142 
House & Garden 
Personal Message 
Calls for Kunderd Gladioli this year have so exceeded 
anticipations that I urge old friends—and new—to send 
requests at once! Stocks of many of the greatly de¬ 
sired new kinds are already low. I don’t want any 
admirer of Kunderd Gladioli to be disappointed this 
year. Write me immediately —while I can help you! —A. E. K. 
Now for the joyous planting days! 
Are you ready for that first wonderful moment of spring when 
the thrills of garden making begin? I know what it means 
to me; I realize what it must mean to you if your Kunderd 
ruffled, plain-petal or primulinus gladioli are ready for Mother 
Earth's signal! 
Kunderd ruffled type Gladioli have re-created world-wide 
interest in this charming flower. Kunderd plain-petal type have 
kept step in color and perfection with the ruffled kinds, for 
Mrs. Dr. Norton, Paramount and Mrs. Frank Pendleton stand 
absolutely unrivaled ! And, no other strains of primulinus hybrids 
even resemble the new Kunderd family, which is a sensation 
in exquisite butterfly and orchid-like forms. 
My enthusiasm is so keen for all three kinds; my joy in 
having them bloom gorgeously in your garden is so great, that 
I say again— Please send quickly for my new catalog (describing 
nearly 400 varieties, with 28 in color), and get off your order 
as soon as you get it; or, if you have already received the catalog, 
don’t delay an unnecessary moment! My personal cultural 
instructions and Special Collection offers are printed in the 
catalog, which is actually a Gladioli Handbook. 
A. E. KUNDERD, Box 2, Goshen, Ind., U. S. A. 
The Originator of The Ruffled Gladiolus 
Relating the House to Its Site 
(Continued from page 140 ) 
The site at the head of page 74 sup¬ 
poses a broad sweeping moorland, devoid 
of trees, and with most of its natural 
lines horizontal. The conformation of 
this site obviously suggests the long, 
rambling type of house, picturesque 
and romantic in its character, and built 
with intent to look as though it pos¬ 
sessed a considerable age, and had 
belonged for many generations on its 
site. The extremities of its mass are 
brought down toward the ground with 
intent to harmonize the profile with 
the sweeping lines of the countryside, 
a device also aided by the wall of the 
enclosed garden. A walled garden, 
whether for flowers or vegetables, is 
almost a necessity for a house on any 
site of this type, because it provides 
a definite area for garden treatment, 
and gives the effect of shutting out the 
surrounding stretches of barren coun¬ 
try. The house indicated in the sketch 
is a house of considerable size; its 
character, for a moorland site, would 
be the same if it were much smaller. 
AN ORCHARD SITE 
Two sites of a very different charac¬ 
ter are now considered. The first sup¬ 
poses an old orchard on a tract which 
was once a farm. The very earth 
underfoot seems old and cultivated, and 
the only house which seems at home in 
such an environment is a house of the 
kind that might have been built by the 
early settlers who planted the orchard.- 
The governing point veers at once from 
profile, a consideration primarily aes¬ 
thetic, to style, a consideration primarily 
historical. The site, possessing no salient 
topographical features, suggests no 
specially studied roof-line: the problem 
becomes rather one of historic relation¬ 
ship to site than of physical relation¬ 
ship. The profile illustrated is that of 
the end view of a house of Dutch Colo¬ 
nial type, with two extensions lower 
than the main body of the house. Here, 
although the type is a conventional one, 
there is plenty of variety and interest 
in the roof-line to make for picturesque 
charm, but also a quality of logical ap¬ 
propriateness of type to dwell in easy 
harmony with the old environment. 
The second of the old “cultivated” 
sites is the site in or near an old New 
England village, where old shade trees 
and ancient stone walls combine gently 
but firmly to urge the conventional 
New England type of house, white with 
green blinds, quiet, reposeful and unob¬ 
trusive. Here again the relationship of 
house and site is primarily a stylistic 
one, but only because the element of 
style, in such a case, outweighs consid¬ 
eration of contour or profile. 
GOOD CITIZENSIHP 
The question in this case, as well as 
in the one before, revolves largely 
around the question of being a good 
citizen and a decent neighbor, instead 
of a selfish egotist. Self-expression is 
all very well in a more or less isolated 
site, but building a new house in an 
old community involves certain neigh¬ 
borly responsibilities which are of the 
utmost importance. To build a sophis¬ 
ticated Italian villa, for instance, in an 
old Connecticut village, will make no 
friends. None of the old residents wall 
be happy about it, or like you for it. 
It is not only better manners and better 
citizenship, but it is better architecture 
to build in an old, settled locality with 
some thought of being a part of it, 
rather than an alien interloper. 
Two further sketches show hillside 
sites; at the foot of page 140 , a some¬ 
what wooded hillside, at the top of the 
page, a bare hillside, diversified only by 
boulders and low clumps of bushes. 
In the first instance the long axis of 
the house has been made to parallel, 
roughly, the direction of the side of 
the hill, and the roof-line has been 
brought down as low as possible, in 
order to harmonize with the topo¬ 
graphical character of the land, both 
near and distant. 
Trees, on such a site, can do much to 
relate the house to the hillside and effect 
a well-knit composition: in the second 
of the two hillside sites no such aid is 
available. Here, as in the bare hill-top 
site, the whole success of the relation¬ 
ship of site and house rests with the 
profile. Every prospective builder 
should make himself as sensitive as 
possible to the profile of every house 
he sees, as an aid to visualizing the 
effect of his own as yet unbuilt house. 
It should not be forgotten that profile, 
whether good or poor, is an element in 
house design that exists quite irrespect¬ 
ively of style or material. 
A BARE HILLSIDE 
The architectural intention in the 
house on the bare hillside was to utilize 
both profile and mass in such a way as 
to give a necessary effect of stability and 
counteract the long, exposed slope of 
the hill. To parallel the bare hill-slope 
with the roof-line would give the house 
an unfortunate effect either of sliding 
down the hill, or of crawling, cater- 
pillar-like, up it. The left slope of the 
roof is in sufficient harmony with the 
hill-slope down to the road to make 
a good linear, or profile relationship, 
while the steeper slope on the up-hill 
side of the house checks too much sua¬ 
vity of line, and makes for definite 
character. 
The last sketch supposes a level site 
with a background of trees, or a steep 
hill, and in such a case the question of 
mass, and even the question of profile 
gives place to what architects call the 
“front elevation” and laymen call the 
“front view”. This consideration is 
primarily a pictorial one. The end 
views are not seen conspicuously, if at 
all, the rear is never seen, the mass of 
the whole does not impose itself on the 
landscape. 
Obviously, the house suggested in 
the sketch is only one of the many 
types which would fit this kind of a 
site. It is, perhaps, the easiest of all 
site problems. A picturesque front ele¬ 
vation, certainly, is its main solution, 
for it involves no other serious consid¬ 
erations such as are found in hillside 
or hill-top locations, or in sites which 
admit of no aid from trees. 
STUDYING one’s SITE 
Methods of approaching the problem 
of relating house to site will depend 
naturally upon conditions in given cases. 
If no site has been acquired, and the 
prospective builder has set his heart on 
a certain kind of house, he should look 
about for a site that will most happily 
accommodate it. If he already has the 
site, he should give very careful thought 
to the kind of house that will best har¬ 
monize with it, perhaps giving up 
some preconceived idea of an unrelated 
house. If the prospective builder owns 
a considerable tract of land, diversified 
in conformation, he will have before 
him some choice in the matter of site, 
and should try to visualize site and 
house together. If visualizing, which 
seems to be more or less a gift, does 
not lie within his accomplishments, he 
will do well to take a number of 
photographs of the various possible 
building sites on his land, and try his 
(Continued on page 144) 
