^akimf a ]\jew fjome 
: r rom an Old fjouse 
THE CONVERSION OF A SOUTHERN NEW ENGLAND 
FARMHOUSE TO MEET MODERN REQUIREMENTS, 
WITHOUT DESTROYING ITS CHARACTER—PART I 
HOW THE RECREATION SIDE OF THE GROUNDS 
WAS DEVELOPED 
F OR three months D. and I had spent all the time we could in 
search of a country house. On Saturdays and Sundays 
we ransacked the towns within commuting distance and on 
week-days while I was busy at my office, D. made lists from 
newspapers or interviewed real estate brokers. Our require¬ 
ments puzzled them, for it was difficult to explain just what we 
wanted. D. could spread out or concentrate the household, 
so we had little interest in the exact number of rooms; but the 
number of rooms being the average broker's guide, he was soon 
quite lost. We had a fairly definite conception of what we 
wanted and what we did not want. A typical small suburban 
cottage, though fitting our pocketbook, was out of the question, 
for what furniture we had was heavy, old mahogany, built when 
space was not a luxury; therefore we needed large rooms; pre¬ 
ferably few in number, without queer angles, cozy-corners, yel¬ 
low oak ornamentation and the like. Small houses with a very 
few large rooms apparently do not exist; large modern houses 
were too expensive. Privacy of such grounds as there should 
be, we insisted on, for we had the English point of view that the 
playground was even more sacred than the house, that work or 
play out-of-doors should not be a spectacle for the neighbors. 
These are rather strict requirements, and I think I am right in 
saying that they are unusual ones. Perhaps we should have been 
more patient with the brokers. 
Amusing, to look back over those week-ends! D. and I 
took town after town on two railroads (my office was near 
A genera! plan of the house and grounds; though near the highway the arrangement 
makes for real privacy 
Two terraces, faced with stone, break the slope of the ground between the entrance porch and the road, giv¬ 
ing pleasantly harmonious lines to a situation which otherwise might have been monotonous 
their terminal) and visited the agents that 
clustered about the stations, or chartered the 
rickety hacks on exploring expeditions. At 
first we did not know quite what to ask to 
see, and we found nothing; finally it became 
evident that only the old farmhouses could 
meet our conditions. In definitely enquiring 
for them we were more successful and we 
visited many. Some were tumble-down, 
others altered until they had lost all char¬ 
acter; one so badly put together that the 
hipped roof was spreading. 
Our final discovery was a hundred-years- 
old house. We were returning by tramway 
at the end of an unsuccessful day when we 
first saw it, standing high above the road 
against the cold February twilight sky, gray 
gabled, close-shuttered, silent: bare maple 
trees were motionless about it. 
It was larger than we really needed, a great 
square house, with a lower extension at 
one end, evidently a kitchen wing. An 
agent’s sign suggested exploration. We 
alighted; eagerly we mounted the terrace 
steps and walked around the house over the 
