November, 19 2 2 
41 
D URING the past year Pittsburgh, “The 
Mother of Millionaires", permitted to be 
razed one of the finest examples of early 
American architecture to be found in Western 
Pennsylvania. “Homewood", the famous old 
Wilkins mansion, was a distinctive landmark of 
that city. Erected in 1832 , it expressed the high¬ 
est attainment of the Neo-Greek style in domestic 
architecture. As he city grew, it encroached on 
the lands of this great estate. Finally even the 
house itself was threatened. Opportunity was 
given, it is said, for public spirited citizens to 
save this structure, but it was evidently not the 
will of the people. Parts of the magnificent 
portico are being preserved for exhibition in the 
large museum of the Carnegie Institute. 
Thus passes one of our fine old country homes, 
a house worthy of preservation and restora¬ 
tion. Thus also are passing equally fine and his¬ 
toric homes and buildings in various parts of the 
country. 
Isn’t it about time that Americans look to the 
preservation of these landmarks? Or has our 
foreign population so overwhelmed us that we 
cannot rouse enough interest and support for 
such a worthy object? 
The mere fact that a building is old should 
not be the sole guiding reason for saving it. If 
it has historic associations, then patriotic organi¬ 
zations can strive to save it. But when a house 
is lacking in these associations but is a fine ex¬ 
ample of the architecture of its period, that merit 
alone should justify its preservation. We should 
keep our old examples, cherish them, restore 
them to their erstwhile grandeur, for the inspira¬ 
tion and instruction of future generations. 
House & Garden is seriously devoted to better¬ 
ing architecture in America. It believes that, 
unless these old examples of fine architecture are 
saved, we will lose our standards. Will the 
readers of House & Garden support it in this ef¬ 
fort to preserve these buildings? 
L AST spring several of our magazines print¬ 
ed a strange appeal. It was made in the 
name of one Charles Chapin, an inmate of 
Sing Sing, for bulbs and perennials for a garden 
he was putting in there. Some thirty of more 
gardeners contributed seeds and bulbs that ranged 
into the thousands. One garden enthusiast in 
Massachusetts sent a hundred plants of hardy 
phlox, a hundred choice iris, thirty-six peonies 
and several dozen lily bulbs. Never before has 
there been a peony grown in the Sing Sing prison 
grounds; next year there will be more than a 
hundred, and at least a thousand iris plants. Sev¬ 
eral new flower beds have been put in, one of 
them 469 feet long. An amazing achievement un¬ 
der such limitations. 
A parallel story to this is the report of the 
San Francisco Dahlia show, held in San Francis¬ 
co August 31st to September 2nd. The prize 
for the best display by a public institution was 
awarded to dahlias from The Garden Beautiful, 
the development at San Quentin penitentiary. 
Three thousand blooms, representing two hun¬ 
dred varieties of dahlias grown in the prison 
yard by the convicts, were exhibited. As any 
gardener can realize, this dahlia development 
must be quite extensive—and yet it is the out¬ 
growth of a single tuber mailed to one of the 
prisoners several years ago. 
Thus in two great prisons at least, men come 
forth from their cells to grow flowers. A strange, 
albeit ironic, fullfillment of Abraham Cowley’s 
wish for a small house and a large garden! 
The 
HOUSE & GARDEN 
BULLETIN BOARD 
T O the casual reader of this issue it may 
seem absurd for us to publish an article on 
weights and measures as applied to the 
kitchen; but the careful householder will think 
quite the opposite. Human nature being as it 
is, our communities are obliged to maintain spec¬ 
ial departments whose duty it is to see that the 
citizens are not short-weighted. 
At present there is quite a lively crusade on 
against short measures at gasoline filling stations. 
While the majority of men in business are rea¬ 
sonably honest, and know that petty disonesty, 
such as short measuring, never pays, there are 
numbers who are careless in these matters. 
Counter scales an ounce or two off may eventu¬ 
ally be apprehended by the municipal inspectors, 
but the housewife can help a lot by checking up 
such possible shortages with the intelligent use 
of scales and measures in the home. 
I T was a wise vision that first conceived the 
idea of laying memorial roads to our sol¬ 
diers, instead of spending the public contri¬ 
butions on statues that are artistically questioned 
able. The memorials that were erected after the 
Civil War—and what town and hamlet isn’t dis¬ 
figured by them?—stand to-day as constant re¬ 
minders of an era of bad taste. We couldn’t 
possibly repeat these mistakes. Instead, we have 
laid out good roads, roads which make easy the 
transportation between town and country, 
France, it seems, has fallen into our old post- 
Civil War bad habit. Pass through France to¬ 
day; each city and litte town has its statue—and 
each is worse than the one before. The same 
money would have built a section of good road 
and planted trees along its sides. 
In Utica, Ohio, a citizen, who recently died, 
left a sum of money to be expended on a four 
mile section of permanent brick road. It is a 
unique memorial and wor.hy of emulation. 
I NTERIOR Decoration is the handmaid of 
Architecture. And the handmaid has now 
grown lp to an amazing stature. Hereto¬ 
fore decoration and the decorative arts were al¬ 
ways included among the exhibits at the annual 
show of the New York Architectural League. Of 
late years there has been almost as much decora¬ 
tion as architecture. It was a wise and natural 
progression, then, for the Arts-In-Trades Club of 
New York to initiate its own salon. This was 
opened in late September and the exhibition 
continued through October. It is, in a 
manner of speaking, purely a male exhibit, as 
the Arts-In-Trades does not include among its 
members any of the women decorators. Con¬ 
sequently there was a decided air of masculinity 
and formality about the show. In another year, 
when the movement shall have gotten into 
stride, these annual exhibits should be of primary 
artistic importance. It has made a brilliant 
and courageous start. It may be expected to do 
some really important things in the years to come, 
least of all of them being that such a series of an¬ 
nual exhibits must certainly emphasize the impor¬ 
tance of this popular phase of architecture and 
show by means of actual examples the means and 
methods of properly decorating our houses. 
T HE old-fashioned autumn flower show, 
which was not unlike the country fair, 
with its exhibits of huge pumpkins and 
autumn chrysanthemums, has, of late years, been 
supplanted by exhibitions of dahlias. In this 
country dahlia enthusiasm almost threatens to 
rival in fervor and popularity the tulip craze of 
old Holland. Consequently, the American Dahlia 
Society finds the culmination of its efforts each 
year in an annual exhibit in New York. 
The exhibition held in the latter part of 
September quite outran previous shows in the 
quality and quantity of bloom and in the atten¬ 
dance of dahlia fans. More than half a million 
blooms were exhibited. These came from over 
a hundred professional growers and amateurs, and 
ranged in size from the huge blooms to the 
tiniest mignons. Among the exhibits were three 
hundred new seedlings, showing some variation 
from parent • plants. 
Of course, professional growers of dahlias find 
this one of the best opportunities to show their 
new creations and achievements, but it is a good 
sign that each year at these shows more and 
more amateurs are exhibiting. The average 
amateur gardener may be inordinately proud of 
his floral achievements when he compares them 
with a neighbor’s; comparing them with the 
work of a professional, however, is a prospect 
that is apt to dampen his ardor. This modesty 
is natural, but it ought not to deter amateurs 
from venturing into these annual shows. And to 
this end we feel it would be doing a great service 
to floriculture if more estate owners would plan 
to exhibit at these annual shows. It would not 
only awaken more public interest in flowers, 
but would give both the owner and his gardener 
a justifiable reason for pride. 
F REDERICK Sterner, whose “Parge House” 
is shown in this number, might be called the 
father of town house remodeling. It was Mr. 
Sterner who first transformed a row of brick houses 
on East 19th Street, New York City, into an un¬ 
usual architectural group that has added to the 
picturesqueness of the Gramercy Park section of 
the metropolis. From that beginning has grown 
a lively movement to remodel old brick and 
brownstone town houses, not only in New York 
but in other cities. 
Nina Wilson Badenoch, author of “Planning 
The Kitchen", is in the House Service Depart¬ 
ment of the People’s Gas Light & Coke Company 
of Chicago and is an authority on the planning 
of new kitchens and the rearranging of old ones. 
H. Stuart Ortloff, who contributes the article 
on Uncommon Shrubs, is a landscape architect 
located in New York and is editor of the bulle¬ 
tin issued by the New York City Garden Club. 
G. A. Ziegler, whose Colonial bungalow is 
shown further on, is an architect practicing in 
Philadelphia. 
A. T. Wolfe, who writes on “Occasional 
Chairs", an absorbing subject both for the col¬ 
lector and the decorator, is an English authority 
on furniture and decoration. 
Verna Cook Salomonsky, whose “Linen on the 
Line" should help solve the Monday laundry 
problem, is an architect practicing in New York 
and a lecturer on architecture. 
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