November, i 9 2 j 
61 
The residence of Dr. E. G. Cady, Southern Pines, N. C., is mainly a one-story structure with shingled 
walls and roof. The history of its plans, with Dr. Cady’s permission, is related in the text by the 
architect, Aymar Embury II 
THE NARROW MARGIN OF PROFIT 
0)ie Architect’s ^Experience in Which He Realized 
Exactly $3.6y for a Set of House Plans 
AYMAR EMBURY II 
P eople so often wonder what an archi¬ 
tect does with all the money he gets for 
the drawings for their houses that I am 
tempted to tell how much I made on the 
little house illustrated in this article. 
The owner came to me and asked me if I 
would make him a flat fee for designing a 
little winter cottage with just two bed¬ 
rooms and a living room, and a garage 
attached; his idea was that there would be 
no kitchen or servants’ quarters in the 
house, but he would take his meals in a 
nearby hotel. A house of this kind can 
be built in North Carolina for three or four 
thousand dollars and I told him a price of 
$500, which is outrageous if figured on a 
commission basis. 
I made some little sketches for the build¬ 
ing. Then he decided to add a kitchen and 
a man’s room and bath up¬ 
stairs, and to improve the 
quality of the house a little. 
I told him these changes 
would cost $150 additional 
so that my fee for making 
his drawings was $650. If 
anything I did my work 
more economically than in 
many jobs of this kind; no 
water color perspectives and 
no elaborate sketches were 
submitted, for my client 
understood these things cost 
more than the size of the 
job justified. The drawings 
were made in pencil on tracing paper; the 
specification was, of course, thorough, and 
full sized details for all molded or decorated 
parts of the building were furnished as well 
as for all windows and doors. 
An abstract from the books reads as follows: 
Dr. 
265 hours of time.$248.83 
265 hours of overhead. 397-5° 
^646.33 
Cr. 
Agreed amount.$500.00 
Extra. 150.00 
$6-^0.00 
In other words I made for about ten days 
of my own time $3.67, throwing in the idea. 
It is quite conceivable that had I had a 
more difficult client, who would have re¬ 
quired a great number of sketches, I might 
have spent twice as much time on the work 
as I actually did, but as it was, the job was 
about an average one in the amount of time 
spent in making changes, and the cost of 
the sketches was about the correct propor¬ 
tion for the cost of the house as a whole. 
The item of overhead is one which most 
people do not understand, but in the course 
of twenty-two years of architectural work I 
have found that the office expense approxi¬ 
mates $1.50 an hour for each hour of drafts¬ 
men’s time. 
It may be well to explain just what this 
overhead is: salaries of stenographers, office 
boy, janitor; telephone, heat, light, water, 
and ice; blue prints, office supplies and 
photographs; colored drawings made out¬ 
side the office by profes¬ 
sional renderers; insurance, 
taxes; draftsmen’s time 
for which no money is 
received. 
This last item may seem a 
surprising one but practi¬ 
cally every architect has a 
(Continued on pa^e 106 ) 
The middle of the house is 
occupied by a large living 
room with chambers on one 
side and service on the other. 
The plan is notable for sim¬ 
plicity and livable qualities 
