Page:Architectural Record 1920-08 Vol 48 Iss 2.djvu/9



THE FORECOURT AND WOODS. (Point of View 3 on Plan.)

art in a garden scene adds to it a great

beauty. This is partly pleasing to the eye, by the show of order and design, and partly moral. <A terrace, with an old

moss-covered balustrade, calls up at once to the eve the fair forms that have passed there in other days. Of course everything depends on the selection of a spot with capabilities.”

Poe would have liked this setting of the

house; a setting which is so skilfully se- lected that one forgets that it has been created in the last two or three years. lt seems just as integral a part of the hill as the terraces and houses of Amalfi

are of the cliff over the bay. The great- est achievement of art is to make itself inconspicuous. The terrace wall curves

along to follow the contours, just as do those stone walls which retain the scarce loam of the vineyards. The service wing seems to have used an old foundation, as those houses rest on the old fortified gates of a city.

To find so perfect an example of a complete group, and above all of a group where the gardening, the architecture, the smallest details are exactly fitted to the importance and the character of the whole, is far from common. Look at the plan. There is almost no rectangular form ; nothing seems to force itself on the natural conditions, and nevertheless there is everywhere that “mixture of pure art”

TURAL RECORD.

of Poe. It has that beauty of the village street that follows the capricious lines of a path of old, so superior to the relentless gridiron of our surveyors. It is picturesque without affectation.

For those who have followed the development of the art of Messrs. Mellor, Meigs and Howe, its most interesting fea- ture has been precisely this progressive mastering of the charm, of the unconscious beauty of the minor domestic architecture of Europe. In each successive work there is a prog- ress in the elimination of the “draughtsman picturesque” and a step toward that simplicity that is achieved only by the very few. There is less and less of what could be called the bric-a-brac of architectural repertory, and in each case a stronger affirmation of individuality.

In this particular instance they had, it is true, the privilege of choosing a most remarkable site, for the owner is also the designer and a member of the firm. That is luck, but some one has said with reason that opportunity knocks only at the door of those who know how to receive it. With a property of moderate size, within the city limits, the boundaries of a public park have been used to such advantage as to incorporate the park woods in the composition. In goimg over the grounds, one does not realize the limited extent of the estate, neither does one wish for other conditions. There is no need for an apology.

Poe, in the same essay I quoted, “The Domain of Arnheim,” develops a theory that might at first seem to disagree with the location selected for the house: “The taste of all the architects I have ever known leads them, for the sake of ‘pros- pect, to put up buildings on hill-tops. The error is obvious. Grandeur in any of its moods fatigues, depresses. For the occasional scene nothing can be better, for the constant view nothing worse. And, in the constant view, the most objection- able phase of grandeur is that of extent; the worst phase of extent, that of dis-