January, 1914 
HOUSE AND GARDEN 
13 
it is the parting of knowl¬ 
edge and genius. It is in 
this fresh embodying of the 
old spirit that our best work 
to-day is being done; and as 
an example of the converse 
of this, the bad work of the 
Victorian age was largely 
due to a lack of just this 
complete and thorough knowl- 
edge of essentials. A knowl¬ 
edge of Gothic work that 
stopped at the discovery that 
all Gothic churches had 
buttresses, gargoyles and 
pointed headed openings, 
without going one step 
further and finding out why, 
was what produced 
the ‘‘carpenter 
Gothic” and other 
crudities of the mid- 
dle of the last 
century. 
That the general 
architectural knowl¬ 
edge of that time 
was not more thor¬ 
ough may be excused 
when we find their 
great teacher Ruskin 
.stating gravely that 
Gothic openings were 
pointed because that 
was the shape Nature 
gave the leaves! 
But to return to 
our discussion, tak¬ 
ing up the other 
historical styles, let 
us look a moment at 
ithe English work. 
This is no less our 
style than the other, 
it is ethnic and 
sympathetic, as the houses our 
ancestors lived in are bound 
to be. 
The half timber work as 
originally done is not struc- 
ually well suited to our needs 
or climate, but we may take 
advantage of modern build¬ 
ing devices to bolster up these 
structural delinquencies. 
The style must be used 
with discretion, for it is so 
very strong in decorative in¬ 
terest that it must be held 
firmly in check and handled 
with much restraint. It has 
the great virtue of giving to 
the plan and elevation the 
greatest possible freedom and 
flexibility. The convention 
of symmetrv that so thwarted 
us at every turn in our 
Colonial work annoys us no 
longer. 
This work in skillful hands 
and placed in surroundings 
at all comparable to those at 
its birth, not forgetting the 
setting of gardens, lawns, 
walls, etc., gives us as a re¬ 
sult the most homelike, de¬ 
lightfully informal, and in¬ 
teresting result possible. 
I he best examples of an 
Anglo-Saxon home are those 
rambling, half-timbered old 
houses, which are to be found 
in the old English villages. 
I he nearer we can approach 
to them in feeling 
and essence the more 
nearly shall we ap¬ 
proach an ideal of a 
house. 
We must not make 
the mistake particu¬ 
larly unfortunate 
with work of as 
strong individuality 
as this, of placing it 
in a district which is 
itself strongly indi¬ 
vidual and already 
committed to some 
other method. While 
we must keep in step 
with our neighbor¬ 
hood, this does not 
mean that we may 
only build of half 
timber in a half tim¬ 
ber village, for it will 
go excellently well 
wherever the locality 
is without strong 
markings of its own. 
In the matter of these two 
styles, the Colonial and Eng- 
lish, we find ourselves con¬ 
fronted anew by our old 
friends Classicism and Ro¬ 
manticism. We find them on 
opposite sides in all the arts 
and the choice of whose ban¬ 
ner we shall follow is here, 
as always, a matter of indi¬ 
vidual temperament. 
The plaster, or cement, or 
stucco house, whichever we 
choose to call it, following 
English lines, is in very much 
the same case as the half 
one. It is only less aggres¬ 
sive and less exacting as to 
its surroundings. 
The Tudor adaptation is 
(Continued on page 71) 
Some of the so-called Middle Western type houses show careful planning and an 
appreciation of the neighborhood’s requirements 
We have modified the half-timber house of England since our structural requirements are different. But 
still the type is strong in interest and is free from the restrictions of symmetry found in other styles. 
Lawrence Visscher Boyd, architect 
The Colonial house of this sort is suited to most of our modern suburbs. Situation 
and house alike duplicate the appearance of the Colonial village 
