House & Garden 
A SUMMER HOME ON A FARM. 
By Rimer Grey. 
E VERY architectural structure is built to 
perform certain functions, to fulfill pur¬ 
poses of one sort or another; and the more 
nearly its design approximates the fulfillment 
of such purposes, or allows of the perform¬ 
ance ot such functions, the more successful 
as a building it will be. The house here 
illustrated was designed as a summer home 
to be located on a farm, and to be used as a 
farm headquarters 
tor a small family, 
and where, at times, 
city friends might 
be hospitably en¬ 
tertained. To these 
conditions of pur¬ 
pose much of the 
character of its de¬ 
sign is due; and it 
has been thought 
that it would inter¬ 
est the readers of 
H ouse and Gar¬ 
den to have briefly 
traced the connec¬ 
tion between such 
conditions and the 
principal features 
ol its architectural 
design. 
The main por¬ 
tion of the house, 
that portion de¬ 
signed for the use 
of the family alone, 
is, in its essential 
features, not much 
more than an ordi¬ 
nary farmhouse redeemed from the common¬ 
place by the use of stucco walls on the exterior, 
hand-split shingles on the roof, and a 
studied grouping of its masses and its door 
and window openings. On the first floor of 
this portion is a small entrance hall, a living- 
room, a bedroom, a bathroom and the kitchen 
with its adjoining service rooms. On the 
second floor are two bedrooms for family 
use, a bathroom, and the servants’ bedrooms. 
As this much of the house alone would 
not be adequate in its accommodations when 
guests were to be entertained, some scheme 
of enlargement was seen to be necessary. 
To this end a series of one-story bedrooms 
was planned separately from the main part 
of the house, and a large living-room, large 
enough to serve the purpose of living and 
dining-room combined for both family and 
guests was also added. The building is to 
stand on a wooded knoll overlooking the 
winding course of a river that is lined with 
overhanging willows and white birches, and 
is flanked by meadows and rolling fields 
where, in summer 
time, cattle are 
wont to graze; and 
in consequence of 
the fine view thus 
obtained one of the 
conditions imposed 
in the planning of 
the house was that 
the living-room be 
so placed that one 
might enjoy this 
view to the fullest 
extent from its win¬ 
dows and its veran¬ 
das. It was also 
required that the 
living-room be so 
located that it 
would catch the 
prevailing breezes 
during warm sum¬ 
mer days, and that 
they would be un¬ 
intercepted in their 
passage through it. 
It was to have as 
much view and as 
much air as it would 
be possible to procure. With this aim its 
position in the plan was fixed; and it will be 
seen that not only does it command the best 
view of the river and has free access to the 
open air on three sides, but that it is so 
arranged with regard to the main portion of 
the house and to the smaller living-room 
that service from the kitchen is equally 
convenient to both, that a common en¬ 
trance hall and stairway serves both equally 
well, and that the large living-room may be 
entirely closed off from the main portion of 
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