Woodward's Country Homes Part 2

DESIGN No. 6.

STONE STABLE AND COACH HOUSE.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 22.--_Perspective._]

This design was erected on the Hudson, during the past year, of the beautiful rock faced stone so abundant between the Spuyten Duyvil and the Highlands, and is a good example of such a building as will meet the requirements of a moderately extensive establishment. It is conveniently arranged, enabling all the work to be done with the most ease, and gives thorough light and ventilation, so essential to the health and comfort of animals. The time has gone by to give prospective prices for anything, but we have seen the day when this building might have been erected for about $4,000. A room for the coachman may easily be made on the second floor, and the plan increased or decreased to suit the wants of any one.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 23.--_Ground Plan._]

DESIGN No. 7.

A FARM COTTAGE.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 24.--_Perspective View._]

We show in this design a style of cottage which, in these high priced times of lumber and labor, can be erected at a very reasonable figure; and although prepared for a farm cottage, will admit of such changes as will adapt it to the wants of those who require a higher grade of accommodation. It is the most natural thing in the world for any one to take up a plan and suggest innumerable changes and additions, always forgetting the unalterable condition of price, situation, and object, which restrained the architect while working it up. To prepare a design regardless of expense is a very different matter from devising one that gives the largest amount of accommodation within a fixed limit of cost.

We shall arrive gradually at the precise figures, and endeavor to get the accommodation wanted by some of our readers.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 25.--_Cellar._]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 26.--_First Floor._]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 27.--_Second Floor._]

It has been frequently observed that the gate lodges and farm cottages attached to large estates are generally more attractive in their architectural proportions and beauty than the mansion itself; and this has been usually attributed to the education of the proprietor's tastes, the cottages being the latest erections. This impression is not, however, always true; for there is a peculiar beauty and attractiveness about cottage architecture which can not be produced in buildings of a larger and more commodious cla.s.s. Certain it is that a prettily designed cottage will always arrest attention. "Among the first and most pleasing impressions," says a late writer, "of our trite friend, the intelligent foreigner, as he entered England by the old Dover road, were those suggested by the little whitewashed and woodbined cottages which caught his eye at every turn. All books of travels on English ground are full of them. Snugly sheltered in its bower of apple trees, or more stately group of walnuts, approachable only by its rustic stairs, or dotted at neighborly distances along the straggling village, with its trim garden of lavender and wall flowers, seen through the wicket gate or over the privet hedge, the English cottage, above or below, near or in the distance, was alike the delight and envy of the traveler, the theme of the journalist and the poet. 'There is scarce a cottage,' says an American tourist just landed from America and France, 'between Dover and London which a poet might not be happy to live in. I saw a hundred little spots I coveted with quite a heart-ache.' Whether or not Rogers would have given up his picture-lighted snuggery in St. James' Place for his 'Cot beside the hill,' and really preferred to have his latch lifted by the pilgrim, instead of his knocker by a London footman, it is certain that the cottage homes of England that border the main roads have long possessed a beauty far beyond the houses in other lands belonging to cla.s.ses much higher in the social scale, and have been coveted, sometimes not without reason, by those who could, if they chose, have purchased them fifty times over."

DESIGN No. 8.

This design for a timber cottage is simple and at the same time picturesque, and built upon a site adapted to it, and in harmony with the architectural expression, the effect could not fail to be in a high degree pleasing.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 28.--_Perspective View._]

It will be seen that some of the princ.i.p.al timbers of the frame are intended to show on the outside, and that there is a designed contrast between the horizontal siding extending to the top of the posts, and the vertical and battened covering of the pediment above the ornamental string course. The brackets and posts which support the roof of the porches, should be chamfered, and these timbers should be of sufficient thickness to avoid any appearance of meanness, while at the same time, they should not be too heavy, and so destroy the proportions of the design.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 29.--_Cellar._]

The roof should be covered with shingles having their ends clipped or rounded.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 30.--_First Floor._]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 31.--_Second Floor._]

The cellar may be divided in such way as to serve the wants of the occupants. A portable furnace might be placed at the foot of the bas.e.m.e.nt stairs, which would warm the rooms on the first floor, and temper the air of the chambers above.

The interior accommodations and conveniences are readily seen on inspection of the plans--(Figs. 30. 31). There is no waste of room, and for the uses of a small family, the accommodations would be found as ample as could well be obtained in a cottage of such size and cost.

DESIGN No. 9.--RURAL CHURCH.

DESIGNED BY THE REV. DR. CRESSY.

This design is intended for a church which is to occupy a beautiful and commanding site on the western sh.o.r.e of Lake George, in the midst of the original forest, and is now in process of erection. It will also meet the requirements of several correspondents who have requested plans for rural churches which could be erected as economically and cheaply as possible, with due regard to proportion, fitness and beauty of expression.

This design will be found to comprehend, we may say, in an eminent degree, variety of outline, correctness of detail, force of expression and purity of taste, with simplicity of execution, and in those parts of the country where lumber is abundant, and labor not exorbitant, it can be erected at a low cost.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 32.--_Perspective._]

We have a right to congratulate ourselves on the improvement which the last quarter of a century has witnessed among our people in the building and adorning of our edifices devoted to Christian worship. Downing, in his time, said, "that the ugliest church architecture in Christendom, is at this moment to be found in the country towns and villages of the United States." And speaking of the influence of what our churches should be, in the beauty of their proportions, and in the expression of the sacred purposes which they embody, and the feelings of reverence and harmony with G.o.d and man which they suggest, he fitly says--"We fear there are very few country churches in our land that exert this kind of spell,--a spell which grows out of making stone, and brick, and timber, obey the will of the living soul, and express a religious sentiment.

Most persons, most committees, select men, vestrymen, and congregations, who have to do with the building of churches, appear indeed wholly to ignore the fact, that the form and feature of a building may be made to express religious, civil, domestic, or a dozen other feelings, as distinctly as the form and features of the human face:--and yet this is a fact as well known by all true architects, as that joy and sorrow, pleasure and pain, are capable of irradiating or darkening the countenance. Yes, and we do not say too much, when we add, that right expression in a building for religious purposes, has as much to do with awakening devotional feelings, and begetting an attachment in the heart, as the unmistakable signs of virtue and benevolence in our fellow-creatures have in awakening kindred feelings in our own b.r.e.a.s.t.s.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 33.--_Floor Plan._]

"We do not, of course, mean to say that a beautiful rural church will make all the population about it devotional, any more than that sunshine will banish gloom; but it is one of the influences that prepare the way for religious feeling, and which we are as unwise to neglect, as we should be to abjure the world and bury ourselves, like the ancient troglodytes, in caves and caverns."

Happily we are coming to appreciate these truths, not only in our cities, but in the country, and the ugly, unsightly, and unseemly structures which have so long deformed the land are giving place to edifices in which the true ideas of harmony, grace, proportion, symmetry and expression, which make what we call Beauty, are brought out in due proportion.

The church we present is designed to be of wood, the country about the site affording an abundance of that material, at the lowest cost. An inspection of the design will show that the princ.i.p.al timbers of the frame are intended to be visible externally,--the weather-boarding being set back from the face of the posts and beams. This exterior covering is intended to be made of sound _rough_ plank, from ten to fourteen inches wide, and at least one and a-half inches thick. These are to be tongued and grooved, so as to make a close joint, and nailed to the frame in a _vertical_ manner. The joint is to be covered with a narrow strip, or batten, of one and a-half inch plank. These unplaned plank may be painted with two good coats and sanded, or they may be left to take such tints and complexion as time and the weather may give them.

Lumber, at the proposed site, being cheaper and more easily obtained than lime, the interior of the church will be neatly ceiled with narrow boards, which will be lightly stained and oiled. The roof will be "open timber" of simple construction. All the wood work of the interior will be of pine, smoothly planed, stained and oiled, without paint, except the ceiling of the roof which should be colored, in order to give something like warmth of tone to the interior, the lack of which is often sadly felt in our country churches, particularly.

This mode of weather-boarding and "open timber" finish is now so common that a more particular description is unnecessary.

This church will seat, comfortably, about two hundred persons. Its cost will depend entirely upon the price of lumber and labor, of course, and these vary with different localities, and are particularly uncertain at this time. We will only add that it will cost no more to build with correct proportions and in good taste, than in disregard and defiance of these desirable and commendable principles.

DESIGN No. 10.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 34.--_Perspective._]

We give below a somewhat different example of Cottage Architecture, of a form that is compact and every way available, at the same time affording every convenience in the arrangement of rooms desirable for a family of refined tastes and moderate means. This cottage may be built of wood, or, better still, in favorable localities, of brick or stone, and if suitably surrounded with tasteful landscape embellishments, will make a snug, pretty, and attractive home. One can, by the exercise of appropriate taste, produce the right kind of an impression in a house of this character. It should become a part of, and belong to the acres which surround it; it should be an indispensable accessory to the place itself, and the grounds should be laid out and embellished in such a manner that the whole combination impresses all with harmonious beauty, and not, as is too frequently the case, seek to make up the wretched deficiencies in the grounds by elaborate expenditure and display about the house. A true appreciation of country life will not tolerate slovenly, ill-kept grounds, and no house exhibits its true value unless there is a harmony in its surroundings. If this be attended to, a high degree of effect can be produced in houses of very moderate cost; houses that shall be roomy, warm, substantial, and in every way agreeable to their occupants.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 35.--_Bas.e.m.e.nt Plan._]