Architectural Record Magazine AR 1904 10 Compressed

Cbe
VOL. XVI. OCTOBER, 1904 No. 4.
DWELLINGS OF THE MIDDLE WEST.
F all the types of private dwellings now being erected

in this country there is none which presents more
features of interest and promise than the semi-
suburban residence erected in and near the West-
ern and Middle Western cities. The suburban house
in the East is rarely so interesting and typical. Of
course there have been many expensive and carefully designed
dwellings of this class erected in and near New York and Boston ;
but the immense majority of suburban and semi-suburban houses

built around the cities along the Atlantic coast line are cheap
houses, designed by local builders, while the better-to-do people
generally live in houses that lose their individuality in the block.
On the other hand, in cities like Buffalo, Cleveland, Cincinnati, De-
troit, Milwaukee, and even Chicago,, the comparatively excellent
means of communication and the comparative cheapness of ac-
cessible land have encouraged a much larger proportion of well-
to-do families to live in detached houses, and the very
recent popularity of motor-cars has rendered houses of this kind
still more practicable and accessible. They have certain definite
characteristics.They are built by the owner from designs pre-
pared by the best architects in the vicinity. The amount of land
by which they are surrounded varies between a hundred feet and

several acres. As they cost on the average somewhere between
the tastes
$25,000 and $50,000, they represent precisely the ideas,
and the standards of the prosperous American business man. Such
a man cannot afford and generally does not want the exotic pala-
tial splendors of the Eastern millionaire. What he wants is a very
comfortable house, the looks of which are, as they should be, sub-
ordinated to convenience, but which, nevertheless, is supposed to
have some aesthetic merit, and this comfortable atmosphere is
largely derivedfrom the modest and unambitious scale of the
whole performance. In the big house of the East comfort and
Copyright, 1904, by "Architectural Record Company." All rights reserved.
Entered May 22, 1902, as second-class matter, Post Office at New York, N". Y.. Act of
Congress, of March 3d, 1879.
298
THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD.
AMERICAN RESIDENCES OF TO-DAY. 299
300 THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD.
propriety are sacrificed to the "stunning-" effect. In the better West-

ern house of the prosperous business and professional man the
intention of the owner is to build a dwelling in which he and his
family shall be both in the picture and thoroughly at home.
It is the purpose chiefly of this number of the "Architectural
Record" to illustrate the interiors of this class of dwelling. The
illustrations art- by no means confined to the class mentioned. On
the contrary, a considerable number of reproductions are given of
Eastern houses of a more grandiose and pretentious character,
and these illustrations have been included for the particular pur-
pose of enabling readers to contrast one of the two classes of resi-
dence with the other. But by far the larger number of houses illus-
trated are of the type described above. They probably come nearer
to representing the average American taste of to-day than do the
examples of any other class of building which could be collected,

and the merit of the result, consequently, is a matter of a good deal
of interest.
The aesthetic quality of these houses may perhaps best be de-
scribed as containing the usual American mixture of excellence in
intention coupled with miscellaneousness of effect. These houses
are eminently comfortable; they are eminently "homely," and at
the same time they are eminently "bourgeois." One can trace
their descent unmistakably from the mid-century residences of the
Eastern part of the country, which embodied the taste of the aver-
age well-to-dc American of that time, rather than the taste of
specially trained and instructed people But there is one impor-
tant difference between the two types of dwellings. The mid-cen-
tury dwelling' was rarely the work of a well-qualified architect. The

contemporary dwelling of the Middle West is the work, so far as
the design and the plan is concerned, of the qualified architect, but
in this modern instance the architect is rarely in a position to do a
completely finished job He designs, of course, the exterior and

proportions the openings, the disposition and the detail. of the
various rooms but beyond that the decorations and the
;
furnishings of the dwellings, are rhe work either of the head of

the house or of some decorating company. As in the latter case
the decorating company adorns and equips the rooms to suit the
taste of the client, the total effect is one which represents the aver-
age taste of well-to-do people rather than the higher taste of those
who are specially trained.
The total effect, consequently, generally lacks the architectural
quality, the quality of careful composition, of the subordination of
detail to a single dominant idea, and of the careful search for stuffs
and furnishings which give distinction and integrity to the room.
The impression one gets in the majority of cases is overwhelmingly
302
that of upholstery apartments that are overcrowded with big

of
and coverings that
stuffed chairs, heavy, spacious tables, curtains
jump out in large flowery patterns, and many other comfortable

and commonplace things and such is the effect, in spite of the fact
;
that the intention evidently is to do something good. Indeed, the

rooms, in spite of their homely appearance, have also the air
not only of trying to be artistic, but of seeking to conform in their
artistry to the latest aesthetic ideas. The result of these conflict-

ing tendencies is colonial rooms without a trace of the colonial
reticence and distinction. The colonial furniture is machine-made,
and is either too clumsy on the one hand or, on the other, too
cheap and fragile. In spite of the considerable sums of money
which have been spent on some of these houses, the effect is gen-
erally that of a very commercial decorative art commercial not in
the excellent economic sense of obtaining a good result at a small
cost, but in the unfortunate sense of obtaining a poor result at
comparatively high cost.

The employment of professional decorators is partly responsible
for this result. It is very rarely that effective interiors can be ob-
tained by making different designers responsible for the archi-
tecture and the decoration of a room. One man or one firm should
do all the necessary designing, and the function of the professional
decorator should be to carry out the architect's ideas. Within

these limits the decorators can perform an important and, indeed,
an indispensable work, because by their control of capital they
can collect large amounts of good decorative material which the
architect can use. But American interiors will never be what they
should be, until it becomes customarv for the architect to see the
there is
design through to the end and this is so not onlv because
;
no other way of obtaining unity and integrity of effect, but because

the architect, whatever his limitations, alone represents a good
aesthetic tradition. The American business man and his wife
have, of course, no aesthetic traditions a! all, and no informing
attitude towards such matters, except the wish for cheerful and
comfortable surroundings. The professional decorator may have
in his as the average architect, but
employ designers as competent
he has the fatal defect, for the purpose of good aesthetic results,
of lacking the professional tradition of disinterestedness. He is
in the business to make money, and in order to make the money
he cannot run ahead of his clients' tastes. Neither can he sacrifice,
as a designer must occasionally do, the profit on a job to the neces-
sity of repairing a mistake or reaching

a better result. He mav
know better, but he cannot afford to risk his business and spending
histime in taking care of his clients' aesthetic education. He
works entirely by routine, and he accomplishes the sort of thing
we see.
AMERICAN RESIDENCES OF TO-DAY 309
Nevertheless, whatever the defects of the kind of dwelling illus-

trated in this number of the "Architectural Record," the prospect
for a gradual improvement of design is full of promise. The archi-
tect constantly growing in authority, and in time he will be able
is
to control the planning of dwellings from the foundations to the

finish. Wherever he succeeds in accomplishing this the result should
be good both for him and for his clients. His clients have every
right to insist that their houses shall be not merely conveniently
planned, but shall also be pleasant to inhabit. Wehave no sym-
pathy with the aesthetically austere and ungracious rooms which
some architects seek to force on their clients. The demand for a
cheerful, comfortable and homely atmosphere in a dwelling is abso-
lutely a legitimate demand, just as the demand that the interior
should be thoroughly designed is also legitimate and it is the ac-
;
tion and reaction between these two demands which will most
effectually serve to give American interiors the mixture of propri-

ety and distinction which they need. At present distinction is too
often obtained at the expense of propriety and comfort, and pro-
priety and comfort too often obtained at the expense of distinc-
tion. In order to combine distinction with propriety the archi-
tects will have to educate their clients to add to their houses a per-
vasive individual and familiar atmosphere without interfering with
the integrity of the design and he will also have to live up to the
;
highest standard of professional and technical rectitude. His great

advantage consists or should consist in the fact that he wishes to
control the whole design in the interests of his client and if he
;
swerves from this high technical and professional ideal, he will not
obtain his full rights.
FIG. 10. SITTING ROOM IN THE RESIDENCE OP JOHN B. DRAKE.
Calumet Ave., Chicago, 111. Howard Shaw, Architect.
FIG. 11. HALL, IN THE HF3A.LY HOUSE.

Chicago, 111. Myrcn Hunt, Architect.
THE HALL AND THE STAIRS.
I.
HE growth and development of the "hall" in the

American house is rather a curious thing, for
whereas, in the house built previous to 1860, the
was,hallnearly every case, an entry exclusively,
in
it has since become, in many cases, a recognized
sitting room. The entry of the old-fashioned

house was wider or narrower as the dignity of the house might
seem to make necessary, and where wide it might contain a sofa,
and on very hot days of the North American summer might well
furnish a place to sit and enjoy the breeze. Yet it still contained the
"hat-rack" and the "umbrella stand" it still had, to light it, only
;
the open door and the narrow "side lights," and it was still fur-
nished or left unfurnished as a passage-way alone. The floor would
be covered with oilcloth, the walls would affect a surface of uni-
form tint or perhaps imitate in the papering blocks of stone or mar-
ble. The stairs went up at one side against the wall with no pre-
tence at shutting off or concealment.
Since the close of the Civil War there has been a disposition in
country houses to make the hall square and spacious, even if by so
doing the other rooms of the house on either story are somewhat
crowded or are diminished in number. It seems to be assumed
that the hall is a sitting room so desirable in itself that something
should give way to this disposition. Even in the cities and in the
deep and narrow houses used there, with windows only in
the narrow walls of the front and rear, this same arrangement
of a square hall has been popular, and although in that connection
many householders object to it altogether, many again are found

to use it and even to advocate its introduction.
When, however, the hall is to be treated as a sitting-room, it be-
comes altogether desirable to shut the staircase off and separate
staircase from hall by a screen or by something more than a screen,
namely, by a solid wall with an opening more or less wide. The
door itself may not be hung in this opening it may be better
dressed by hanging curtains (portieres) but at ;
all events the two
apartments are better when entirely distinct.
In this paper the term staircase is used in the sense given in the
Dictionary of Architecture and Building as meaning "the structure
containing a stair," the "stair together with its enclosing wall." In
this sense, then,it is here maintained that staircase and hall should
be separated as far as the size of the house and the disposition of

the plan will admit.
FIGS. 12-13. HALL IN THE HOUSE OF J. T. PIRIE, JR.

Evanston, 111. Myron Hunt, Architect.
Thus in Fig. n there is indeed no way visible of closing the

opening between the two apartments, but otherwise the plan is
an ideally good one. The hall has windows, it accommodates
book-shelves, a great fixed sofa, tables and chairs and it forms an
;
altogether agreeable sitting room from which by two steps we

mount to a second smaller sitting room, a kind of recess with a
stand and a chair and a picture which receives sufficient day-
light, and from which you go up to the first landing. of the stair,
upon which again is a fixed seat and into which opens a window
in the rear wall. There cannot be a pleasanter form of division than
this.
Again in Fig 13 there is a hall with its heavy oak table and its
book-shelves there are the steps which take you up to a dining
;
room with a recessed window, and by another entrance you reach

the foot of the main stair, which in this picture is only just in-
dicated.
So, in Fig. 15, this is the hall in whichwe are standing there
can be no mistake about that. The hat-rack is there and the door
which is evidently the door from out-of-doors but that part of the
;
room contains the stair, and it is separated from the division in

which we find ourselves by a parapet high enough to be called a
screen. to say, the staircase is masked first by this low
That is
screen, secondly by the two square posts which carry the top
girder, and thirdly by its position far in the rear of the room, al-
lowing of its most complete concealment by a curtain or by high
vases if they are desirable a negligible quantity, in fact, until you
need to ascend to an upper story. In this way the hall where we sit
is in reality a sitting room differing from others by the fact that
ithas no solid partition between it and the entrance hall.
Fig. 16 shows on a larger scale an arrangement compatible with
a very costly house. It is spacious and it is also rich with details
of great elaboration. The chimney-piece is richly made up of mar-
ble, plain below and carved above with escutcheons of arms and
with elaborate bronze fire-dogs. The fixed seat in the corner has a
deeply carved arm. Similar and even richer carving adorns the
stair in connection with its hand-rail and parapet the ceiling is
;
studded with electric bulbs in the panels, the whole composition is

that befitting a mansion of much dignity.
If, now, we consider the stairs themselves, with the hall as being
primarily the place for the stairs only that is to say the staircase-
Fig 17 shows one such staircase-hall leading directly into the
library, but in itself allowing of access to the stair and nothing else
except a door in the wainscoting.

Fig. 14 gives a similar arrangement in a strictly Old Colonial
fashion with verdures for the wall hangings, a high and deep Em-
FIG. 14. HALL. IN THE HOUSE OF JOHN NEWELL.
Cleveland, Ohio. Meade & Garfield, Architects.
FIG. 15. HALL IN THE HOUSE OF A. F. OSBORN.

Cleveland, Ohio. Meade & Garfield, Architects.
FIG. 17. HALL IN THE HOUSE OF H. S. PICKANDS.
Euclid, Ohio. Meade & Garfleld, Architects.
FIG. 18. HALL IN THE HOUSE OF JOHN B. DRAKE.

Chicago, 111. Howard Shaw, Architect.
AM ERIC AX RESIDENCES OF TO-DAY. 317
FIGS. 10-20. HALL IN THE HOUSE OF DR. MARTIN.

EufTalo, 111. Gco. Cary, Architect.
FIG. 23. HALL OF THE WARD HOUSE.
Evanston, 111.
Geo. T. Harvey, Architect.
FIG. 24. HALL OF THE HOUSE OF FRANK HIBBARD.

Lake Forrest, 111. Geo. T. Harvey, Architect.
AMERICA* RESIDENCES OF TO-DAY. 321
pire sofa with a mirror hanging above it whose frame with the
hooks smacks of the same early epoch, and the stair itself with its
long and wide landing is an excellent piece of the stair building of
a hundred years ago. Still more plainly is this antique art main-
tained in the halls shown in the two Figures 19 and 20. In this
instance there is carried out in the best manner that picturesque
and most interesting scheme, in which the newel of the stair is
formed by a spiral turn of the hand-rail supported by a multiplicity
of little balusters exactly like those of the ramp of the stair above.
This indeed, a most fascinating piece of the kind.
is,
Fig. 21 seems to be a modern composition in the same spirit,

and it must be owned that the soffit of the stair in its upper part
beyond the square "quarter pace" is more strictly true to precedent
than in cases where a continuous sheathing replaces the moulded
underside of each step. Another view of the same staircase is given
in Fig. 22, where it is seen that a very broad and imposing set
of glazed doors leads from the outer vestibule to the stair-foot.
The people of a hundred years ago, in the great wooden houses
of Beaufort and along the James River and more rarely in the
North, used to affect the double stairway, that with a central stair
leading to the "half pace" and two stairs leading from that plat-
form to the landing above. A good instance of that is given in
Fig. 23.
Figs. 18 and 25 give, in a pleasant way, memoranda of
the simpler and smaller staircases of our forefathers, showing
those arrangements by which the stair was partly sheltered from
drafts and the persons ascending and descending were partly shel-
tered from observation. These are always dangerous to the de-
signer, because the raking lines of the stair are always difficult to
manage and produce ungainly spaces, shapes and combinations.
The best are the simplest and one likes Fig. 25 for its close
building-in; hiding from the spectator all the sloping hand-rails,
wainscots^ base-boards and the like. Indeed, the more a stair can
be built in between walls generally the better thing it is. This,
however, is not a commonly accepted system, and Fig. 26 is an
instance of a stair which was evidently an object of pride to its
designer and to owner. Certainly the artist deserves great

its
credit who, can come out of so difficult a task with a result so satis-
factory. A little crowded, a little bending toward

a rapid descent
when you least expect it, this is still a noble stairway and the ac-
is yet altogether separated from
cessibility of the upper flight which
the main extremely well managed.
stair is
Figs. 27 and 28 give the details of an extremely magnificent

house, one built on the lines of the Jacobean houses of Great Britain.
In such a house as this there should be no elevators nor other
FIG. 25. STAIRWAY IN THE HEALY HOUSE.

Chicago, 111.
Myron Hunt, Architect.
FIG. 27. THE HALL OP THE KIP HOUSE.

Orange, N. J. Henry Ives Cobb, Architect.
FIG. 28. THE3 HALL OF THE) KIP HOUSE.

Orange, N. J. Henry Ives Cobb, Architect
FIG. 29. STAIRWAY IN THE HOUSE OF CLARENCE MACKAY.

Roslyn, L. I.
McKim, Mead & White, Architects.
modern conveniences except, perhaps, the electric light, which may

be admitted to noble mansions in England, chiefly that it may
the better illuminate the artistic treasures of the building itself and
its contents. Thus the Oriental weapons above the doorway in
Fig. 28 should have a whose beams may be
special electric light
thrown full upon them order that the admiring visitor may see
in
the details of those curious arms without asking that they be taken
down for his examination.
Finally, Fig. 29 gives a stair of great splendor with parapets
filled with Roman scroll-work carved in the solid wood pierced
through and sculptured on either side. This is a stair which, for
richness and brilliancy of effect, is worthy of Blicking or Hatfield.
There are some interesting bits of hall and passage which are
not at all connected with the stair. Thus in Fig. 30 the landing
at the head of the stairs has been partitioned off to form a lobby
more enclosed and less accessible than an open hall would be
to the bedroom beyond. Although one cannot welcome the imi-
tation vaulting of the ceiling, this enclosed hall is yet a most at-
tractive and generally simple composition. Fig. 24 shows how
a large hall serves as outer sitting room, while a smaller inner room
is three steps above it in front. The approach to the stair is seen
in the passage at the right, but this is evidently a separate apart-
ment and might even be considered a sitting room but that it is not
fully partitioned off from the room on the higher level on the left.
Fig. 32 isa capital piece of hallway with doors leading in every
direction and therefore hardly fit for much use as a sitting room
except that two nooks are arranged with seats, one on either side
of the chimney-piece.
Fig. 33 shows only one side of the hall which this represents
and here are fixed seats in the recesses of the windows one on
either side of the fireplace, giving light though not much view.
Fig. 34 is not attractive from the number of levels seen in it

The large hall where we stand leads through a great opening to
what seems a dining room on the left and it is not at all separated
from the hall itself by door or curtain, and on the right we go up
two steps and again three steps more to other parts of the house,
these connecting in a way with the stair itself. This hall with its
sofa, its cottage piano, its comfortable chairs and stands bearing
lamps, is evidently a place of habitation, and the framed pictures
on the walls show refined choice in works of art.
Fig. 36 is evidently immediately connected with the stair of

Fig. 29. This is a larger and more stately hallway than any of
the above, a very dignified composition showing how a room or
corridor in the upper story is carried on the Ionic columns and
square pillars, and how its bay window projects out over the great
hall itself.
FIG. 30. HALL IN THE HOUSE OF J. G. WORK.
Akron, Ohio.
Howard Shaw, Architect.
FIG. 31. LIVING ROOM IN THE HOUSE OF A. F. HOLDEN.

Cleveland, Ohio. Alfred Granger, Architect.
FIG. 32. HALL IN THE SOUTHWORTH HOUSE.

Gilmanton, Ohio. Alfred Granger. Architect.
FIG. 33. HALL. IN THE HOUSE OP H. H. JOHNSTON.
Cleveland, Ohio. Milton Dyer, Architect.
FIG. 33A. LIVING ROOM IN THE HOUSE OF COL. PERKINS.

Akron, Ohio. Meade & Garfleld, Architects.
FIG. 34. HALL IN THE HBALY HOUSE.
Myron Hunt, Architect
FIG. 35. THE HEALY HOUSE.

Chicago, 111. Myron Hunt, Architect.
FIG. 30. HALL IN THE HOUSE OF CLARENCE MACKAY.

r.oslyn, L. I. McKim, Mead & White, Architects.
II.
The Living Room.

The and arrangement of the living room will o'f course de-
size
pend very largely on the foregoing considerations in the matters of

the hall and stair indeed, these three features of the plan of a
:
house of moderate cost are so mutually dependent, that either one

can hardly be discussed without constant reference to the dispo-
sition of the others. Much of what has been said above on the
subject of halls w ill, therefore, have more or less weight in deciding
7
on the placing of the living-room.

When the site is spacious enough as in the country to allow
of a certain amount of freedom in the orientation of the house and
its parts, the first consideration will usually be given to exposure
and outlook and this will be of more especial importance in the
;
placing of the principal rooms. Thus, in warm localities it is de-

sirable that the living-room should face toward the prevailing sum-
mer winds and, further, if the house is to be occupied throughout
;
the year, that there should be some windows with a sunny exposure.
So in the vicinity of New York, it is well to place the principal
apartments along the southerly side of the house ;
and the offices
and subordinate rooms to the north.
The question of the library is for our present purpose connected
very closely with the living-room. What we are discussing is the
dwelling which the library and living room will very often be one
in
and the same. Even in the case of the hard worker with pen or
typewriter, the room where his books are kept is usually the sitting-
room, he being' free to reserve a workroom opening from it, of
which he can shut the door and in which he can arrange his undis-
turbed thoughts and construct the lecture or the article which goes
to make him the breadwinner. There is, however, another side to
it, for in some houses the living-room is alrQ the drawing-room.
Many a family takes nearly this view of the situation viz., that
there must be a relatively large, airy and spacious room for the
family sitting-room and for the more intimate guests, while a com-
paratively small .reception room is used for the visitor who calls
in the way of mere ceremony, or in the way of business, or on a
single occasion without the immediate prospect of intimate ac-

quaintance with the family. We shall see in our illustrations ex-
amples of both these schemes, but first let us consider those rooms
which are living-rooms and nothing else.
Thus in Fig. 35 are the arrangements for comfort and conveni-
ence the room on the right (raised by two steps) is evidently a
;
plant room, a conservatory of that sort which accommodates itself

FIGS. 37-38. LIVING ROOM IN THE HOUSE OF J. T. PIRIE, JR.

Evanston. 111. Myron Hunt, Architect
well to the interior in which the family are to live and this is not
;
shut off by any door, the connection being by a wide opening,

which makes of the conservatory a kind of bay window of unusual
size and importance. Then in the room itself there is another bay
window used as a recess for the fixed sofa, with the awkward but
evidently inevitable device of a register for the heat and for the
ventilation shown on its upright side. On either side of the simple
brick chimney-piece, an admirable fixture which one longs to
see more often in these tranquil domestic interiors, there is a
window commanding a view of trees and open country, and of
these windows one is short, with a sill raised very high to allow
of book-shelves below it. The encroaching radiator is the only
blot on this charming composition. If, as is most probable, the
beams of the ceiling are really the working timbers merely boxed
with boarding or finished off with moulding, we can leave this sit-
ting room with the feeling that nothing more delightful is likely
to come our way. Something of a similar character is to be found
in Fig. 37, a room by the same architect in that Evanston
which is overshadowed by the renown of its great neighbor,
Chicago. Here the one-story house is so treated that the low walls
of the sitting room are helped out by the slope of the roof; so
that the room, not more than 7 feet in the eaves, rises to n feet
or more in the middle. Commonly this arrangement has the un-
fortunate result that the daylight is not admitted from a sufficient
height above the floor, but in this case the putting in of that capi-
tally conceived dormer window seen on the right remedies the pos-
sible difficulty and gives us in part, at least, a sufficient lighting for
whatever in the room may need to be seen by full daylight. .
Again in Fig. -38 are seen the arrangements of the same room
from another point of observation. This is a noble sitting-room
indeed, with windows in three walls and a great brick chimney-
piece. Other illustrations of the same house will be found in Figs.
12-13, and the architect, Mr. Myron Hunt, is to be congratulated
on his success in designing this dwelling as well as that of Mr.
Healy.
In Fig. 39 there an interesting flavor of old tradition in
is
the woodwork covering above the chimney-piece and

in the wall
in the open timber roof with its framing around the chimney-piece
calculated for the hearth of the story above. The window high in
the wall and above the book-case with solid doors, is always an at-
tractive feature, and here, too, lies the book of him who may sit
in thearm-chair by the chimney-corner.

In Fig. 42 there is a serious study of heavy timber work of
which one longs to know the whole reason and all the conditions.
The massive sticks which are framed either side and above the
FIG. 80. LIBRARY IN THE FORMER RESIDENCE OF JOHN G. MILBURN.
Buffalo, N. Y. Geo. Gary, Architect.
FIG. 40. LIBRARY IN THE WILCOX HOUSE.

chimney-piece must carry more than merely the frame of the hearth
above, and the adornment of the panels with a highly wrought
painting and with relief of flower and fruit in carving or in stucco
manifests more the importance of this feature. The fireplace
still
faced
itself is around with a mosaic of tiles about two inches square ;
the fire-dogs are wrought into the semblance of colonettes of gen-

erally Corinthian designs, and in these ways an air of pretension
is given to the room which, however, is perfectly maintained by
the general worthiness of the details.
Fig. 44 carries farther than usual the arrangement of the win-
dows flanking the chimney-piece windows high in the wall, with
book-cases below them and, in short, a familiar arrangement car-
ried out to its logical extreme. There is no doubt about the ad-
vantage of the plan from the point of view of receiving daylight
freely at the most agreeable side of the room. In the present in-
stance there does not exist that other advantage, the looking out-
of-doors as you sit by the fire, for (probably from different local
causes) it has been thought best to fill these window-frames with
decorative glass of a pretty design. It was a good thought to ar-
range these windows as casements with hinges by which they
may swing freely into the room but the little lamp which is set
;
against one of them seems to argue that they are not swung open
every day.
This matter of the sitting-room extends itself inevitably into the
larger library. Such a room as that shown
45 is the book-
in Fig.
room of a family possessing several thousand presentable volumes,
besides all the unbound and less attractive books which must accu-
mulate in cupboards and closets. There is an admirable ceiling of
plaster work in the Tudor design and in this case a paneling of
woodwork reaches the ceiling with the Ionic order in modified
form and as is proper in such a case the entablature is reduced to
;
a frieze and cornice, and the epistyle reduced to a mere moulding.

There is an odd effect produced by the heavy carved stone bracket
of the mantel-piece carrying a wooden superstructure, but this is
mentioned as a singular feature to which attention should be given
and as one requiring treatment of the objects to be placed upon
the mantel-piece rather in the way of color harmony than other-
wise. Thus if one were to choose the decorative pieces to be set
at both ends of this broad shelf, one would choose something carved
in stone or marble, or if a vase at each end, then a huge and heavy
one, rather pale in color and ponderous in form.
But as to the real drawing-rooms, the rooms arranged en suite,
we have them in Figs. 49 and 50. In one, the long room with
its two chimney-pieces, is hung with tapestries with figure subject?
on a very large scale, and furnished with sofas, chairs and fautcnillcs
FIG . 41. LIBRARY IN THE HOUSE OF HERMAN KELLY.
Cleveland, Ohio. Meade & Garfleld, Architects.
FIG. 42. LIBRARY IN THE HOUSE OF B. G. WORK.

Akron, Ohio. Meade & Garfleld, Architects.
FIG. 43. LIBRARY IN THE HOUSE OP H. S. PICKANDS.
Cleveland, Ohio. Meade & Garfleld. Architect
F1G . 4-i. LIVING ROOM IN THE WARD HOUSE.

Evanston. 111. Geo. T. Harvey, Architect.
FIG. 40. GRAND SALON IN THE HOUSE OF GEN. DRAPER.
Washington, D. C.
FIG. 50. DRAWING-ROOM IN THE RESIDENCE OF M. DE MARGERIE.

Washington, D. C. t _
PIGS. 51-52. DRAWING-ROOM IN THE RESIDENCE OF GBN. DRAPER.

Washington, D. C.
7
AMERICAN RESIDENCES'.^
FIGS. 57-58. DRAWIXG-ROOM AND DEN OP WOOLWORTH HOUSE.

New York City. C. P. H. Gilbert, Architect.
FIG. 59. LIVING ROOM IN THB RESIDENCE OF MRS. BUSH.
Buffalo. N. Y. Geo. Gary. Architect.
PIG. 60. LIVING ROOM IN THE RESIDENCE OF DEXTER P. RUMSEY.

Geo - Cary Archltect -
Buffalo. N. Y.
'
Ml
of a style between Louis XIV. and Louis XV. covered with some-
thing that looks like Beauvais tapestry. There are very rich tables
in the room, the farther one in the middle looking as if it were
adorned with gilded bronze of the best epoch of Louis Quinze,
while the nearer table seems to be inlaid with blocks of porce-
lain or possibly of Wedgewood ware. Fig. 50 shows a series of
rooms, and in view of the charming display of flowering plants
which almost fills them one wishes for a simpler background. But
this is indeed hypercritical
or rather it applies only to the picture
indeed the photograph be trusted to exaggerate the marking of
may
the pattern, and that which is dull red or yellowish brown on
ivory white will come out in a violent contrast in the photographic
plate. It is true that the half-tone process reduces this extreme
of contrast again.
Figs. 51 and 52 are views in a large ballroom: this cannot be
considered a sitting room in the ordinary sense, and yet in sum-
mer how delightful is a room to inhabit which is indeed of that ex-
traordinary size ! There is no place quite so cool as a very big
room with a moderate current of air entering at the windows and
doors. Such a current of air ceases to be a draft it does not
worry you with fears of to-morrow, it allows the whole room to
remain sweet and pure with a steady temperature. Give us for
our summer evenings a room not smaller than 40 by /o feet.
.401- III.
The Dining-Room.
The considerations of exposure and outlook, discussed above in
connection with the Living-Room, apply also to the Dining-Room.
Here, however, the question of outlook is not of equal importance
because the dining room will not be used, habitually, for other pur-
poses than the serving of meals. When it is to be so used when
the dining-room is also the family sitting-room the condition of
the two classes of apartment have to be considered simultaneously ;
and the case becomes too complex to be provided for except in
connection with the immediate site and the house-plan.

As for the internal arrangement of the dining room in its more
usual capacity, this is governed mainly by the form and disposition
of the table especially of the dinner-table, which mav sometimes
differ in size and arrangement from that used at other meals. If
an extension table is to be used, the shape of the room will tend to

u
^relatively long and narrow, especially if it is to accommodate a
-*<*}$,$ party at certain times. Thus a table for twelve persons needs
'J??'b,e |i \orji2 feet long, and in recent times not less than 4 feet
require > floor space not less than 12 feet wide for
convenient service, and about 20 feet in length in the clear between

the opposite walls, so that if the chimney-breast is at one of the
narrow ends of the room this measurement of 20 feet must be
taken between the face of the chimney-piece or of the mantel-
piece and of the opposite wall. Again if the sideboard is to be put
in at the end opposite the fireplace this also must be considered;
for a space of at least 19 feet is really needed for the proper service
of the table when extended to a length of 12 feet. As for the
width of the room, with a 4-foot table, n
feet in the clear between
the walls, between fireplace and sideboard, between sideboard and
service table, between any and all permanent obstacles must be
maintained. This, of course, is an awkward shape for the room and
accordingly it is usual to give to the dining room greater breadth
than seems essential and then to occupy this greater breadth
with (as above suggested) the mantel-piece and the sideboard, or
the service table, or both ;
in other words, the room within the
walls may be 19 feet by 14, a tolerable proportion ;
and all the large
obstacles, more than once named above, may be put on the long
sides. It is here, of course, that the book-cases and the like will be
set in rooms which have the double purpose of sitting room and
eating room.
The disposition of windows for the proper lighting of this oblong
dining room is perhaps more than in the case of any other

difficult
apartment of the average house the desirability of so arranging

the windows that persons sitting at table shall not have their backs
turned directly to the light, and of lighting the table equally
throughout these considerations often bring about a problem dif-
ficult to solve with entire satisfaction. If conditions permit of plac-
ing the room so that there may be a skylight or a lantern-light over
the table, or across one end of the ceiling as in the case of a bay
very effective interior had, and with but few openings in the
may be
sidewalls. Ordinarily, however, this feature of the plan will be
found impracticable for houses of moderate cost, and daylight
must, therefore, be obtained from the sidewalls only. Then, ob-
viously, windows in one of the longer sides of the room will afford
the most perfectly distributed light, and these windows should pref-
erably be high in the wall carried close up to the ceiling, as, for in-
stance, to a line 12 inches below it, and with high sills; the pur-
pose being to throw the light downward rather than horizontally
over the heads and shoulders of the diners rather than directly on
their backs. A very good plan has been made, in which the dining
room, of only moderate height, was unusually well lighted from two
adjoining sides the windows in each wall being close to the cor-
;
ners. This resulted in cross lights passing diagonally over the table
from the ends, and the central position of each wall was available
*

PIG. 65. DINING ROOM IN THE RESIDENCE OF B. G. WORK.
Akron, Ohio.
Howard Shaw, Architect.
FIG. 6(i. DINING ROOM IN THE RESIDENCE OF W. D. SCHUL.TZ.

Zanesville, Ohio. Alfred Granger, Architect.
FIG. (>7. DINING ROOM IN THE HOUSE OF A. F. HOLDEN.
Cleveland, Ohio. Alfred Granger, Architect.
FIG. G8. DINING ROOM IN THE HOUSE OF JOHN B. DRAKE

Chicago, 111. Howard Shaw, Architect.
FIG. CO. DINING ROOM OP THE WILCOX HOUSE. -
Buffalo. N. Y. Geo. Gary, Architect.
FIG. 70. DINING ROOM IN THE HOUSE OF MRS. MAVIS.

for furniture. An equally good, and more artistically effective, de-

sign will result by lighting a long room from the two opposite ends ;
but the necessary condition two opposite outer walls will not
often be obtained.
The foregoing considerations, based on the requirements of a
long table and a corresponding long room, will be found much
modified in the case of the much broader table, in fashion about
1875 to I ^9 an d of the round dining table, the use of which appears
to be increasing in popularity, and which demands less floor space
for convenient service than a long table of equal seating capacity.
Thus a round table five feet in diameter or thereabouts will ac-
commodate a party of eight with comfort, while a diameter of some
six feet will allow of ten or more seats. Hence a floor space of
15 feet across will be ample provision for the table of an average
household, making allowance for other dining room furniture out-
side of this space. Such a table, then, can be placed at one end
of the room, 15 feet wide, and could be well lighted from that end
wall, even with only one or two windows and the entire room need
;
not be more than, perhaps, 15 by 18 feet. If that end of the room

can be treated as a bay, projecting considerably beyond the faqade,
itmay be made a most attractive feature in the design of a dining
room. For instance, let such a bay have the form of a semi-circle
or semi-polygon, with the table at its centre windows can then
be provided all along the perimeter of the bay, leaving the wall
spaces of the inner portion of the room for placing other furniture.
This is an especially pleasant feature in a summer home, for nearly
the entire extent of the outer wall can be made to open, so that
the bay becomes almost the equivalent of a verandah.
be readily understood that the conditions of the room are
It will
nearly the same in the case of the square and of the round table.
The point is, in either case, that the dining room does not tend to
be long and narrow relatively as in the days of tables intended to
be adjusted in length to the requirements of a large party. The
table of recent years, with its square or round or less frequently
polygonal top, not an extension table at all, but is fitted to receive

is
tops of different sizes; exactly as in a restaurant a number

of cir-
cular table-tops are kept in stock, and according to the size of the
dinner party the largest (accommodating twenty persons perhaps)
will be put in place or a smaller one accommodating fourteen,
twelve or ten. Thus 63 the room, being nearly square in
in Fig.
size of the dining-table
plan, is so large relatively to the ordinary
that it would accommodate a round-top or square-top table large
enough for sixteen guests, and this without causing a derangement

the same
of the furniture in the room. Figs. 62 and 64 illustrate
large dining room.
8
-62 THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD.
Fig. 66 shows a room in Zanesville, Ohio, which is frankly de-

and is
signed in a modification of the Georgian (Old Colonial) style,
a really excellent composition. The decoration includes the very
obvious protection for the walls the dado which in this case is
carried up to a height of about seven feet and corresponds in height
to the mantel-piece. The shelf of the mantel is carried around the
room, though elsewhere it is narrower than over the fireplace and ;
this shelf, wide or narrow, affords the best possible place for ex-
hibiting those bowls, platters, tea-pots, covered

dishes and the like,
which are among the treasures of the true lover of "old china."
Such a collector puts his stately vases into his drawing room and
library; but the majority of the collector's pieces
are not stately
vases and, in a way not perfectly explicable, the dining room seems
;
to be the more congenial home for the covered sugar-pots, the

small tureens, and the huge Persian and Chinese bowls which, under
the general name of "punch bowl," though now not used for punch,
adorn the rooms of the happy few.
Fig. 67 shows another Old Colonial dining-room in which the
paneling goes almost to the ceiling, leaving only a very narrow
strip of flat wall between the surbase of the woodwork
and the
plastered "cornice" above. It is not, perhaps, the most happy dis-
position but the very strong and spirited plaster-work of the ceil-
;
ing modified Jacobean style seemed to call for the sheathing of

in a
the wall with woodwork, and this was perhaps the most convenient
plan. It has the additional advantage of giving to the ceiling the
full size of the room between the walls ;
for if the paneling had been
carried up to the flat surface of the ceiling, the room would have
looked smaller, inevitably.
Fig. 69 is a dining room of the neo-classic style, very much such a
room as was devised for the wealthy citizens of 1825 and the years
following. To our modern tastes the parts of the fully developed

entablature and the columns of the composite order are brought
so near to us, on the walls of the room, that they are severally a
littleaggressive. This, however, seems hypercriticism in view of

the fact that the traditions of our most elegant American life of the
time when men now
old were born,
7
all combined to make this seem
the architecture of the Fathers.
Fig. 71 has a simple dado and very simple woodwork of the char-
acter of our good village houses of the very beginning of the nine-
teenth century. Fig. 76 has the dado reduced to about the usual
height of the chair-rail that is to say, the wall is covered with
woodwork to a height of about 2 feet 10 from the floor and from
this, as from an architectural basement, rise the pilasters which
adorn the corners of the projecting chimney-piece and of the re-
cess opposite to it.
AMERICAN RESIDENCES OF TO-DAY.
r,66 THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD.
FIG. 75. DINING ROOM IN THE HOUSE OF JAS. VILES.
Lake Forest, 111. Frost & Granger, Architects.
FIG. 70. DINING ROOM IN THE HOUSE OF COLEMAN HASKELL.

Cleveland, Ohio. Meade & Garfleld. Architects.
FIG. 77. DINING ROOM IN THE HOUSE OF J. T. PIRIE, JR.
Bvanston, 111. Myron Hunt, Architect.
FIG. 78 DINING ROOM IN THE HEALY HOU.iE

FIG. 79. DINING ROOM OF WARD HOUSE.
Evanston, 111. Geo. T. Harvey, Architect.
FIG. 80. DINING ROOM IN REES HOUSE.

FIG. 81. DINING ROOM IN THE HOUSE OF H. S. PICKANDS.
FIG. 82. DINING ROOM IN THE HOUSE OF JOHN NEWEJL.L.

FIG. 83. DINING ROOM IN THE HOUSE OF COL. PERKINS.
Cleveland, Ohio. Meade & Garfleld. Architects.
FIG. 84. BREAKFAST ROOM IN THE HOUSE OF H. H. JOHNSTON.

372 THE ARCHITECTURAL 'RECORD.
Fig 70 again is a room of old-time appearance, with a decora-

tion on the end wall behind the service table which any lover of
New England traditions might envy.
Fig. 78 is attractive room fitted up in the true taste of one
a most
who loves the tranquil village life of a century ago. It is in this
way that the dining room and sitting room of a prosperous villager
of 1800and the years following were really furnished and adorned ;
and the architects who are the most constantly occupied with the
dwelling houses of the children of those prosperous villagers the
men who build in the towns around Boston and along the north
shore those architects tellus that the old traditions remain, and
that the family who will spend several thousands of dollars for a
painting will not expend money for the adornment of the interior
for the carving of the mantel-piece, for the inlaying of the columns
in short, they say that it is a Puritan tradition to spend nothing
on your house, whereas the Puritan tradition has nothing to say
about the separate and portable work of art. Another such room
is Fig. 75, and in this the furniture as well as the permanent fittings
are of the true old style of a century since.

In Fig. 68 it is the furniture rather than the fitting up of the room
which is of the antique taste, although in saying this there must be
exception made for the not perfectly explained figure of great in-
terest, the chain which supports either end of the mantel-shelf. Is
that a tradition? The writer confesses to a delighted surprise at
seeing it, and to a desire to know more about its origin.
Other illustrations in this article show rooms with the now
fashionable square table, rooms with elaborately carved table and
chairs, rooms with a fireplace of unusual character like that one
with the really interesting metal hood and huge fire-dogs and
rooms interesting for their snug compactness. It is an attractive
display, a real picture-gallery of pleasant domestic interiors.
IV.
The Bedroom.
The French lady has always made her bedroom serve the purpose
of a sitting room. The French bedroom, at least in the cities, is
on the floor with the salon, the dining room, the library, and must
inevitably form suite with them. The French bedroom, being a part
of the series or groups of rooms on one floor which are
run together in a dwelling, has the same height of ceiling
and somewhat the same liberal decoration as the more pub-
lic rooms of the
appartement. Indeed, reception or en- in a
tertainment of any size the bedroom has to be thrown into the
other rooms for a more or less free use bv the guests and their
FIG. 85. BEDROOM IN THE HOUSE OF J. T. PIRIE, JR.
Bvanston, 111.
Myron Hunt, Architect.
FIG. 86. BEDROOM IN THE HOUSE OF JOHN B. DRAKE.

Chicago. 111. Howard Shaw, Architect.
374
FIG. 87. DISPOSITION OF TYPICAL, FRENCH BEDROOM AND BOUDOIR.
hosts. is done
This however, this freedom of access is made pos-
employment of the room as one of a handsome series of

sible, this
rooms becomes natural because of the disposition of the bed it-
self inan alcove which can be quite perfectly screened. Fig. 87
shows it has been for many years.
this disposition as The large
bedstead nearly fills the space of the alcove, which is in fact a
small room with two openings in its walls the one a wide doorway
;
for such indeed it is though not closed by doors

treated as part
of the ordinance of the larger room without; the other a quite nar-
row doorway, with a hinged door hung upon one of its jambs and
intended merely for the use of the care-taker who "makes the bed."
The alcove may be a little larger and have a ruelle between the
bed and the wall, wide enough for a piece of furniture, and often
in old times accommodating a chair or even a fauteuil in which a
visitor might sit. It was the place where, one after another, the
guests to whom the lady would do special honor were received at

the time of morning visits, the lady having first submitted to the
process of the toilet, at least to the extent of having her hair most
elaborately dressed.
This arrangement of the alcove has never obtained in the United
States, the Americans having followed English rather than French
precedent in the matter. But another tendency is at work which is
curiously leading nearly the same direction as the universal rec-
in
ognition of the alcove, and that is the banishment not of the bed,
but of the toilet apparatus generally, into a separate room well shut
off from the bedroom proper. If we put bath and basin and all the
"water-works" together into a large and sufficiently lighted dress-

ing-room, then indeed the bedroom, having nothing to suggest
special privacy except the bed itself, may become a sitting room
available as a boudoir of very large establishments. And, by the
way, has not the boudoir gone out? It does seem to the writer
who confesses to less constant study of the modern house plans
than he gives to their predecessors in old times it does seem that
the boudoir is not as well recognized a part of the lady's private
domain as it was in England forty years ago, and in America both
then and thereafter in houses of much more than common extent
and splendor. But in any case the bedroom grows more and more
like unto a pleasant private sitting room as the modern refinements
have sway. And as to the bed, there is no reason why the house-
maids should not resort to a scheme much in fashion in Germany
and even in Eastern France when those were young who are now
old the custom in the "consulate of Plancus" was to do up the bed
in the morning, piling the bed-clothes neatly folded, and the big
soft Feder-bett or plumct together in the middle, and drawing a
"spread" over the whole in such a way as to disguise utterly the

shape and even the nature of the apparatus below. When turned up
thisway for the day the bed looked like anything but a place to
lieupon. Then at supper time the madchen came and "made the
bed" and then you saw what was meant by the touching old ballad,
in good English and in still better and more original Scots, by the
wail and prayer of the sick or sorrowful young man:
"Oh, mother, mother! make mv bed,

And make it long and narrow."
But indeed that way bed so that it shall not look like
of treating the
a bed, is a device that might be followed. Far be it from this argu-
ment to insist upon the merits of the enclosed and wood-built stand-
ing bed-place like a bunk in an officer's cabin at sea but where the
;
bedstead and the bed (the terms being used in the more usual sense)
are enclosed by a house which reaches the floor and conceals every-
thing within itself, there is certainly an added freedom as to the
use of the rooms for the purposes of life by day.
None of our examples to-day serve to remind us of any such
possibilities. Fig. 86 shows the twin bedsteads now and for a
dozen years much in fashion Fig. 85 shows the brass bedstead
;
which is greatly valued among sanitary scientists. Fig. 89 shows

the old-fashioned bedstead built of hard wood in slender bars, each
bar turned in the length into an appearance of a string of beads ;
Fig. 91 shows the old-fashioned double bed as modified by very

recent tendencies of I'art nouveau. And yet in each one of these,
always excepting Fig. 91, there is evidence that the room is in-
FIG . 88. BEDROOM IN THE HOUSE OF J. T. PIRIE, JR.
Evanston, 111. Myron Hunt, Architect.
PIG. 89. BEDROOM IN THE HOUSE OF L. E. HOLDBN.

Cleveland, Ohio.
FIG. 90. BEDROOM IN THE HEAL.Y HOUSE.
FIG. yi. BEDROOM IX THE HOUSE OF H. H. JOHNSTON.

379
tended for use as a sitting room, the room where the.proprietess

receives her lady friends to an indefinite extent.
Certainly the large room which we have numbered 86 is quite a
model apartment. With its ample fireplace ready for immediate ac-
tion; itslong and low mantel-shelf with objets d'art ranged along
it, pieces which are perhaps a shade less effective as decorations
than those which the dining-room mantel-piece would demand its ;
toilet table and large glass, and its additional Psyche glass in which
the whole skirt may be viewed even to the floor; its dainty little
stand with two little drawers and yet capable of being moved about
the room. In all we have the make-up of a charming room for daily
life.
The room 85 again, with its delicate writing table, but large
enough, solid enough for the hasty notes to friends which the oc-
cupant may choose to indict without going to the library below,
with the fixed seat in the deep-seated window and the abundant
lighting from at least two sides, speaks of the most pleasant and
civilized life.
Fig. 89 is more old-fashioned. Here, with the complete set of fur-

niture in a variety of white enamel ware, the wood itself concealed
under the uniform coat of milky gloss, a method of adornment
which is extended to the mantel-piece, is the prettiest room that
we have yet mentioned. Alas, that it should be disfigured by the
ugly monster under the fixed settle on the left the steam radiator
with its hideous lines and the consciousness that one has that
for seven months in the year that settle will be not a pleasant
seat in the window, but a screen and a disguise for the monster !
The old hot-air furnace was a better thing in many ways than the
more powerful modern apparatus.
The rooms which we have still to describe in brief, in which no
bedstead visible, are yet undoubtedly bed-chambers
is if one ma\
read their disposition and their old furnishings aright. Thus Fig.
90 has the old-fashioned high bureau (not a tallboy, but a bureau
so tall that it is removed from the modern class of "dressing
bureaus" while yet it has a mirror hung on the wall above it) is
either a bedroom or a large dressing room opening into the bed-
room partly left seen on the left beyond. What one likes in this is
the extreme simplicity of fittings and decorations. This is indeed
the way to make a room pretty at the lowest possible cost, un-
less we are to understand the hanging of the walls as of a woven
stuff ofsome kind rather than a wall paper, in which case a slightly
greater expense will have been incurred. Fig. 88 is furnished with
interesting pieces of old times, the bureau and the little round table
of much older type than the two chairs, but all ancestral in their
look. The room itself, with its comparatively low ceiling and its
very simple fitting up, is all that can be asked for as "most simple
and most gracious though here again the dreadful radiator stands
;
in the choice corner by the fireplace and explains why the fireplace
itself is bare without andiron and logs. Fig. 92 is a delightful
room. Its fixed and permanent "finish" is not seen, for curtains
conceal what otherwise would be in view but the open book-case
;
tells the story, and we learn that this also is of the simplest wood-
work finished in white enamel, as indeed are the little writing table,
the arm-chair drawn up to it, and so much of the door-trim as the
curtain allows us to see. The chair and upholstered arm-chair

covered with a striped silk material in the best taste of the eigh-
teenth century, are grouped in the sentimental way with the low
stand bearing the work-basket and the vase of roses but let no ;
reader suppose that the word "sentimental" is used otherwise than

in the good sense of betokening sentiment. All this is of the olden-
time genuine American refinement of ancestral dignity but the ;
writing table is crowned by a desk telephone and that feature

"dates" the whole composition within a decade at least.
In all this nothing has been said of the folding bedstead. We are
told, and on good authority, that they are made now-a-days in
strict accordance with sanitary requirements, and it is true that
even in high grade New York City hotels the modern invention
has been introduced, and with such success that a room alreadv free
from the apparatus of the toilet as above described, is made into
FIG. 94. SUGGESTED ARRANGEMENT FOR BED AND BATH-ROOMS IN A

MODERN DWELLING.
a sitting room or anything else (at least in appearance) by the sub-

stitution of what seems a great book-case or mirror-fronted ward-
robe for that which is indeed the place of slumber. This, however,
is not quite our subject to-day. We might as well call it a bedroom
when the bed is in another room, as when there is no longer any
visible bedstead. Therefore it is that we are more inclined to con-
sider one or two modern plans which seem to be useful in the
direction indicated above the direction of separating the toilet
apparatus from the bedroom, and thereby making the bedroom a

pleasant place in which to sit and, indeed, to live.
FIG. 9o. ARRANGEMENT FOR BED AND DRESSING-ROOMS IN A

MODERN DWELLING.
Here is a plan (Fig. 94) which is in use in some of the modern
hotels, and its application to the private house is obvious and easy.
The door at is not absolutely essential its chief purpose, indeed, is

;
to give the bedroom itself a more complete and carefully closed-in

appearance when it is shut. The ventilation of the room by the aid
of the fanlight over the entrance door B is a litle easier without the
interposition of the door A. The use of such a door must always be
a matter of private choice. The bath-room is large enough, of
course, for its purpose, and there is a window in the wall which may
or may not be left open for a large part of the day. The reader is
reminded that with modern plumbing kept in good order the room
!H which the water-works are arranged is no harder to ventilate
than any ether room in the house. The most troublesome of all its
appliances, the waste pipes of the bath-tub and the basin, are them-
selves harmless under such modern conditions. The great closet
opposite the bath-room should have an electric bulb inside the door
and this will be sufficient to make the shelves above and hanging
space below far more available and far more easy to keep clean
and sweet than even in the homes of our ancestors.
The other room (Fig. 95), that with which a large dressing room
is associated, has the exceptional advantage that the two divisions
together occupy the whole end of the pleasant house in Cambridge

in which they are to be found. The bedstead, set with its head
against the wall, has a window opposite its foot, but this window
need never be open during the hours of repose, because there is a
bay window admitting the air all the time, and at the proper hours
the blessed light of early morning which is still kept from shining
into the eyes of the sleeper. The toilet apparatus being relegated to
the smaller room on the right, there is leftspace for the book-case,
for various tables, and most of all for a working table in themost
charming of all situations, namely, in the throat of the bay window.
The bedroom of which this is a reminiscence is certainly the pleas-
antest room in which the writer ever spent a night.

D. N. B. Sturgis.
THE PLANNING AND FURNISHING OF THE KITCHEN IN
THE MODERN RESIDENCE.
S a subject for discussion, it may seem, at first glance,

that the kitchen of a house promises little of value
or interest, at least to the male portion of the com-
munity. The conception and development of the
drawing room, hall or library doubtless appear as
being- more attractive, but let us see if even the less
prominent and often neglected kitchen may not afford profitable
consideration. In animal life, human or otherwise, regular and con-
tinued existence is dependent upon the proper discharge of the
functions of a digestive system. No less is a home dependent for its
smooth running upon a well organized kitchen department. To
this end, it must be well planned, well constructed and supplied
with up-to-date furnishings. In regard to the latter, more particu-
larly, the kitchen of to-day is a great transformation and departure
from the same apartment in use one or two generations ago. In
good old primitive days, kitchen and living-room were often one
and the same. There is certainly a good deal of romantic charm
about such a room in an old English or early American home,
whether one has ever actually seen it or only become familiar with
it in history and fiction. There were the wainscoted walls and
beamed ceiling, well smoked and begrimed the great brick fireplace
;
with burning logs and steaming kettles on the swinging cranes the ;
floor of wide, well-worn boards the vmvarnished chairs and table of

;
oak and the rows of burnished pans and old china on convenient
racks. On the deep-set window ledge smiled potted plants and in
a corner stood the spinning wheel. Connecting with it was the
woodshed, which in turn opened into the barn. Everything was
convenient and handy for the housewife and arranged with an idea
of minimizing labor. There are, doubtless, many who now own
palatial homes in town and country, which have every luxurious
appointment, who feel a longing at times, for a good square meal in
the old home of bygone days. Certain it is that brain as well as
brawn have been produced by just such homely living.
In planning homes for the well-to-do of to-day, homes of gener-
ous size and luxurious appointments, it is to be feared that both
architects and builders are at times at fault in their arrangement
of the kitchen and its subsidiary rooms. In their desire to pro-
duce a handsome scheme for the showier rooms, they have been
known to ignore the claims of that part of the anatomy of the
house which is below stairs or placed well out of the public gaze.
It would seem that to the kitchen was given such place and space
as remained after all other considerations had received attention.

If not actually bad in size or shape, it is often a constant source
of annoyance because of no attention being paid to utilitarian con-
siderations. And when the lady of the house has condemned the
kitchen she will likely make statements not calculated to swell the
breast of the architect with pride, no matter how superb the fagade
of the house may be. With a hope of demonstrating the possi-
bilities of the subject, let us take up some detailed considerations.
In the case of a town house, built, let us say, on a lot not a corner
one, the location of the kitchen has limitations as to choice of ex-
posure to any particular point of the compass. It is desirable that
the exposure should be to the south or west or between the two.
There is no denying the sanitary result of direct sunlight aside from
the benefit of having the prevailing breezes for ventilation and our
kitchen must be light, sanitary and easily ventilated. In the house
in question, it will generally be located under the dining room or
somewhere in that story having service from the street. It will
probably be possible to get light from one side only. The windows
should be ample, close up to the ceiling and as nearly in the
center of the wall space as possible. To get cross ventilation is
the problem. This should be accomplished without making use
of the hall or other basement room by arranging a small air shaft
or flue on the side of room
opposite the windows. This shaft or
flue is not expected to carry off the smoke arising from cooking
operations which should be carried away in a vent flue, opening

above the range. Of course, a window opening to the outside
would be preferable to the air shaft or flue and the sill of such a
window could well be kept high above the floor so as not to ob-
struct wall space more than necessary. Having arranged our
kitchen with regard to lighting and ventilation, its access should
be considered. The conventional long hall or passage to the front
area, on the same level as the kitchen, is not susceptible to much
variation, providing the latter is at the rear of the house. In the
popular American basement plan, the service entrance is arranged
at one side, with the main entrance in the middle or at the other
side. Differences in floor levels are provided for by steps within
the house. If in any wise possible, a sunken area reached by six or
more outside steps should be avoided as being dangerous in winter

and unsatisfactory at all times.
The suburban house, being capable of fairly ideal arrangement,
there is no good excuse for an ill-arrangement of the kitchen. From
utilitarian considerations it should be, and generally is, placed on
the same level as the dining room and in a separate wing. In such
a case, the matters of cross ventilation and lighting are not diffi-
cult to arrange and the desired exposure easily obtained*.
387
The proper size for a kitchen is determined entirely by the actual

service required of it. It should be compact without
being cramped,
with the idea of placing fixtures and utensils within easiest reach.
Too much room is quite as undesirable as too little, and the happy
medium should be carefully sought.
In regard to the fitting up of our kitchen, we should not allow
anything to go into it that is not first class and thoroughly
up-to-
date. For flooring, tile and
stone are rejected by some
artificial
as being unsatisfactory to work on, gradually affecting the feet.
Some insist on a hardwood floor. Where conditions make it pos-
sible,however, an unglazed vitrified white tile is the handsomest
and absorbent material and the objection as to the effect on
least
the feet can be overcome by using lengths of fibre matting where
most wear comes. These can be removed at will and the floor
scoured. Rubber tiling is also a suitable flooring material, and
produces a handsome effect. It can be laid on wood or cement
and is available under almost all conditions. The side walls should
be finished with white glazed tile to a height of six feet or more,
having a concave base moulding and neat cap piece, with such sim-
ple lines of colored tile as good taste would suggest. The walls
above the tile and the ceiling may be covered with a material in the
nature of an ail-cloth, made for that purpose and in appropriate
colorings and patterns. Thus the room may be given a washing
over all parts and kept clean and fresh as the most fastidious could
require. The architraves or casings of the doorways should have
white marble base blocks.
Thus far we have been constructing our room, the appliances
necessary to make it of use now invite attention.

The range is
easily first inimportance. should be
It so located as to receive
strong side light on its top and at the same time not be directly
in a cross draught which would interfere with the fire. The so-
called French range, with black steel sides and nickel plated
its
trimmings, is a piece of kitchen furniture. At one end,

handsome
it will have a section devoted to cooking with gas. At the proper
height, a' projecting curved hood will collect most of the smoke
broiling and allow it to be drawn into a vent flue

from in
arising
the chimney. Inasmuch as the hot-water boiler is not to be con-
sidered ahandsome feature, it is well to conceal it if possible in
some convenient closet or else place it on the chimney breast in a
horizontal position above the range. This relieves the difficulty
of keeping the floor clean under and behind it when it is set on a
standard.
On the opposite side of the room from the range we may locate
the sink and, between the two, place the table. space of about A
five feet on each side of the table will be found sufficient to allow
389
o 2
?:"i
H
a 5
rfl
H _
tf O
s 5
AMERICAN RESIDENCES OP TO-DAY. 391
of easy movement and at the same time make a convenient disposi-

tion. The porcelain sink and drip-board andnickeled pipes make
a fine effect. wise to keep as much as possible of the supply
It is
and drain piping- exposed. It can be made far from ugly and any
repairs can be made without cutting of walls and floors. The table
can be arranged with convenient drawers for kitchen cutlery and
other necessary small implements; also a deep metal-lined drawer
for throwing refuse temporarily, to be emptied into the regular
metal can or barrel every day. A lower shelf will be found handy.
The top may be of wood or marble and have a narrow plate shelf
down the center about fifteen inches above it, carried on end
brackets and leaving the top open under it. The gas or electric
light fixture should be above the table with a side bracket above
the sink.
Very handsome refrigerators are in the market, having glass
or tile linings and compartments for every conceivable use. The
exteriors are of wood or tile and they are altogether a most sani-
tary place for the keeping of food. Some housekeepers prefer a
built-in box but there is little, if any, gain in going to that expense
as the portable ones meet every requirement. In the case of the
town house, the refrigerator may best be located in the hall between
the street entrance and the kitchen and handy to the latter. It
should, of course, be set in a well-lighted place if possible. The

drainage can be taken care of by arranging a pipe to discharge
above a sink in the cellar.
The kitchen closet may be devoted almost entirely to the hold-
ing of pots, kettles and other bulky utensils. The tins and agate
ware should be kept bright and clean and hung on brass hooks in
rows on the kitchen wall where they may have more or less deco-
rative value, appropriate to the room. Some of the dry groceries,
most constantly needed, should be in a small and shallow wall cup-
board or a narrow shelf within easy reach. A cold storage closet
should be arranged for the keeping of vegetables and dry gro-
ceries in bulk, possibly in a laundry extension, off from the kitchen.
In the planning a town house with the kitchen below-stairs,
the butler's pantry is of course located on the dining room level.
A single window is sufficient for light, as a rule. Some arrange-
ments permit of a skylight. Provision for the table china is made
in dressers, with glazed doors. These should extend to the
ceiling, if necessary, making storage cupboards of the upper
portion. The pantry sink is of porcelain and of open plumb-

ing type. To a height of two feet and eight inches, the dressers
should be about twenty-two inches deep and be built with tiers of
drawers, bread-cutting slides and a cupboard or two. The upper
part of the dressers should be set about fifteen inches above the
lower and be about fifteen inches deep. The cabinetmaker often

produces such fine results in constructing these dresser-cases that
the mistress of the house will usually be proud to show them.. In
the center of the pantry may be placed the serving table. This will
have a marble top and have a section arranged as a plate-warmer,
steam heated. The dumb-waiter will occupy a convenient corner
and provide direct communication to the kitchen. In a detached
or suburban house with the kitchen on the dining room level, the
pantry will have the same furniture but be so planned as to allow
no view of the kitchen from the dining room and have two double-
swinging doors between, with panels of glass. The pantry floor
may be a choice of vitrified tile, marble and wood. A neat
parquetry floor is appropriate. A
kitchen pantry is a desirable
feature, devoted to the keeping of kitchen crockery and the sugar
and flour barrels. The latter are concealed in a sort of cupboard
arrangement, with hinged tops which give easy access to the barrels
and forms a shelf when not raised.
The laundry is a separate room, fitted with a suitable stove, a row
of porcelain tubs and a closet for keeping clothes baskets, pins,
lines and irons. The tubs must be well lighted. The floor may be
of cement, laid off in small squares the walls of glazed brick or
;
painted plaster. Space must be allowed for a table and one or

more ironing boards. Access to the yard must be easy and a
steam clothes drier may be provided for use in inclement weather.
As an adjunct to the kitchen section of the house, a servants' hall
is quite indispensable. It will serve as dining room and sitting
room and be substantially furnished. It may or may not immedi-
ately adjoin the kitchen, but will be easy of access thereto.. And
having thus described our kitchen and its subsidiary parts, we may
complete its usefulness by connecting it to the rest of the house
by telephone to each bedroom, hall, drawing room and dining
room.
393
UPPER ILLUSTRATION CENTRAL, GATES.

LOWER ILLUSTRATION LAKE ENTRANCE GATES
Residence of John A. McCall, Long Branch, N. J. Henry Edward Cregier, Architect.
10
GENERAL VIEWS.
AM ERIC AX RESIDENCES OF TO-DAY.
395
NORTH-EAST AND SOUTH-WEST VIEWS.

Residence of John A. McCall, Long Branch. N. J. Henry Edward Cregier, Architect.
396
397
VIEW OF FOUNTAIN FROM PORTICO.

FOUNTAIN IN WHITE GLAZED TERRA GOTTA AND BRONZE.

STAIRCASE IN SOCIAL HALL.

Henry Edward Cregier, Architect.
Residence of John A. McCall, Long Branch, N. J.
4OO THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD.
SOCIAL, HALL,.
VIEW OF STAIRCASE.
VIEWS OF MEZZANINE FLOOR AND OF SOCIAL HALL.

Residence of John A. McCall, Long Branch, N. J. Henry Edward Cregier. Ar.liitec:

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VOL. XVI. OCTOBER, 1904 No. 4.

DWELLINGS OF THE MIDDLE WEST.

F all the types of private dwellings now being erected

but the immense majority of suburban and semi-suburban houses

by which they are surrounded varies between a hundred feet and

propriety are sacrificed to the "stunning-" effect. In the better West-

examples of any other class of building which could be collected,

tury dwelling' was rarely the work of a well-qualified architect. The

completely finished job He designs, of course, the exterior and

furnishings of the dwellings, are rhe work either of the head of

that of upholstery apartments that are overcrowded with big

jump out in large flowery patterns, and many other comfortable

that the intention evidently is to do something good. Indeed, the

artistry to the latest aesthetic ideas. The result of these conflict-

comparatively high cost.

decorator should be to carry out the architect's ideas. Within

no other way of obtaining unity and integrity of effect, but because

as a designer must occasionally do, the profit on a job to the neces-

sity of repairing a mistake or reaching

Nevertheless, whatever the defects of the kind of dwelling illus-

to control the planning of dwellings from the foundations to the

effectually serve to give American interiors the mixture of propri-

highest standard of professional and technical rectitude. His great

FIG. 11. HALL, IN THE HF3A.LY HOUSE.

HE growth and development of the "hall" in the

sitting room. The entry of the old-fashioned

many householders object to it altogether, many again are found

be separated as far as the size of the house and the disposition of

FIGS. 12-13. HALL IN THE HOUSE OF J. T. PIRIE, JR.

Thus in Fig. n there is indeed no way visible of closing the

altogether agreeable sitting room from which by two steps we

room with a recessed window, and by another entrance you reach

room contains the stair, and it is separated from the division in

studded with electric bulbs in the panels, the whole composition is

except a door in the wainscoting.

FIG. 15. HALL IN THE HOUSE OF A. F. OSBORN.

FIG. 18. HALL IN THE HOUSE OF JOHN B. DRAKE.

FIGS. 10-20. HALL IN THE HOUSE OF DR. MARTIN.

FIG. 24. HALL OF THE HOUSE OF FRANK HIBBARD.

Fig. 21 seems to be a modern composition in the same spirit,

designer and to owner. Certainly the artist deserves great

factory. A little crowded, a little bending toward

Figs. 27 and 28 give the details of an extremely magnificent

FIG. 25. STAIRWAY IN THE HEALY HOUSE.

FIG. 27. THE HALL OP THE KIP HOUSE.

FIG. 28. THE3 HALL OF THE) KIP HOUSE.

FIG. 29. STAIRWAY IN THE HOUSE OF CLARENCE MACKAY.

modern conveniences except, perhaps, the electric light, which may

Fig. 34 is not attractive from the number of levels seen in it

Fig. 36 is evidently immediately connected with the stair of

FIG. 31. LIVING ROOM IN THE HOUSE OF A. F. HOLDEN.

FIG. 32. HALL IN THE SOUTHWORTH HOUSE.

FIG. 33A. LIVING ROOM IN THE HOUSE OF COL. PERKINS.

FIG. 35. THE HEALY HOUSE.

FIG. 30. HALL IN THE HOUSE OF CLARENCE MACKAY.

The Living Room.

pend very largely on the foregoing considerations in the matters of

house of moderate cost are so mutually dependent, that either one