I remember a gentleman at Los Angeles, California, showing me with pride a room in his villa he had papered with a gorgeous wall-paper with lots of gold in it. He considered it sufficient in itself, an end and not a means, and apparently had no intention of disturbing or obscuring the design by pictures or furniture, except perhaps a chair or a couch from which to contemplate the splendours of the pattern.
I think there is a good deal to be said for the adoption of the Eastern idea of a divan for western salons—seats all round the room and in the windows, with small moveable coffee-tables. Ladies who entertain would find this a very convenient arrangement for “at home” days, and with a parquet floor the young people would only have to roll up the rugs to find dancing room at short notice. The hall, or house place of old English houses, no doubt easily lent itself to hospitable and social gatherings, the long tables and benches ranged along the walls leaving plenty of floor space for games or dancing, while the ingle-nook invited the gossips and story-tellers.
Carpaccio’s “The Dream of St. Ursula,” Accademia, Venice
From a Photograph by Anderson
The revival of the hall or living-room with the ingle-nook is a noteworthy feature in recent country houses. In fact, in the design and construction of the small country houses or country cottages built of late years, mostly as retreats for workers in towns, artists and others, we find the most successful, attractive, and characteristic buildings of our time, probably. The cottages designed by Mr. C. F. A. Voysey, for instance, with rough-cast battened and buttressed walls, green or Whitland Abbey slates, green outside shutters, and white casements, have the charm of neatness, quaintness, and simplicity, an utter absence of pretentiousness and show, and a regard for the character of their site. There are some charming cottages of this type at Bournville, already referred to, designed by Mr. Harvey, the young architect of the estate. I give one here of my son’s (Mr. Lionel Francis Crane) design—a timber cottage in the recent “Cottages Exhibition” at Garden City. In designing a country house, an architect is of course much less fettered than with a town or street site, and he can frame it in a garden, which is an important decorative adjunct or setting to a country house or cottage. It is possible also to make it fit into or even become a part of the scenery, especially if local materials are employed. Indeed, it seems to me, that the secret of harmonious effect in building lies in the use of local materials as regards country houses. The beauty of our old castles, abbeys, country houses and cottages is greatly owing to this. We feel they are in harmony with the character and colour of the scenery, and have become parts of these, independently of the effects of time.
In the present awakening of the public mind to the importance of the housing question, and the want of substantial, comfortable, as well as comely dwellings for the people, especially in the country districts, much attention has been directed to cottage building, and a practical effort is being made by the Garden City Association to solve the question in the competitive exhibition in cottage design and building they recently organized. The question is, as usual, complicated by the commercial question of profit and percentages on invested capital.
Cottage in the Garden City, Letchworth, Herts
Architect, Lionel F. Crane. Builder, Frank Newton, Hitchin