House £s? Garden 
A DAY AT NORTH COTE 
A HOUSE AND GARDEN IN NEW HAMPSHIRE 
I N leaving the Connecticut River and pen¬ 
etrating the hills of Western New H amp- 
shire, one is quickly in the midst of rural 
scenes and far from centers of feverish activity. 
Comfortable summer homes have come to 
lurk there in the copses of forest trees, but 
the countryside itself 
bears no marks of dis¬ 
figurement bv restless 
citizens. From the 
highway which runs 
under the brow of 
Dingleton Hill and 
then crosses Blow- 
me-Down Creek, a 
white cottage is seen 
rising above a hedge 
near the summit of a 
hillside. But little of 
the clapboard walls 
is visible, for their 
height is soon sur¬ 
mounted by a roof 
of dark red shingles. 
Several outbuildings 
of these same colors 
can be seen between 
clumps of verdure 
and above a wall of 
shrubbery which is grouped below the hedge 
extending around the hillside and enclosing 
the habitation. Beyond all, the summit of 
the hill rises to a bare outline against the 
sky, immediately behind the house, and, 
farther to the eastward, it meets the dark 
background of a 
primeval woodland. 
Arbor-vitae, maples 
and slender poplars 
appear within an all¬ 
enclosing bulwark of 
young thickly-set 
hemlocks. Occa¬ 
sional glimpses of a 
vine-clad arbor and 
orderly pairs of dark 
coniferous spires 
betray a design in 
the spaces between 
the buildings; and 
becaus e, perhaps, 
these furtive views 
refuse at a distance to 
explain themselves to 
passers-by on the 
road below, one is 
eager to ascend the 
steep hillside and 
THE architect’s FIRST PLAN 
241 
