When large houses are erected upon comparatively narrow lots, a certain amount of horizontal compression accompanied by vertical exten sion is unavoidable and appropriate. Such houses may consist mainly of structures three or four storeys in height, with little to harmonize them with surrounding scenery. They are almost city houses, and need height to give both importance and accommodation. But in a house surrounded by broad acres the conditions are different: repose is here the great essen tial. The features should be well separated, and the more lofty parts of the building should be linked to the scenery around by outbuildings, piazzas, and accessory constructions of less height. The crowding together of narrow gables, high chimneys, and tall dormers should be avoided: such close contiguity of the members gives a cramped aspect to the mass. These requirements are utterly independent of style, and apply equally to classic and to Gothic exteriors.
A fine country-residence is Ingeborg, near Overbrook, Pennsylvania 67, fig. 3). It is of rough stone, and owes its effect to the studied picturesqueness of the outline and the solidity of the material. The entrance-porch, the gables, and especially the quaint staircase with its windows following the rake of the steps, are very fine. Another picturesque country-house is that of Mr. Scott, at Germantown. The air of careless abandon exhibited by every carefully-studied feature of this res idence has rarely been excelled. It is the chefauccuzwe of its architect.
Examples as good can be found around most large cities. The suburbs of New York City—which not only extend far into Long Island and up the Hudson, but also stretch southward in New Jersey until they almost meet those of Philadelphia—might be made to furnish good examples enough to more than fill a work of this description. Tuxedo Park, Elbe ron, and Orange may be mentioned as localities where the modern pic turesque country-house has startled the Jerseyman out of his cherished "vernacular." Brookline and the suburbs of Boston generally are replete with examples of the modern country-house, and Boston architects, as well as those of New York, have been called in to beautify towns far from their residence. It is hard to draw a line between the country- and the city-house, since the nearer suburbs and residence-streets of all large cities are lined in part by detached dwellings of greater or less pretension, surrounded by grounds varying from little more than enough to contain the house, and partly by dwellings in rows, or in pairs according to the manner known as semi-detached. The modern country-house is but a summer residence in a more or less fashionable resort among the moun tains or by the sea, while the suburban residence is usually the winter home of its occupants; and in suburbs not too close to a city the two classes of residence are mingled. The winter residence needs a more
compact plan and more substantial construction than the summer house, but this distinction of purpose is not always well exhibited.
Seaside Cottages can scarcely be said to form a class apart, yet are more exclusively occupied as summer residences than are the houses of inland country resorts. The entire Atlantic coast from Maine to Florida is set with watering-places which follow one another at intervals of every few miles. The coast of New Jersey is one continuous row of such resorts. Figure 2 (pi. 68) is an example of a very neat seaside cottage built of stone, brick, and tiles, at Monmouth Beach.
City-dreellings.—The chief characteristic of the dwellings of Philadel phia—and, it may be added, of Baltimore also—has until the last few years been the want of all architectural features. Street follows street in monotonous rows of red pressed-brick fronts with oblong openings, sills of white marble, and steps of the same material. The steps project upon the sidewalk and the brick is frequently painted. Green shutters, down-pipes discharging upon the footway, and cellar-ways closed with green trap-doors remain to show that Philadelphia is a city of the eigh teenth century. The monotony of the elevation is almost equalled by that of the plan. The houses are deep and narrow; at the rear is an addition often deeper than, and in many cases of equal height with, the main building. The first floor of this addition contains the kitchen, while in the second floor there is invariably a family sitting-room, often the largest room in the house.
Since the Centennial Exhibition (1876) considerable variety has crept in, but even yet, although country and suburban houses exhibit so much freedom, the city-house of Philadelphia is hampered by old traditions. The lack of the smallest space between the building-line and the street proper, with the consequent projecting steps, is destructive of magnif icence even in houses whose fronts are filled with ornament and whose openings are well arranged. Yet the average character of Philadelphia street-houses has vastly improved within the last decade. The newer street-residences have for the most part affected the Queen-Anne manner, but there is now evident, here as elsewhere, a tendency toward the earlier Renaissance, as well as an inclination to throw off all trammels of style and to revel in wild conceits.