is “eighty feet of respectability.” 
Meanwhile, observe their back yard. It is 
not big enough for a garden, and small as 
it is, it belongs to Bridget. Indoors, the 
same disregard for efficiency. The quietest, wholesomest, most 
livable rooms downstairs are given over to “service.” In a 
word Mr. Smith has built his chateau the wrong end to. 
Now suppose that for the sake of good taste, privacy, effici¬ 
ency and by way of demonstrating that his house is his own, 
Mr. Smith should turn his philosophy upside down and his 
house around and his yard also. There is precedent for that. 
Frenchmen have done it. So have those little masters of good 
taste, the Japanese. Besides, there are the two fine houses 
with their backs “fronting” Brattle Street, Cambridge, while 
other examples are to be had in America besides those. The 
number increases. In years to come the arrangement may 
cease to attract attention, radical though it still sounds. Let 
us cast the balance and discover what the Smith family would 
gain and lose by the venture. 
Losing a Front Lawn and a Cook 
Obviously, they would lose their front lawn. A strip of 
green would remain ; 
the room for flowers, 
too; but the house 
would be close to the 
sidewalk. And it is 
clear that they would 
lose, for the most 
part, their view of 
“the passing.” With 
the rest they would 
sacrifice their idea of 
a house as a show¬ 
case ; they would no 
1 o n g er be parading 
their prosperity for 
outsiders to stare at. 
Finally, they would 
be robbing Bridget of 
her back yard. Theo¬ 
retically, at least, 
Bridget would rise in 
her wrath and leave, 
“Mrs. Jones, who used to run across indignation o o z i n g 
the lawn whenever Mrs. Smith ap- trom her bulging tin 
peared, has ceased her visitations ” hand trunk. 
will 
Practically, however, Bridget likes noth¬ 
ing better than a house with its back to the 
street, for if “the passing” is a nuisance 
to her employer, it is a source of perpetual 
delight to Bridget. It relieves boredom. 
At the same time it relieves the sense of 
ostracism. Instead of feeling herself a 
pariah, looking out at other pariahs from 
a rear window, she has a box seat for the 
show and, in her happy innocence seems 
almost a part of it. Is she, though? Not 
too literally. Her kitchen has high-silled 
windows; you might go by it a hundred 
times and not know it for a kitchen any more than you would 
know the laundry for a laundry. 
Open Face Domesticity 
So the reversed house, with its service end to the street, 
agrees not to insult that thoroughfare by presenting a “Mary 
Ann back.” Smith's architect can make it as handsome as he 
likes. The great difference is that Smith surrenders his liking 
for what, in a less solemn mood, I could term “open-face 
domesticity,” and goes in for a quiet, reserved and (once he 
gets used to it) agreeable seclusion. 
Which brings us to the points he has scored by turning his 
house and lot around. First and foremost, the garden. In¬ 
stead of a useless lawn in front of his abode, he now has a 
genuinely serviceable private park behind it. From mid-spring 
to mid-autumn the garden is his open-air living-room—dining¬ 
room, even. A sensible fellow, Smith has taken over the 
French idea of a garden. Shielded by the house on one side 
and by vine-clambered 
walls on its other 
three the enclosure 
affords complete pri¬ 
vacy. It is his at all 
hours, weather per¬ 
mitting, and he takes 
a hint from the 
French as regards 
that. At least a part 
of his garden he 
covers with gravel, 
which dries quickly 
after rain, so that 
there is no need to 
stay indoors because 
of wet grass after 
rain. 
Mrs. Smit h de¬ 
plores the walls at 
first. They seem un- 
neighborly. But she 
finds that this has its 
advantages. What 
( Cont’d on page 90) 
“A sensible fellow, Smith took over 
the French idea of a garden. He 
has a walled-in private park” 
