There is a house that has been given rare individuality in this way at Duxbury, Massachusetts. As one drives along the picturesque country road, he comes to a winding lane that leads by graceful turns to a little brown farmhouse situated on the crest of a hill about three hundred yards from the main road. If the farmhouse alone is attractive, how much more so is it made by the entrance, for on either side are graceful elms that form an archway, disclosing the house beyond like a picture set in a rustic frame. On either side of the roadway one finds meadow lands and flower and vegetable gardens, everywhere dotted with graceful trees and the picturesque sumach. Vines clamber over the stone walls, partly hiding their roughness and giving their homelike atmosphere to the grounds. There are just three acres in this little property, bounded on two sides by delightful woodlands and on the others by rolling farmland and pastures; but there is room in even these small confines for a garden to supply the table all the year round and a bit of orchard where the gnarled old apple-trees are still fruitful.
Originally the old farmhouse was in a most unprepossessing condition. It had been inhabited for many years by farmer folk who took little pains with its appearance either without or within. When Mrs. Josephine Hartwell Shaw, of Boston, was searching for a country seat where she could pursue her occupation away from the bustle of city life and unmolested by chance guests, she was attracted first of all to the quiet little town by the name of Duxbury. As she looked about for a suitable house, she was charmed with the location of this weather-beaten old building, and closer examination proved it well worth reclaiming, both from an artist's point of view and from that of her own individual requirements.
Three Acres—Front View
Like many of the farmhouses in eastern Massachusetts, it had that peculiar beauty which consisted largely in its simple and straightforward solution of the problems at hand. It was not the creation of a master architect but of ordinary builders and craftsmen following the traditions of their fathers, varied by the restrictions of local material and newer requirements. It is this rugged and sturdy simplicity that gives to it an enduring charm; it was the very lack of a set style that gave to the remodeling of it an unfailing zest, increased by the very difficulty of the experiment that might result in a woeful failure or a great success. In dealing with houses such as this, it is impossible for the architect to rely on any formula or book of rules to direct him in a correct restoration. It requires a much deeper study and an understanding of the problems that confronted the builder in erecting the structure and the conditions under which he worked. It is then that the spirit of the old house will be manifest, and its adaptation to modern requirements will be but the thought of former years revised to meet present needs.
Three Acres—Side View
There are few buildings that can claim a more sympathetic handling in their restoration than this early, pre-Georgian farmhouse, which is called Three Acres. The excellent line of the wide, gabled roof, broken by a succession of outbuildings, forms an unusually attractive picture, with the weather-stained shingles softened against a background of oak and pine trees. The house now faces away from the main road and fronts upon a wooded slope that falls sharply down to the shores of a picturesque little pond. This is partly hidden by dense woods that form a background and a windbreak for the house. Formerly the public road went along here within a few yards of the front of the house, but it has been abandoned for the broader highway in the rear, and only the vaguest traces of it remain to-day.