October, 19 21 
27 
GAR. DEN ROOMS IN CITY HOUSES 
If One Cannot Live Out-of-Doors, the Next Best Thing 
Is a Garden Room 
MARGARET McELROY 
Mattie Edwards Hewitt 
In this sun-swept garden room, the rough plaster walls, cool green 
tiled floor and wide windows filled with growing plants preserve the 
feeling of the out-of-doors 
I T is a curious fact that prac¬ 
tically all the* thought and in¬ 
genuity in the past have been 
spent in developing either the house 
or garden and only comparatively 
recently has attention been given to 
these subjects in connection with 
each other—the room in relation to 
the garden. This is especially true 
of this country that has lived so 
long indoors and is only now awak¬ 
ening to all the possibilities of a 
garden. Abroad it is an old story 
and much could be learned from 
the garden rooms of France, Italy 
and above all Spain—rooms of 
sunlight and shadow and sweet with 
the fragrance of old-world gardens. 
More and more we are coming to 
realize that every house should be 
planned with a room of this kind, a 
room the raison d’etre of which is 
the surrounding garden or terrace. 
We have reveled in living out-of- 
doors, have seen the possibilities 
and charm of a well-furnished 
porch; we have successfully brought 
the garden into the house and today 
there is scarcely a home that does not 
boast a room with the feeling of a 
garden—one made gay with shrubs 
and climbing plants and perhaps a 
tiny splashing fountain to suggest 
the out-of-doors. These things 
have come to stay because no matter 
how exquisitely a house is fur¬ 
nished, how perfect and harmo¬ 
nious in detail, it cannot hold us 
when there is a garden to go into. 
So architects, realizing this need, 
are concentrating on a successful combination 
of the garden and the house with the result of 
a series of perfectly delightful rooms whose 
interest first and last lies in the fact that they 
are adjacent to a garden. 
Discarding the Old Backyard 
Some of the most interesting building in 
New York City recently has been the remodel¬ 
ing of old houses into more comfortable and 
attractive ones, and in every case the architect 
has been concerned almost as much with the 
outside as with the house proper. So what were 
formerly drab backyards, notable for a certain 
distinctive monotony, have been transformed 
into tiny gardens of individuality and charm, 
gay with colorful flower beds or decorative with 
a more formal planting. In each one of these 
communities an effort has been made to create 
some kind of a garden to complement the 
house, to make ever} 7 living bit of green count 
for something. In some cases persons occupy¬ 
ing an entire block have thrown together their 
backyards and by the placing of shrubs, trees 
and vines, stone paths with here and there an 
interesting fountain and walls crowned with 
pots of trailing ivy, have achieved the effect of 
an old Spanish or Italian garden. 
After having accomplished a garden in the 
midst of the city, the next step was to tie it up 
with the house. Formerly, all the “best” rooms 
proudly faced the street, leaving no one to enjoy 
the other side but the cook. With the acquisi¬ 
tion of a garden, however, the house immedi¬ 
ately turned its back on the street and in all 
the remodeled houses the dining room, draw¬ 
ing room and master’s bedroom face the bit of 
green in the back with the kitchen, laundry and 
maids’ rooms on the street side. All these 
changes developed a new type of room that 
soon began to claim the attention of architects, 
and decorators-—the garden room. 
In a house in New York that has not only 
the advantage of a charming garden but a view 
of the East river as well, the dining room has 
been made into a perfectly delightful garden 
room. The entire end consists of a low, broad 
span of casement windows and a 
quaint glass door opening into the 
garden; on the walls is a scenic 
paper of shadowy gray-green trees 
that catch the sunlight and carry 
out the feeling of the out-of-doors; 
the furniture is simple and dark 
and through the windows and door, 
which are uncurtained, one sees a 
winding path of uneven flagstones 
shaded by drooping willows, a low 
wall overhung with honeysuckle 
and, dominating all, the spidery 
outline of a great bridge. 
Garden Breakfast Rooms 
In our climate it is not always 
possible to eat out-of-doors but it 
is feasible to have a little breakfast 
room so arranged in relation to the 
surrounding garden that the effect 
is practically the same. The first 
thing to do is to put in wide win¬ 
dows and doors with perhaps a bay 
window filled with growing plants. 
Use only the filmiest of glass cur¬ 
tains, if any, as the object is to 
bring the garden inside, not shut it 
out by heavy draperies. If it opens 
onto a brick terrace, let the floor be 
of brick, too, the walls rough plas¬ 
ter broken by wrought-iron brackets 
filled with ivy, and paint the 
furniture a soft leaf green. The 
china should have a design of bril¬ 
liantly colored flowers, and use 
linen the same deep cream color as 
the plaster walls. It would be easy 
to breakfast in this room, sur¬ 
rounded by and part of the beauty of the 
sunny garden outside. 
All city houses, however, are not blessed 
with gardens, but this does not mean one can¬ 
not have a garden room. There is often an 
extension that provides a roof which can be 
turned into a delightful spot of green around 
which one can evolve a garden room. One 
house of this kind had a rear room that had 
long been used as a general store room with 
the roof behind an absolute waste space. The 
clever owner, being forced to stay in town dur¬ 
ing the hot months, set about transforming the 
room and making a garden on the tiny roof. 
First a wide door was cut through, connecting 
the two. On both sides of the roof were placed 
high green lattices topped by urns filled with 
daisies and trailing plants. Fortunately the 
house was red brick, which makes a pleasing 
background, and at the farther end an old 
Spanish iron grill was used, also surmounted 
by pots of ivy. Plants were everywhere, boxes 
of orange-red tulips making a splash of color. 
(Continued on page 68) 
