June, i p i 6 
45 
In this country house, of which Edmund B. Gil¬ 
christ is architect, brick trim has been attrac¬ 
tively combined with rough concrete finish 
the suction thus created pulls the material 
into an agreeably rough surface that affords 
numerous spots of shadow. Still another 
way to liven the texture is to “comb” the 
surface while “green” with a wooden comb 
or fan in the manner employed by the old 
English plasterers so that the wall shows 
a fine herring-bone pattern like that 
in coarse cocoa matting. Ingenuity will 
probably suggest additional methods of 
gaining other pleasing results. 
The attempt sometimes 
made to improve color by 
mixing various pigments 
with the cement, though at 
times it may be attended 
with fairly satisfactory re¬ 
sults, can hardly be con¬ 
sidered as a generally 
advisable or desirable thing 
to do. The addition of 
coloring matter sometimes 
weakens the concrete and 
there is almost always dif¬ 
ficulty in getting uniform¬ 
ity of hue. Moreover, the 
range of tones to be gained 
in this way is limited and 
difficult to control in suc¬ 
cessive admixtures of pig¬ 
ment. It thus becomes ad¬ 
visable to consider a coat¬ 
ing which, however, ought 
to be non-corroding and 
hard-drying. The residu¬ 
um of oil in a lead and 
oil paint after drying is 
acted upon by the alkali in 
the cement and forms a 
soapy mixture that never 
gets hard. Various washes 
and cold water paints are 
highly absorbent of mois¬ 
ture and after wet weather 
streaks and discolored 
patches appear. Then, too, a glue or case¬ 
in binder in such paint is soon disintegrated 
by the action of alkali in the cement and the 
color flakes and washes off. Despite the 
chemical deterioration, the effect of many 
such washes will last a fairly long time and, 
on a house of ordinary size, it is not a 
difficult matter nor prohibitively expensive 
to renew the wash when desirable. 
If whitewash is used, the government 
Lighthouse Mixture will be found highly 
A flat stucco wall face totally unadoimed. But 
casement windows give it the master touch. 
Delano $ Aldrich, architects 
satisfactory. There are some special stucco 
washes that have been compounded which 
fulfill all the desiderata, producing a perma¬ 
nent color and excluding dampness. The 
objection is sometimes seriously made that 
it is not quite honest to color concrete or 
cement stucco artificially. It may be an¬ 
swered that such application of color in¬ 
volves no more sham than does the dying 
of raw silk to get a required hue. In some 
(Continued on page 70) 
The house is set on the edge of a hill 
and grows up out of its setting of trees. 
One floor is brick, the second stucco 
with some half-timber. A large living- 
room, library, dining-room and kitchen 
occupy the first floor; four chambers, 
two baths and sleeping porch above 
THE RESIDENCE of 
MRS. MARION F. LOCKWOOD 
HACKENSACK, NEW JERSEY 
DAVID M. ACH, architect 
