16 
House & Garden 
try, to help the client choose the style of archi¬ 
tecture that most nearly approximates those 
conditions. Then he must make the design of 
the old-world house and modify it so that it 
conforms to the temperament and requirements 
of the modem American family and also make 
the design with due regard to the necessary 
changes of materials. 
Transplanting architecture from a foreign 
country to the United States is not so different 
from transplanting foreign plants. The plant 
has to be acclimated to the new soil and va¬ 
garies of temperature, but before many seasons 
it takes on an appearance quite different from 
what it was in its original location. So with 
transplanted houses. They will never look 
exactly like the original; we must be satisfied 
—and it is right that we should be satisfied— 
if we approximate the feeling of the original. 
When we speak, then, of an English cottage 
in America, we mean a cottage constructed 
along English lines and approximating the 
English feeling in American materials. 
An Elizabethan Design 
An example of transplanted architecture 
that successfully approximates the lines and 
feeling of a small English country house of 
Elizabethan sources is found in the home of 
Chapin S. Pratt, at Bronxville, N. Y., of 
which Bates & How were the architects. It 
produces, not something new, but something 
good in a spirit as old as domestic art. 
The house stands in a suburb, with other 
houses not far distant. In laying out the gar¬ 
den and situating the house on the lot it was 
desirable to make the most of the limited 
privacy. From the road, shielded by flower¬ 
ing shrubs, a stone-flagged path leads between 
grass lawns to the terrace where the main 
entrance is situated. Another terrace is in the 
rear of the house, off the living room. Along 
the axis of this rear terrace a flagged path 
brings one to a formal garden laid out around 
a central sundial. The end of the path termi¬ 
nates in a simple pergola with a background 
of trees and shrubs. On the right of this, and 
in view of the sun porch, is a formal rose 
The gardens are to be laid out behind the 
house—a formal grouping on the axis of the 
living room terrace and terminating in a per¬ 
gola, with a rose garden on one side and a 
hedged space and rock garden on the other 
A house of this character should be visualized 
with its planting all in place. The walls need 
vines and the foundations some shrubbery. 
Border plantings will help tie the house to its 
site and give color to the completed picture 
Some of the Elizabethan 
simplicity of the exterior 
has crept through the 
walls. The hallway is 
generously proportioned, 
with a simple broad 
stairway of characteristic 
Elizabethan details. The 
floors are 5 " oak planking 
and the walls of rough 
hand finished plaster 
Hepc,e. 
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