HOUSE AND GARDEN 
A summer home at Glencoe, Ill., that is another illustration of the 
striking way in which these Western homes fit naturally to the 
ground. Richard E. Schmidt, Garden & Martin, architects 
part out-of-doors. If the property be located on a street in close 
contact with others, privacy will be sought, along with a certain 
formality consistent with the straight lines of the street and of 
the property. If the estate be large, privacy will be achieved by 
setting the living spaces both of ground and house back from 
the public highways. If the ground be susceptible to easy ar¬ 
rangement a measurable formality will still be desirable, for a 
house is but the background for human life, and to reclaim the 
A house in Oak Park, Ill., built of brick with limestone trimmings, 
where the straight lines harmonize with those of the street. Spen¬ 
cer & Powers, architects 
ground from the wild will be the first necessity to prepare it for 
habitation. If the ground be rough and intractable the archi¬ 
tectural development will be less formal, less rigid, for the essence 
of good design is that each part shall harmonize with every other 
part, and the house is but a part of the home, a part of the 
picture. 
A formal Colonial house perched upon the ragged rocks of 
the Maine coast is unsuited, in spite of the efforts of the Col¬ 
onial builders to put them there, for the spirit of the house and 
of its setting are antagonistic. Contrast is a necessary quality in 
artistic composition, but its complement is harmony. Contrast 
and opposition are different words. 
An appreciation of the “style” of the landscape is the first 
essential in determining the style of your house, and this style 
cannot be changed, for no matter how thoroughly you transform 
the garden and immediate surroundings to conform to the se¬ 
lected house style, there will still be a hedge over which you wall 
look into the unalterable face of Nature as she is around you. 
The house must grow out of the ground as naturally as the 
trees. The very color of the air has a bearing on the style, par¬ 
ticularly as to color. The bright hot colors suitable to the 
tropics are a pain to the eye in the gray-blue air of New England 
or Illinois and when the snows of winter spread a cold white 
background they are unbearable. 
It is as impossible to give a signed and sealed prescription 
for the selection of a style for an American house as it is for 
the style of a portrait. A rough and rugged man must be painted 
in a different way from a frail and delicate girl, and the circum¬ 
stances governing each house may change its character as 
widely. The site, the relative importance of the house, and the 
individuality of its occupants are potent factors in the determina¬ 
tion of its style. Dignity, elegance, picturesqueness, simplicity 
and homeliness are not determining factors of style but merely 
attributes. Kinds, quality and availability of materials are details 
in the technique of architecture — not determining factors of style. 
The illustrations shown are examples of houses having the 
elusive quality called “style,” without being necessarily recogniz¬ 
able as essays in any of the historic styles. They show some of 
An enclosed porch that shows a free outdoor treatment, independent 
of precedent. Pond & Pond, architects 
Even in the detail Mr. Wright strongly emphasizes his horizontal 
lines throughout 
