The City House and What Can Be Done With It 
IT IS A DIFFICULT THING TO MAKE A REAL HOME OUT OF A READY-MADE 
HOUSE IN A BLOCK, BUT IT CAN BE DONE BY STARTING EARLY ENOUGH 
M ANY who love the 
country, who appre¬ 
ciate space and light and air, 
who prefer a house with 
grounds and all the little 
touches which make a coun¬ 
try house a country house, 
are, unfortunately, unable to 
have what they want. Per¬ 
sonal circumstances, questions 
of business, of time, of 
money, keep them huddled 
among their kind. The re¬ 
sult is that ugliest perver¬ 
sion of the noble art of archi¬ 
tecture, the city house; row 
after row of it, each nudging 
its neighbor, cramped, small, 
lighted only at either end, 
almost groundless, and, in 
spite of all this, expensive. 
Looking at some of the 
abortions designed and built 
in the past, it seems as if the 
responsible party had taken 
the plunge with his eyes shut. 
Compelled to get away from 
the conditions in which he was wont to work, and where every 
angle of view had to be beautiful before the whole could be con¬ 
sidered good, the city house architect lost all sight of the possi¬ 
bilities in endeavoring to satisfy the necessities, and the result 
has been perpetuated by countless imitations. Ihe average city 
house, of moderate price, now resembles an overgrown coffin 
with portholes, and is about as lovely as a subway, its only beauty 
being that of utility, and it not infrequently lacks that! 
This is all wrong, and, more than that, unnecessary. Now, 
just a minute. I can fairly hear someone say: 
“But we have to buy our houses as 
they are put up for us. We haven’t the 
money to buy ground and authorize a 
builder to put us up a single individual 
house. We must patronize those real 
estate operators who are willing to put 
up the money—and the houses—for us, 
and pay them according to our purses.” 
All very true in many cases. But 
there is a loophole, a way out, for him 
who knows the ropes. Selling expense. 
Every real estate operator counts on so 
much for ground, so much for labor, so 
much for material, so much for finish, 
so much for money accommodation, so 
much for insurance, and so much for 
selling or overhead expense, in figuring 
the cost and selling price of his houses. 
Included in the selling expense is the 
cost of running his office, of advertising, 
of maintaining a force of salesmen, of 
trips to the house with a dozen “pros¬ 
pects” before it is sold, of photographs 
and booklets and all the incidental ex¬ 
penses connected with closing 
a deal. If he can eliminate 
all of this, he is mighty glad 
to do it, and, like anyone else, 
willing to pay something to 
save something more. Conse¬ 
quently, almost any operator 
or builder is more than glad 
to sell a house before it is 
built, and to accomplish this, 
is willing to make certain 
changes and alterations in his 
plans to clinch the sale. At 
the same time, he is perfectly 
willing to make still more 
changes and additions or sub¬ 
tractions for a consideration. 
If, therefore, you must 
live in a city house, and would 
include in it something of 
beauty, of use and of individ¬ 
uality, which will make it 
different from others, and bet¬ 
ter suited to yourself, watch 
the market, ask leading firms 
for advance information of 
when and where they pro¬ 
pose to build, telling why you wish to know, and you will soon 
get the opportunity to buy a city house from the plans, and to 
change the plans. I did it, so I know. 
“But, ’ you may ask, “what can I do, having the opportunity? 
Years of experience have taught builders how to build such 
houses and waste the least space. Flow can I expect to improve 
their work without great additional expense?” 
Listen! Builders and operators want to construct as inex¬ 
pensively as possible, and sell for as high a price as possible. 
I hats business. Therefore the little things that make a house 
a home are frequently eliminated. You 
can have them put back. Windows cost 
more than walls, hence, windows are 
made smaller; sometimes one is taken 
away from a room which should have 
two or three; you can have it put back. 
Radiators which are tall and narrow are 
cheaper than those which go beneath 
windows; you can insist on the low kind. 
Fireplaces are all too often bluffs; you 
can have a real one. Built-in bookcases 
are rare; you can have them. Ingle- 
nooks are seldom thought of; you can 
ask for one. Coal-bins are usually put 
where they are easiest to make, not 
where most convenient; you can alter 
that. Attics have given way to low air 
chambers; it costs but little to run them 
high enough to floor and make the stor¬ 
age-room which is heaven’s blessing to 
the average householder, who seems de¬ 
scended from a race of junk collectors! 
Mantelpieces are all too often stucco on 
wood, and with lines which would shame 
by C. H. Claudy 
Photographs by the author 
The result of my work was not a thing of beauty, but it had many 
advantages over the ordinary house-in-a-block built for sale 
At the foot of the stairs we had built a 
’phone seat and extra book shelves 
( 154 ) 
