House and Garden 
covers in stepping through a hedge or 
thicket into regions where the real work ol 
the place is done. Here are usually hot¬ 
beds, propagating cellars, wagon sheds and 
stables, manure pits and the rubbish heaps 
hospitable to all the wreckage of the estate. 
Such a hedge is likely to extend from the 
kitchen or service wing ol the house. It 
encloses a privacy which is content with 
ugliness only because its unpleasing scenes 
are viewed from the kitchen. 
That these buildings can be made objects 
of beauty and also an attraction ol the estate, 
is shown by the accompanying illustrations 
of a system of greenhouses designed by 
Messrs. Frank Miles Day & Brother for the 
which is in the least attractive. By sur¬ 
rounding the greenhouses with walls, she 
suggested that they could be made very 
picturesque and beautiful, and these walls, 
she urged, would give fine opportunities 
for climbing plants or espaliered fruit trees. 
Both the architects of the present work 
and their clients were quick to see the value 
ol the suggestion, and accordingly the green¬ 
houses at Villanova were enclosed upon three 
sides by brick walls. There is enough space 
between the glass and the walls to give ample 
light and air, so that plants may thrive 
within while the observer without is spared 
the view of a sea of glass fiercelv flashing the 
sunlight. The main body of the structure is 
THE GREENHOUSES FROM THE SOUTH 
estate of Samuel T. Bodine, Esq., at Villa- 
nova, Penna. Here is an ingenious grouping 
of not only the greenhouses themselves, but 
of all their accompaniments, including the 
horses and teams engaged upon the garden 
work. All of this is enclosed within dis¬ 
tinctly defined boundaries to which are added 
details of a charming architectural character. 
The idea sprung, it has been learned, from a 
remark which Miss Jekyll has made in one of 
her books. It applied to her own country, 
England, but the reader realizes at once its 
pertinence to America. There is no reason, 
was the burden of her thought, why green¬ 
houses should be the unsightly objects they 
usually are. There is nothing in the aspect 
of those built according to stock designs 
occupied by the greenhouses proper. 1'hese 
have not yet been completed according to 
the architects’ scheme ; the open lines reach¬ 
ing toward the upper part of the plan on 
page 89 show their ultimate extension. 
Along the southwest side, and forming a 
decidedly ornamental facade to the build¬ 
ing, is an open colonnade connecting two 
delightful garden houses. These are built of 
coarse brickwork which is ornamented by 
suitably simple and bold details in stone and 
wood. 
Immediately back of the colonnade is the 
fern house, originally located here because of 
the northern exposure. It is impossible to 
foresee, in designing, however, all the condi¬ 
tions which influence the eventual arrange- 
9 1 
