But you have noticed that no American, however rich, has yet amassed sufficient fortune to warrant an undertaking anything like an adaptation of Chambord ([see Plate LXXVI]). A class of architecture in itself, the Valois shooting-box is quite too tremendous in extent for any modern use as a private domicile. The palace of Fontainebleau, also, would entail most too much of a contract for even the president of a trust, and I may add to these names, delightful to pronounce, the Louvre ([see Plate LXIX]), which the people of Philadelphia alone had the hardihood to caricature in a municipal building. Shades of François Mansart, what crimes have we enacted in thy name! [My acknowledgments to Mme. Roland].
Perhaps the most inviting and as little explored field of architecture suitable to domestic purposes in this country that I can think of to suggest to our talent is the opportunity we have in the Swiss châlets of the eighteenth century. There is a great variety of types from which to choose—high-roofed châlets and low-roofed châlets, châlets of stucco and châlets of wood. And there never was a sounder theory than that of Switzerland concerning the construction of wooden edifices. I do not except Norway, nor Sweden, nor Japan, for the ancient[7] châlets of Switzerland are in academic Gothic, if you please, architecturally of a high order which has withstood the vicissitudes of art and awaits the homage of future generations. To American architects who still have
KINGDOR. FRONT ELEVATION.
DETAIL “KINGDOR”.
more to do with wood than any other building material these châlets should prove both instructive and useful. Mr. Jean Schopfer has contributed, in the Architectural Record (New York), two very interesting papers about the eighteenth century châlets, and I will devote what remains of my space in this chapter to an American châlet I had some little difficulty in prevailing upon its owner to have, but with which, now that it is finished, he has assured me he is perfectly satisfied. (See Kingdor, Plates [LXVIII]., [LXXIX].)
Cypress, which in this part of the country has come to be our main reliance in the absence of good white pine, answers admirably for American adaptations of these Colonial houses—let us call them—of Switzerland. Most any size timbers may be specified without bankrupting the client or inconveniencing the contractor, while some durable stain will form an excellent ground for a venerable patina by infinitesimal particles to attach itself. I confess my only disappointment in Kingdor was that I was not permitted to carve the scriptural legends in archaic missal text that should always adorn the long horizontal timbers of a “truly” châlet. For in the most part of the adaptation it became my privilege, much to my unspeakable delight, to say to the black beast that besets the path of all architects—namely, the everlasting spirit of commercialism—expressively what Beau Brummel tells the importunate bailiffs in the play: “Oh, go and walk in Fleet Street!”