November, i 9 2 j 
53 
WHY ENGLISH COUNTRY HOUSES ARE ENGLISH 
T/ie Resu/f from Four Principal Factors which are 
Difficult to Reproduce Satisfactorily in America 
MATLACK PRICE 
A RCHITECTURE has about it a curi- 
-/Xously deceptive way of being the 
simplest thing in the world or the subtlest 
thing in the world. If you recognize that it 
is the second, it will reveal itself to you as 
the first. In other words, if you think that 
an architectural style, or another man’s 
house can be duplicated by merely copying 
the forms, architecture will forever elude 
you, as all arts elude the copyist. 
But if you think that architecture is a 
living thing, a creative essence, full of inflec¬ 
tions and instinct with the personal equation 
it will begin to do things for you, almost of 
itself. It will seem, sometimes, almost a 
vehicle of magic, expressing your innermost 
secret imagination in terms of form and 
color and texture. It will paint a picture in 
three dimensions, with the clear blue of the 
sky above, the living green of growing 
things, and the warm, friendly red of brick 
that no painter has ever been able to mix on 
his palette. 
Nonsense, says the materialist. Brick is 
brick and stone is stone, and if I could get 
hold of a set of Lutyens blue prints I would 
build me a house as picturesque as anything 
in England. 
But the thing is not so simple. The very 
intention of copying, even before the act, 
has driven away the true spirit of creative 
art, and foredoomed the copy to esthetic 
failure. 
It has seemed, no doubt, to a good many 
people that it should be a fairly easy trick 
to design and build a country house which 
would look just like the illustrations of 
English country houses. Casement win¬ 
dows, a few odd chimneys, picturesque 
A garden terrace in a vine-covered angle of an English country house in a manner thoroughly typical 
if English country architecture. The house is built of local stone and roofed with local tiles. It is 
Thackeray Turner's house at Godaiming, designed by himself fer his men occupancy 
