Nothing shows more clearly than this, how much man is a creature of habit. In his savage state, the nature of his existence necessitated the isolated hut. As civilization advanced, however, the necessity for, and enormous advantages of coöperation became evident, but habit perpetuated the isolated dwelling long after the reasons for its existence had disappeared, and it required centuries for civilized men to learn that coöperation is an element as essential to perfection in the arrangement of their habitations as it is in other things.
A given accommodation may be obtained in the form of a “flat” for less than one-half the outlay required to obtain it in the form of an independent dwelling built on the same land.
The form of comparison herein presented has never, to my knowledge, been heretofore made, and the results are as surprising as they are important and interesting.
The estimates of cost have been made by several competent contractors on scale drawings and accurate specifications, are easily verified and hence may be accepted as reliable.
[Figure 1] is one of the plans of our apartment-house which is to be built on the Back Bay, Boston.
[Figure 2] shows the floor-plans of an independent house which might be built on the same land. Both figures are drawn to the same scale for convenience in comparing the dimensions. The independent-house (which I shall, in contradistinction to the “flat,” designate as the “tower” to mark its prominent point of difference from the “flat” in form) contains a kitchen, pantry, furnace-room, fuel-cellar, laundry, dining-room, china-closet, parlor, eight bed-chambers provided with suitable closets, two bath-rooms, a trunk-room, a front staircase extending from the first floor to the attic, and a back staircase extending from the basement to the third floor. What will these accommodations cost in this form and what in the form of a “flat” in an apartment-house?
The apartment-house contains a public kitchen, steam-heating, ventilating and electric-lighting isolated plants, fuel-cellar, laundry, café, billiard-room, gentlemen’s smoking-room, ladies’ parlor, small public dining-rooms, and eighty suites, averaging five rooms, a bath-room and closets in each, and with a trunk or storage-room in the basement for each suite; four elevators and four fireproof staircases of iron and marble enclosed in brick walls from basement to roof.
The suites are of different sizes to suit the proposed occupants, and will have from two to twelve or more rooms of varying dimensions as desired. They are partly “housekeeping” suites, i. e., having kitchens and dining-rooms; partly “hotel” suites, i. e., having neither kitchens nor dining-rooms, the occupants preferring to use the public café and dining-rooms; and partly “semi-housekeeping” suites, i. e., having dining-rooms and china-closets with dumb-waiters connecting them with the public-kitchen, but no independent kitchen. The “housekeeping” suites require one more bed-room than the others, to accommodate a private cook.
Assuming now at first in our comparison those conditions which are least favorable to the apartment-house, we will take one of the “housekeeping” suites, having precisely the same number and size of rooms as we find in our independent house or “tower” and compare costs.