The Construction of the Small House / A Simple and Useful Source of Information of the Methods of Building Small American Homes, for Anyone Planning to Build

by H. Vandervoort Walsh

In all cases, however, it is generally recognized that the small house can best be tied into the surroundings by making it low, say a story and a half or one story, for one of two stories or even two and a half offers an ungainly elevation for an architectural composition. In rare instances have houses of this proportion been artistically finished. At any rate, the house should be kept as low as possible in the front, and the ugly, stilted foundations should not protrude above the level of the lawn. Nothing is so effective in producing a feeling of intimacy between house and grounds as to keep the level of the first floor only about six inches above the grade. This, of course, makes it difficult to light and ventilate the cellar, since any windows in the foundation-walls would have to open into areas. A compromise can be made by grading the lawn down at the back of the house, so that enough of the foundation can extend above the ground to permit of well-lighted cellar windows.

THOUGHTLESS PLANTING

Another method by which an intimate connection between ground and house can be produced is in the blending of wall materials and foundation-stones. If the walls of the house are of stucco, and the lower part of them built of rubble-stone, then a gradual transition can be made from the stone to the stucco by carrying the stucco down over certain parts of the stone work, so that it flows into the mortar joints—like the waters of a lake flow into the little indentations of a rocky shore. This will eliminate any sharp horizontal line where the foundation-wall of stone ends and upper wall of stucco begins. As the stone has a natural intimacy with the soil, it easily makes the transition with the ground, and its effectiveness is very marked where the site is hilly and parts of the foundation are built upon little rocky juttings. This same easy transition can be made from stone foundation to brick wall. It is not possible to do it with the wooden wall, however.

But perhaps the most widely used method of producing an intimate connection between ground and walls of the house is with foundation planting. There is much abuse of this method. To surround the base of the house with billowy clumps of shrubbery, so that it appears almost as if it were springing from a bed of clouds, is not at all satisfying. Nor should the owner have to be everlastingly kept at the job of trimming down these plants or removing dead ones which refuse to grow in the poor soil and bad drainage next to the cellar. And the house should not be made to mourn behind a bed of evergreens, protected at intervals with sentinel-like cedars, dark and foreboding, against the wall and sighing and whining in the wind. Rather should a delicate use be made of foundation planting by using vines, and now and then a small shrub or little evergreen. The object should be to make a shading and transition from the green lawn to the walls of the house by carrying upward upon the walls or against them some of the climbing plants, that the green of the ground may fade gradually into the white of the stucco or the red of the brick wall. Public buildings need massive and impressive foundations, but the small house should be nestled in Nature’s lap.

2.—NATURAL FRAMING FOR HOUSE

When viewed by the passer-by in the street the planting around the house should be so arranged that it makes a natural frame for it and creates a composition for a picture. Regarded from this angle there should be background trees, trees and shrubbery flanking the sides along the edge of the plot, a green open lawn stretching forward to the street, some columnar-shaped trees or lacelike trees wisely placed to suggest the middle ground, and then a wall or low hedge with low plantings to make a foreground.

The background trees should be tall and mixed in character, so that their skyline is not stiff and wall-like. The trees which run along the edge of the lot ought also to be varied in type. Low shrubs should fill in the spaces between their trunks, but as they come forward on the property they should be more scattered, lower and thinner, so that the neighboring property can be seen, and finally they should end, allowing a blended connection between the lawns on either side. There are some who advocate that the site should be completely walled in with shrubs or fences and separated entirely from the neighboring plots, but this is not quite in harmony with our traditions, and ought not to be carried to this individual exclusiveness, although the rear of the lot may be so screened in.

The green lawn should not be broken with flower-beds, for, taken at its largest, it is bound to be little, and nothing should be introduced to break it up. The windings of the front path may be such that clumps of low shrubbery and a few columnar trees, like cedars or Lombardy poplars, can be placed along its edge and produce a motif for the middle ground, like a moving silhouette against the elevation of the house as one passes by.

The building up of the foreground should be with some low planting over which one can look. The use of fence or wall is legitimate if it does not cut off the view. Gates are a little out of harmony with our American traditions, for they mean that they should be attended by a gatekeeper, a human tool that is quite extinct in the average home, and especially in the small one.