54 
House 
Garden 
FURNISHING THE SUMMER 
cr 
FARMHOUSE 
The Marriage of Town Comfort and Rural Simplicity 
Makes for Ideal Interiors 
WEYMER MILLS 
T HE man who acquires an old 
farmhouse in New England or 
almost anywhere in America as a retreat 
from summer heat usually feels that it 
should look as it did under the rule of 
its first inhabitant. If the house is pre- 
Revolutionary, wfith an imposing quality 
of the American manor house, its new oc¬ 
cupant longs for the fine flower of Ameri¬ 
can antiques, Queen Anne maple furni¬ 
ture, Willard clocks, the glassware of 
Baron Stiegel, and perhaps the priceless 
silver of Paul Revere; if it is just a 
simple, picturesque shanty of uncertain 
date, a few rickety Windsor chairs are 
the first feature of a miniature galaxy of 
Colonial discomforts. At any cost of 
money or time the new possession must 
have the proper “atmosphere”. The 
“atmosphere” that is sold in the astute 
decorator’s shop. 
Did those dear, delightful ancestors 
of ours, whose names we seldom remem¬ 
ber and whose head-stones w T e have never 
seen, really live in a state of stiff-backed, 
stiff-necked misery, with no antidote but 
an engulfing feather bed, or a bottle of 
three-voyaged Canary? This is the 
question that one could ask one’s self on 
entering most old farmhouses recently ac¬ 
quired and newly furnished. 
Early American Truths 
The average American country cottage 
of a century or so ago was 
a very distant cousin of a 
yeoman’s home in the 
mother country. In Eng¬ 
land no home was ever 
too remote for the cries of 
London not to make an 
echo on the King’s High¬ 
way and creep in a front 
or back door, but I ven¬ 
ture to say few ancient 
bumpkins of our Colonial 
period ever saw a gentle¬ 
man in powdered wig, 
■ever heard of Chippen¬ 
dale, ever coached it to 
New York, in fact scarcely 
thought of anything much, 
■during their allotted dec¬ 
ades, but the weather and 
its effect upon the soil’s 
fruition. Yet like men of 
better parts they must have 
sought their little oils for 
daily living, they crept as 
near town modes and town 
luxuries as its harvests 
made possible. 
It is this blending of 
town and country that makes a country 
house livable. A marriage of town com¬ 
fort and farmhouse simplicity usually 
produces ideal interiors. 
How shall I furnish the cottage? This 
is the plaint of these early spring days 
when even the birds have begun a cam¬ 
paign for summer lodgings. The an¬ 
swer of the wiseacre is: select a few 
things you are fondest of in the town 
house and pack them in a May day van 
for the country house. They would bring 
a welcome to the welcome awaiting one 
there, a surety of peace in familiar sur¬ 
roundings. There would be no mutter¬ 
ing at quickly gathered strange gods. 
Household Gods 
The sense of home engendered by daily 
contact with loved and lovely objects that 
have become almost the shadow of one’s 
self should never leave one. The mere 
mental picture of such a dusty van creep¬ 
ing to its destination brings contentment. 
The favorite chair, the old oak chest of 
drawers famed for its sunk panels and 
arcaded stand, known as one’s sacred 
repository, the Lancashire Georgian settle 
with its soft down bolster, the great fea¬ 
ture of the hall in town, the hook rug 
with its Nankin blue vase of pink and 
white roses on a cream and purple 
ground, which cost a fortune at a New 
York sale—the favorite lares et penates. 
They are coming with one, 
and they can go back at 
the end of the summer— 
if one goes back! In 
Spring such a fate does 
not seem possible to the 
real country lover. 
As the movers unpack 
the van the new house¬ 
holder can stroll in his 
garden knowing that noth¬ 
ing can impede the flow of 
those waters of Juventius. 
On the face the windy 
garden freshness dissolves 
all memory of hot streets 
and the grim contrarieties 
of marts. Nothing to 
worry about! A new world 
outside for god-like exer¬ 
tions, and inside by the 
candle light, only rest,— 
the strange contentment 
that comes from inanimate 
things, those lutes that 
play and yet are silent. 
No matter how many 
town houses or apart¬ 
ments one has had or 
Harting 
As there would seem never to be enough flowers in the 
cottage garden, hang pictures of long-vanished flowers on 
the walls. Here panels of old Japanese chrysanthemums 
in brilliant reds and yellows are in a farmhouse hallway 
Well-born pieces of furniture, like well-born people, usually agree in assemblage. They 
give a peaceful impression at least. In this simple cottage dining room the straight legged 
Sheraton type table does not disparage the fatter legs of the Queen Anne chairs. The 
walls are cream in this room, the woodwork ivory and the curtains a rich yellow bound 
with blue fringe 
