The outdoor living-room, or porch 
parlor, is coming more and more to 
be recognized as a necessary adjunct 
in modern house building, and today 
its location is as carefully thought 
out as the arrangement of any of the 
interior apartments. 
Fifty years: ago its erection was 
NORTH SHORE BREEZE 
Porch Parlors 
By MARY H. NORTHEND 
read, or entertain, as faney dictates. 
The first consideration in the erec- 
tion ofa porch parlor is its location, 
upon which depends its success or 
failure. It should be planned to be 
sufficiently broad to fulfil its pur- 
pose, for a narrow porch is worse 
than none at all, and then, too. it 
MRS, E. C. FITCH’S VERANDA, AT MANCHESTER 
looked upon as a useless luxury, and 
the uses to which it could be put 
were uudreamed of; but all that has 
passed, and the homes of the pres- 
ent, whether situated in the city or 
suburbs, in the mountains or at the 
seashore, or whether constructed on 
an elaborate or simple seale, are con- 
sidered incomplete without the ad- 
dition of an open-air living-room. 
For years women who love to cling 
to old-time housekeeping traditions 
frowned upon the ‘‘fads and frills”’ 
of their more up-to-date neighbors 
who took tea and entertained their 
friends on porches transformed into 
summer bowers, but at length their 
eyes were opened to the delights and 
benefits of the fashion and gradually 
they, too, took up the so-called 
‘‘fad,’’ and its adoption has now be- 
come almost universal. 
And one cannot wonder at this, 
for surely there is no room in the 
house which lends itself so readily to 
artistic decoration as does the porch 
parlor with its outline of vines and 
pretty shrubs, and its free circula- 
tion of health-giving air, the bene- 
fits of which humanity at last is be- 
ginning to realize. It is a cosy re- 
treat, where informality and uncon. 
ventionality have full sway, and it 
is a place where one may lounge and 
of the house, if the service portion is 
in a separate wing, is another excel- 
lent location. 
Often it is found across the front ~ 
of the house, and this position is de- 
sirable, provided the house is far 
enough removed from the main high- 
way to be partially screened from 
the view of passers-by. The princi- 
pal advantage of the porch parlor 
is the semi-privacy it affords, and 
therefore if it is ereeted at a point — 
where its every nook and cranny are 
exposed to the gaze of pedestrians, it 
loses its 
the useless luxury it was once econ- 
sidered to be. 
chief charm and becomes 
It skould always be roofed over tu 
prevent the warm rays of the sun 
from beating too fiercely upon it, 
and it may be railed in or not as the 
owner desires. Sometimes the roof 
is supported by large pillars, the 
spaces between being left vacant, or 
they may be filled in with potted 
plants and boxes filled with flowers. 
Again a rail of stone or wood ex-— 
tends around it, against which trel- 
lisses are built, the whole rendered 
bright and artistic by means of 
pretty vines trained to clamber over 
a 
ie 1 
” 
q 
4 
ANOTHER NORTH SHORE PORCH 
should be erected at a point where 
it will not interfere with the light- 
ing of the interior apartments. 
Within the angle formed between 
the main house and a wing is a good 
spot to build it, and along the rear 
the trellis framework. 
Avery pretty effect was intro- 
duced in the porch roof and outline 
rail of a large bungalow situated just 
outside the little town of Lincoln. 
(Continued to Page 45) 
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