HOUSE AND GARDEN 
January, 
i 9 i i . 
ing too much to the vigilance of the archi¬ 
tect. He is only human, and also has much 
other work to do, and, as you are the most 
deeply interested person, it is to be ex¬ 
pected you should be the most watchful. 
Finally, insist that the stones be laid on 
their “natural bed,” that is to say, the 
strata lying horizontally, as usually found 
in the quarry. If you do not do this, you 
will rue the oversight when some of the 
stones begin to weather badly. 
The Real Meaning and Use of 
Architectural Detail 
(Continued from page 37) 
A form of applied decoration that is very 
common and extremely characteristic was 
the use of ornament in panels under a man¬ 
tel-shelf, either over pilasters or columns, 
or in a center panel in the frieze. This was 
made of papier-maclie, and a number of 
well-defined motives were in common use. 
In the narrow panel above a pilaster a vase 
or urn, either with or without flowers, was 
sometimes used — more often it was a sheaf 
of wheat or a pineapple. These two forms 
were especially popular with the Colonial 
builder. It is difficult to imagine why such 
a fruit as the pineapple, which must have 
been very rare in Colonial days, should 
have taken so prominent a place as a deco¬ 
rative motive, but it was to be found both 
in relief and as a free-standing ornament 
on gate posts in “broken" pediments, as in 
the Brown House at Salem, and even on 
the newel-posts of a stairway. This ex¬ 
ample at the Brown House is, so far as I 
know, unique in its realism. The pineapple 
was usually severely conventionalized, and 
usually had more the form of an acorn 
than of the real fruit. 
In the panels in the centre of a mantel 
there were many motives in use. The eagle 
was common, but often the decoration was 
in the form of a pastoral scene in rather 
low relief, and sometimes it was a bit of 
mythology. 
In the stairways the Colonial designer 
usually spread himself. The balusters were 
often turned in intricate twisted shapes, 
with several varieties used in the same 
stair, and the ends of the steps were deco¬ 
rated with a sort of bracket form which 
had great decorative value. 
In all these forms the designer was in¬ 
fluenced very strongly by the precedent of 
his surroundings, and one does not find 
originality, so much as a careful striving 
for refinement, in the use of the detail, and 
a fine sense of the fact that he was building 
in wood. As a result, both the moldings 
and the detail have a rather thin, attenu¬ 
ated character, which is most appropriate 
to the material. 
If one wishes to reproduce the character 
of a Colonial house, it is necessary to fol¬ 
low carefully the forms and motives which 
were actually used in the old work, and to 
stick very closely to precedent. I know of 
one architect, famous for his Colonial 
houses, who does not attempt to design his 
moldings, but who has a box of examples 
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