20 
House & Garden 
It is possible to get great effects of massiveness 
and accumulation in the roofs and timber of 
the half-timbered house 
.terns being contrived, with truly delightful 
simplicity, by tacking £4" boards over a stucco 
surface, and staining these from a pail labelled 
4 ‘01d English Oak.” The deception (if such 
indeed it could be called) has always been too 
obvious to merit even the consideration of an 
-architect. The charge against this kind of 
half-timbering might be made long and bitter, 
Sincere Technique 
Returning, now, to real 
half-timber work, the pur¬ 
pose of this article will be 
served by some study of the 
values of architectural crafts¬ 
manship which constitute its 
inherent charm and interest, 
and which make the cost of 
its execution more readily 
reconcilable. 
The element of craftsman¬ 
ship in architecture might be 
said to involve, primarily, 
two considerations: texture 
and technique—the first an 
inherent property of any building material, 
the second the manner in which that property 
is made fully expressive and effective. A 
French wit said that “words are made to con¬ 
ceal thoughts.” Perhaps Mr. Henry James 
agreed with this idea—the architects of a few 
decades ago went further, believing, appar¬ 
ently, that building materials were not only 
Brick Hogging—the filling in between the tim¬ 
bers—can be laid in any pattern desired. A 
variety of designs are shown on this faqade 
made to conceal construction, but to be them¬ 
selves concealed, or made to imitate foreign 
substances. Iron and wood were elaborately 
“sanded” to simulate stone, brickwork was 
painted green or yellow or terribly red, or was 
streaked with veinings as of marble ( encore, 
je dis, camouflage), and “technique” was at 
its best when the pleasing natural texture and 
but suffice it to say that ethi¬ 
cally no imitation is tolerable 
which tends to deceive the 
uninformed or to debase the 
thing which is imitated, and 
that architecturally no super¬ 
ficial simulation of a non¬ 
existing structural fact is 
condonable. 
It is true that interesting 
and attractive patterns may 
be achieved by tacking 
stained boards upon a stucco 
surface—but let us never fall 
into a careless habit of digni¬ 
fying this with the name of 
“half-timber,” when it is 
nothing but the most bare¬ 
faced architectural camou¬ 
flage known to the profession. 
In roof lines, fenestration, massing and craftsmanship, the spirit of the original Elizabethan half-timbered architecture is reproduced in 
this house. It is the residence of Philip Mallory, Esq., at Rye, N. Y. Other views are shown on this page and on page 19 . The architect 
was Hobart B. Upjohn 
