24 
House & Garden 
MAINLY ABOUT BUILDING 
B UILDING a house is as distinct a period in a man’s life as his 
youth or old age. It has its own peculiar manifestations and 
psychology; its beginning, its middle and its end; its enthusiasms and 
rewards and disappointments and unexpected compensations. 
The first manifestation is a keen interest in pictures of houses. The 
second is an awakening curiosity about the physical side of building— 
the whys and wherefores of brick and stone and beams of flooring. 
Then comes a consultation with the pocket-book, and a visit to an 
architect. When a man reaches the architect stage he is pretty well 
cn the road to a lasting enthusiasm about a house. 
This desire to build is dormant in most of us. A host of people 
let it remain dormant. The course of their lives or the size of their 
purse prevents the dream being crystallized in the actual substances of 
building materials. There are others in whom the desire to build a 
home burns so ardently that no obstacle can prevent its consummation. 
They go about it as one searching for a great romance. And to many 
of them it is a great romance—one of the greatest romances of their 
lives. 
T HE other day I went into a house builder’s library. It was the 
strangest sort of library imaginable, because it contained scarcely 
any books. Walls and shelves and floor space were occupied with all 
manner of things that go into the construction and architectural en¬ 
richment of a house. There were sections of slate roofs, sections of 
flooring, varieties of windows and doors with all the latest devices 
for raising and lowering them, carpets of pretty tiles in varied hues, 
cases of hardware from the smallest screw to big, hand-wrought 
hinges for Colonial doors. In one room the shelves were filled with 
nothing but small slabs of marble; you couldn’t believe that there 
were so many kinds and shades of marble until you saw this room. 
In another was a perfect bathroom with all the latest appliances. A 
third room contained wall paneling of various sorts and periods and 
finishes. A fourth showed decorative window glass and weather vanes. 
Down in the cellar were new kinds of heaters and water filters and 
kitchen equipments. 
It was a marvelous place, a place rich in suggestion for the pros¬ 
pective builder. I only wish that the men and women who plan to 
build this fall could spend an hour there. They could work with 
their architects so much more intelligently. Perhaps they could even 
give their architects suggestions—for architects are not omniscient. 
Of course, it is manifestly impossible for all of them to see this 
library, but I was wondering why it wasn’t possible for them to have 
the next best thing—a library of cata¬ 
logs. 
In no country under the sun do the 
manufacturers provide such elaborate 
and beautiful catalogs as in America. 
Huge fortunes are spent each year in 
producing these booklets and price lists. 
Colored illustrations are made without 
counting the cost. It would seem that 
the whole body of American manufac¬ 
turers were intent on showing the ordi¬ 
nary man in the street the beauties and 
possibilities of their products. These 
booklets are not alone descriptive of one 
ware; they cover the entire field. For 
example, on my desk at this moment 
is a series of booklets showing the 
values of a certain kind of wood. Very 
little is said about this wood, but a 
great deal is said about architecture. 
It required the study and skill of sev¬ 
eral authorities to produce these book¬ 
lets. The average man reading them 
will acquire a valuable working knowl¬ 
edge of Colonial architecture. Another 
catalog is on mantels. It contains the 
whole history of mantels, from the earli¬ 
est times to the present. Then it shows 
the types available from this certain 
manufacturer’s stock. 
Education of this sort is invaluable. 
It gives the prospective home builder a 
definite idea of the sorts of things he 
wants in his house, and the reasons why 
he wants them. Time was when such 
matters were left to the architect and the client had to accept his 
choice. Today the reading public of America has a quickened and 
growing appreciation of architectural detail and construction. We 
shall reap the benefit of this in houses that are building today and 
that men plan for the future. 
S PEAKING of a builder’s library reminds me that I have just 
finished editing a book that should be of interest to those who 
plan to start their homes this fall. Ever since the armistice was 
signed the Information Service has been flooded with inquiries for a 
book or books showing photographs and plans of small and large 
houses, architectural details, garages, etc. There were many books on 
parts of this subject but none that covered it completely. So I set to 
work and gathered from the pages of House & Garden a volume that 
would serve this need. 
It contains in all about three hundred and ten illustrations. Fifty- 
odd houses with their plans are shown, ranging in size from the 
California bungalow to the large English country house. The work 
represents all types of American environments and is from the hands 
of the best architects in all parts of the country. 
Perhaps in a few months I can find time to gather a book about 
interior decorating and one on gardening. So much valuable material 
is published in the pages of this magazine that it seems a pity for it 
to be scattered and lost. Some readers may not prefer to have their 
issues bound into permanent form. These books will give the meat 
of the respective subjects. They will tell the story in picture form. 
Reading matter will be reduced to captions and a short foreword. 
Illustrations tell the story quicker than could many pages of text. . . . 
However, only one of them is finished— House & Garden’s Book of 
Houses. It is ready now for distribution. 
I N one of his descriptions of New York, Henry James comments on 
the fact that there is only one building on Fifth Avenue that is 
sitting down—the Public Library. As you will recall, this is a low- 
lying structure, whereas all the office buildings that surround it are 
tall—standing up, as James put it. The buildings that sit down give 
an air of restfulness. Houses should sit down. Let them sprawl 
where they will over the ground, but don't let them stand up. 
There are reasons for this—their lines are more restful to the eye 
and there are fewer stairs to climb. We have not yet conquered the 
problem of the stair, despite elevators. We have not yet found rest¬ 
fulness in vertical lines, despite the marvels of construction and the 
daring architecture to be found in our 
tall buildings. It is only reasonable 
that we who work in buildings that 
stand up should play and rest in build¬ 
ings that sit down and sprawl over the 
ground. 
The roof line, then, is one of the most 
important problems to consider when 
you come to build a house. Let the 
skyline of your house conform with the 
skyline of nature—the restful, low-ly¬ 
ing slopes and curves of the far horizon, 
with chimneys for the jagged hills, and 
varied facades such as the farmer 
makes on his meadows with plots of 
wheat and soft green corn. 
People somehow do not understand 
this. Numbers of them select a house 
for its architectural design alone, for¬ 
getting that they have to live in it. 
Whereas life comes first and design 
afterward. Properly chosen, the design 
should typify the sort of people who 
live in the house—the man who comes 
there after the day’s work, the woman 
who awaits him and the children about 
her. And their life will be such, in 
turn, as the environment creates. To 
be beneficial it should spring naturally 
from the soil. 
Thus Nature is the real designer. 
The architect only interprets and adapts 
her motifs, reproducing with brick and 
shingle and tile the environment she 
creates. 
THE NIGHT COMETH 
My garden paths were smooth and green 
With iris nodding left and right, 
The old gray sun-dial stood between 
Two mounded bee-hives low and white. 
My hollyhocks grew tall and red, 
My larkspur thrust its lances high; 
“The Night Cometh,” the sun-dial said, 
And I hated its wisdom and hurried by. 
* * * * 
I watch the sun-dial as 1 wait 
And hope to see its slow hand fly. 
The ancient poplars at the gate 
Are funeral torches flaring high. 
The scent of wallflowers breaks my heart, 
The box is bitter in the sun, 
The poppies burst their sheaths apart 
And tell of rest when pain is done. 
The hawthorn shakes a ghostly head 
And breathes of death at fullest noon. 
“The Night Cometh,” the sun-dial said: 
The night can never come too soon. 
Oh, Sun-dial, hurry your creeping hand, 
Let the shadows fall where the brown bees hum. 
I watch and wait where the low hives stand — 
Let the night come, let the night come! 
—Aline Kilmer. 
