A NEWPORT HOUSE AND GARDEN 
By Rose Standish Nichols 
r V a O some of us it is a new idea that in 
America there exists more than one 
kind of architecture with a right to be called 
Colonial. For Colonial architecture, espe¬ 
cially in New England, seems to mean almost 
exclusively the style of building brought here 
by our English ancestors and carFied to per¬ 
fection while George III. was still our ac¬ 
knowledged king. 
Contemporaneously, however, with the de¬ 
velopment of the English Renaissance on the 
Atlantic coast, Spanish Renaissance archi¬ 
tecture was becoming naturalized on the 
shores of the Pacific. In Arizona, New 
Mexico, Texas and California, it was estab¬ 
lished during the latter half of the eighteenth 
century, chiefly by the Jesuit, Franciscan and 
Dominican fathers who came as missionaries 
to portions of the Western continent, still 
wild and uninhabited except by Indians. 
Wherever these pious pioneers could obtain 
a foothold, they planted a mission and secured 
its existence by various groups of buildings. 
The earliest Spanish constructions on the 
Pacific coast thus consisted mainly of mission- 
houses. 
This Mexican-Spanish Mission architec¬ 
ture differed from that of Spam in accordance 
with the altered circumstances under which 
it was produced, while it retained many of 
the best Spanish characteristics. In the 
newly explored country many of the old- 
world resources were not available. There 
was no vast accumulation of wealth to lavish 
upon superfluous details, with the appearance 
of an entire indifference to expense, even if 
there had been architects capable of drawing 
elaborate plans or workmen skilled to execute 
their designs; nor was there the same variety 
of stone and of other building material as in 
Spain. But in spite of much necessary 
dissimilarity, we often recognize the same 
spirit in both styles of architecture, as ex¬ 
pressed in the studied freedom of contours 
and the simple treatment of masses. 
The mission buildings are always dis¬ 
tinguished by their dignity and frequently 
by tbeir beauty, notwithstanding the rudeness 
of their construction. No laborers were to 
be had except the half-wild Indians; they 
dried the rough bricks in the sun, and built 
them into walls; they made the coarse tiles 
THE MISSES mason’s HOUSE 
189 
