File:American homes and gardens (1909) (17968087760).jpg

Title: American homes and gardens
Identifier: americanhomesgar61909newy (find matches)
Year: 1905 (1900s)
Authors:
Subjects: Architecture, Domestic; Landscape gardening
Publisher: New York : Munn and Co
Contributing Library: Smithsonian Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Biodiversity Heritage Library

View Book Page: Book Viewer
About This Book: Catalog Entry
View All Images: All Images From Book
Click here to view book online to see this illustration in context in a browseable online version of this book.

Text Appearing Before Image:
238 AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS June, 1909
Text Appearing After Image:
Bedroom with original four-poster period of years. Unfortunately, many modern dwellings, were they to exist for hundreds of years, would never acquire this precious quality, but of that we are not now concerned with. The fine simplicity of many old Colonial designs is beauti- fully illustrated in the exterior of the Warner House. Its simplicity, indeed, verges upon the forbidding, since there is naught here but walls of brick, windows of the most severe design, a bare string course, a simple cornice. But there is a fine old doorway, carefully enriched with delicate mold- ings; and there is an effective gambrel roof, which, with its dormer windows, its crowning balustrade and cupola, give character and finish to all that has been built below. One may be sure the designer of this house knew his busi- ness, and set about it directly. He had no need to search through books, look up "periods," and debate with his client as to styles, forms, modes, and ideas. He knew what to do and did it, did it directly and simply, did it strongly and well, did it delightfully, moreover, and created a house that, after a lapse of nearly two hundred years, is still a model of its kind, and the delight of all who see it. This was doing something in very truth, and was a feat that not a few modern architects, enriched with an extensive paraphernalia of professional training have yet to accomplish. And if this be true of the exterior of the house, it is equally so of the interior. It is true it is not now all as it has always been; but much of the original form remains, and much of the original contents. And the house, although still used and occupied to-day, is, of its kind, a veritable museum of the early domestic life of New England, filled with many interesting treasures and dowered with a rich and interesting history.

Note About Images