Elevation of principal front.
chief room on the basement the ordinary apartment for the family. The confined areas formerly adopted in front and back of the building are omitted, and the earth is sloped up in form of a bank, being adorned with flowers and shrubs so as to look pleasing from within the apartments. There is usually a side room in the basement, with descending steps to the entrance, which serves as an office to the occupier of the house. If his business be chiefly in the locality,
Ground plan.
this is very convenient; the chief room in the basement is used as a dining and supper room, and indeed for all common purposes by the family. It renders it unnecessary to have more than one, or at most, two servants’ rooms. The drawing-room, the library, and the superior dining-room are on the floor above.
This suburban dwelling very much resembles the same class of structure in America, where economy of space is carried out more completely than with us, and the residents are less dependent on servants. In the American house, the pantry is nearly always placed between the kitchen and the dining-room, and its chief approach is from the latter, even when the dining-room is on the ground floor. The American
One-pair plan.
house has the office, or place of business of the occupier, on the lower floor, with its separate entrance. The Americans exhibit a compactness of arrangement and an attention to detail that prove they are in no way behind us in a knowledge of what is requisite for household comfort. One peculiarity in the American building is the verandah, which is considered to be indispensable. It is large and roomy, and often placed on three sides of the building; the climate, warmer and drier than our own, renders such an addition a
