460 
HOUSE AND GARDEN 
June, 1914 
do suitable outdoor rooms provide congenial surroundings and 
privacy in which to enjoy the home ties that concern only 
the immediate family, but they adapt themselves admirably 
to social functions of almost every sort, thereby lending variety 
and distinction to the home. 
While outdoor living-rooms 
differ greatly, all seem to be 
of two sorts. Either they are 
terraces, or its allied forms, 
whether an enclosed space 
between the wings of a house, 
or a terrace at the end of a 
porch or overlooking a gar¬ 
den, but not intimately con¬ 
nected with the house, or else 
they are secluded portions of 
the garden itself, generally 
screened by trees, hedges, lat¬ 
tice-work fences or walls, and 
usually formally treated, al¬ 
though an informal woodland 
glade also offers great attrac¬ 
tions. 
In any case, seclusion is 
the first requisite, and it is 
rarely to be had in front of 
the house, because most of 
the peeping eyes are to be 
found in the street. A garden 
or terrace back of the house 
is screened from this nuisance by the. house itself, especially 
when flanking wings give a E-shape to the ground plan. Thus 
that site commends itself most highly which provides a northerly 
street or entrance frontage and a southerly garden exposure back 
of the house. Greater difficulty attends the establishment of a 
secluded garden at the side of the house where both the street and 
the neighbors must be contended with. Happy indeed is he whose 
country estate is large enough to place his nearest neighbor 
at a suitable distance, so that a few trees, judiciously placed, cut 
off direct vision. 
A garden is most appreciated when it adjoins the living- 
room, dining-room or li¬ 
brary, from which it is ap¬ 
proached through glazed 
doors. Charming in its 
In place of the old, rustic summer-house garden nooks are made of lattice bowers to 
be covered with vines. White-painted wood is attractive if not given too much 
prominence 
intimacy when one steps from the house directly into the gar¬ 
den, there are many reasons to prefer an intervening piazza, 
or, better still, an open terrace after the English manner, com¬ 
manding the garden. An inexplicable charm attracts to out¬ 
door dining, yet, while the garden seems to be eminently well 
suited to the informalities 
of garden parties, afternoon 
teas or even luncheon, it 
does not meet the more se¬ 
vere service requirements of 
dinner. A brick- or stone- 
paved terrace outside the 
dining-room and overlooking 
the garden, however, is an 
ideal spot and convenient. 
Very often the living-room 
and dining-room are located 
on opposite sides of a central 
hall leading through the 
house, and the terrace 
stretches across all three, 
sometimes between project¬ 
ing wings; or again, a square 
terrace at one corner of the 
house may be bounded at 
one side by the living-room, 
and at the back by the dining¬ 
room, with glazed doors in 
each room opening upon it. 
When at the garden level 
the terrace requires no balustrades, although a low hedge of box 
will emphasize the line of transition. A path from the principal 
doorway of the house through the garden properly takes the axis- 
of the house for its course, leading through a break in the balus¬ 
trade in the case of a raised terrace, and down several steps to> 
the garden level. Of course, the constructive materials here must 
accord with those of the house. 
There are several ways to provide privacy when a portion 
of the garden itself is to be used as an outdoor room; notably, 
by means of walls, fences or lattices, hedges, shrubs, or a. 
combination of one or two of these with vines and flowering 
plants. A period of years 
is required to grow six- 
foot hedges of cedar. Nor¬ 
way spruce, privet, win- 
The Europeans use treillage much more than we. Here are two designs of good workmanship to be graced with vines. Such units may frame in a garden living- 
room. 1 he chairs and table in the center show possibilities for a corner in an informal garden. The material of these pieces is oak or cypress, treated to endure rain ancfi 
sun and weathering an attractive natural gray 
