THE PORTABLE HOUSE 
By Livingston Wright 
/^NE of the most valuable devices for the aid of the 
colonies of summer tourists, camping parties, 
and lovers of outdoor life in general is the Portable 
House. Since this invention came in, you can carry 
your house along with you on your vacations. The 
carryable house is one of the most convenient, eco¬ 
nomical and necessary equipments of which the vast 
army of outdoor lovers can know. 
We have had, gradually, the accumulation of 
various indispensable contrivances for the conve¬ 
nience of the summer cottager and the camper and 
the traveller. For instance, an old hunter out in 
Michigan, burdened with his heavy pack, invented a 
small axe or toma¬ 
hawk that would 
fold into a protect¬ 
ing clip over the 
edge of the instru¬ 
ment and was light 
enough to be car¬ 
ried in the pocket. 
A military man de¬ 
vised a portable 
chair, a chair that 
would fold up and 
yet when spread 
open for use was 
as spacious and 
comfortable a 
lounging retreat as 
your finest Morris 
chair in the parlor. 
And so, the list 
might be extended to indefinite proportions. 
Singularly enough, we began our outdoor inven¬ 
tions by looking to the necessities we needed in or 
around the house or camp. It was only after we had 
attended to all this that we began to plan the house. 
Such is the history of invention—seeming to go by 
contraries. Your poet never can write what or 
when you expect him to and your inventor never can 
invent what or when you expect him to. 
Several firms in various parts of the country are 
now making portable houses. The practicability 
of transporting these houses and the prices at which 
they can be procured make them almost indispen¬ 
sable. Being made in sections, side, end, floor and 
roof pieces, your portable house can be loaded upon 
a large dray, and when your location is reached the 
entire contrivance can easily be set up in three 
hours. The house is not only attractive in appear¬ 
ance but the best part of it is that it is exceedingly 
staunch and stable. The thing is fastened together 
with bolts and hinges in such a way that a storm 
which would utterly demolish many a rude camp or 
cabin would not injure one of these portables in the 
least. For example, many city dwellers are using 
them upon the Maine coast where they have some 
terrific gales, yet the portable excels the ordinary 
dwelling-house of the natives in its “seaworthy” 
qualities. The fact is that being constructed on 
practically the principle of the modern steel sky¬ 
scraper style of building, as was found with the sky¬ 
scrapers in the San Francisco earthquake, a cata- 
clasm might bowl them over, roll them around, 
turn them upside down but it could not tear 
them apart! 
In the matter of 
expense — well, 
how many of us 
have picked out 
some lovely rural 
spot and longed 
for a camp there ? 
Yet when we began 
to inquire it was to 
be told that “lum¬ 
ber is high and la¬ 
bor is high and to 
get anything like 
you’d want’twould 
cost you four to 
five hundred dol¬ 
lars.” Then we 
would recall the 
fact that, much as 
we love the place, we would not perhaps care to 
camp on this particular spot forever, and what would 
we do with our house “’n things” when we wanted 
to leave ? For, understand that in many a country 
community it is not a safe thing to leave a summer 
house uncared for during the long winter. These 
houses often become the abode of tramps or else are 
apt to be set on fire by neighborhood boys. But 
with your portable—why, the thing don’t cost much, 
and if you want to go away why you just—take 
your house right to pieces and pack it up just 
as you do your trunk! You can store it in a 
nearby barn or shed or you can put it on a freight 
train and go back to the city with it! And the 
prices: Well, I will quote from one catalogue at 
random. 
One room, lox lo,—$ioo; two additional rooms, 
10 X 10 —$8o; one screened room, lox lO —i^8o; one 
side porch, awning top,—^30; one “L,” hinged 
roof—$35. Total—i^405. 
118 
