“ El Fureidis" 
(C 
signed formal 
gardens pro¬ 
duced u nder 
conditions sim¬ 
ilar to those 
obtaining in 
California. At 
Tivoli, the 
Mecca enshrin¬ 
ing that Kaaba 
of the formalist 
in landscape 
architecture— 
the Villa 
d’Este, water is, 
if such a thing 
be possible, 
perhaps too 
plentiful ; and 
the Anio tears 
over its cliffs 
and through its 
caverns with 
such frightful 
force as to warrant destruction to any arti¬ 
ficial boundaries, no matter how carefully 
constructed, were its whole volume made to 
pour through them. At Shiraz, in Persia, 
on the other hand, water is valued at so 
much, precisely as in California ; even at 
the magnificent Bagh i Takht, or Garden 
of the Throne, crown property though it is, 
the tiny jets rise only on one day of the 
week. "Phis condition of things has brought 
about a most in¬ 
genious economy, 
and still pools, in 
which every blos¬ 
som and bit of 
foliage is reflect¬ 
ed, take the place 
of the white foam 
and ripples of 
T ivoli and Fras¬ 
cati. So the Gar- 
dens of “El 
Fureidis ” are not 
wholly I talian. 
The house and 
the architectural 
detail generally is 
Greek, not the 
Greek of the Ger¬ 
'I'HE PATIO OF THE HOUSE 
EL FUREIDIS 
TERMINAL STEPS 
embracing a fountain at the end of an avenue leading from the reservoir 
man technical 
books but more 
like what we 
are now-a-days 
privileged to 
think that of an 
Hellenic farm¬ 
stead may have 
been. Yet be¬ 
neath this detail 
and spirit, the 
Oriental basic 
form is con¬ 
stantly appar¬ 
ent. At the 
lower end of the 
main axis, for 
instance, stands 
a little garden 
house consist¬ 
ing of two cub¬ 
icles separated 
by an Ionic 
portico, the 
whole structure raised on a high basement, 
the better to view the long pools, the flights 
of steps and the terraces above which rises 
the villa itself. This effect of this little 
garden-house is Greek, yet it is precisely the 
form most commonly employed in Persia; 
the gate-house of the Bagh i Takht being its 
model, as well as the main pavilion of the 
Chehail-Zitun at Ispahan, and that build¬ 
ing in whose shadow Hafiz lies buried. 
Throughout 
the whole estate 
the same com¬ 
mingling and har¬ 
monizing of ori¬ 
ental and occi¬ 
dental forms and 
principles has 
been held con¬ 
stantly in mind. 
Running along 
the southern fa- 
9ade of the house 
is a terrace occu¬ 
pied almost en¬ 
tirely by a long 
rectangular pool, 
a purely Persian 
device; and 
102 
