If You're Going to Live in the Country — Reading Notes

I. WHY LIVE IN THE COUNTRY 3

II. SELECTING THE LOCATION 19

III. SHOPPING FOR PROPERTY 35

IV. CALL IN AN ARCHITECT 57

V. BUILDING VERSUS REMODELING 73

VI. LOOKING AN OLD HOUSE IN THE MOUTH 91

VII. NEW SITES FOR OLD HOUSES 105

VIII. THE SMOKE GOES UP THE CHIMNEY 121

IX. THE QUESTION OF WATER SUPPLY 139

XI. DECORATIONS AND FURNISHINGS 165

XII. THE FACTORY PART OF THE HOUSE 179

XIII. PETS AND LIVESTOCK 191

XIV. TIGHTENING FOR WINTER 203

XV. KEEPING HOME FIRES IN THEIR PLACE 215

XVI. WHEN THINGS GO WRONG 227

XVII. WORKING WITH NATURE 243

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

A riverside home reconstructed from the ruins of an old mill _Frontispiece_ _Robertson Ward, architect. Photo by Gottscho_

The Ogden house, Fairfield, Conn. Built before 1705, it has been restored to preserve the original details 12 _Miss Mary Allis_

An old farmhouse in the rough 36 _Photo by John Runyon_

A really Early American interior. The great fireplace of the Wayside Inn, Sudbury, Mass. 60 _Henry Ford_

Once half a house and a hen roost 76 _Photo by Whitney_

What can be done with a barn 76 _Robertson Ward, architect. Photo by Gottscho_

As they built a chimney in the 18th Century 118 _Photo by John Runyon_

A place for summer and week-ends 148 _Robertson Ward, architect. Photo by La Roche_

True 18th Century simplicity. Now the authors' dining room 170 _Photo by John Runyon_

Entirely new, but with all the charm of an old house 184 _Robertson Ward, architect. Photo by Gottscho_

Snow has dignity, but is the house snug and warm? 206 _Photo by Gottscho_

An imposing country home of classic dignity 220 _Robertson Ward, architect. Photo by Gottscho_

Skillful planting of trees, shrubs, and flowers make the setting 244 _Robertson Ward, architect. Photo by Gottscho_

There is a beginning with everything. So far as this book is concerned, annual driving trips through Central Vermont are responsible. They were great events, planned months in advance. With a three-seated carriage and a stocky span good for thirty miles a day and only spirited if they met one of those new contraptions aglitter with polished brass gadgets, that fed on gasoline instead of honest cracked corn and oats, we took to the road. A newspaper man, vacation-free from Broadway first nights and operas sung by Melba, Sembrich, and the Brothers de Reszke, was showing his city-bred children his native hills and introducing them to the beauties of a world alien to asphalt pavements and brownstone fronts.

It was leisurely travel. When the road was unusually steep, to spare the horses, we walked. If Mother's eagle eye spotted a four-leaf clover, we stopped and picked it. If a bend in the road brought a pleasing prospect into view, the horses could be certain of ten minutes for cropping roadside grass. Most of all, no farmhouse nestling beneath wide-spread maples or elms went without careful consideration of Father's constant daydream, a home in the country.

These driving trips often included overnight stops with relatives living in villages undisturbed by the screech and thunder of freight and way trains, or with others living on picturesque old farms. Afterward there was always lively conversation concerning the possibilities of Cousin This or That's home as a country place. This reached fever heat after visits to Great Aunt Laura who lived in a roomy old house painted white with green blinds in a town bordering on Lake Champlain. A pair of horse-chestnut trees flanked the walk to the front door,--a portal unopened save for weddings, funerals, and the minister's yearly call.

From here could be seen the sweep of the main range of the Green Mountains. The kitchen doorway afforded a view of Mount Marcy and the Adirondacks never to be forgotten. It was the ancestral home with all the proper attributes, horse barn, woodshed, tool houses, and a large hay barn. Father's dream for forty years was to recapture it and settle down to the cultivation of rustic essays instead of its unyielding clay soil. However, he was first and last a newspaper man and his practical side told him that Shoreham was too far from Broadway. So it remained a dream.

His city-born and bred son inherited the insidious idea. Four years in a country college augmented it and, as time went on, the rumble of trucks and blare of neighboring radios turned a formerly quiet street on Brooklyn Heights into a bedlam and brought matters to a head. Great Aunt Laura's place was still too far away but explorers returning from ventures into the far reaches of Westchester County, and western Connecticut, had brought back tales of pleasantly isolated farmhouses with rolling acres well dotted with trees and stone fences. Here, thanks to the automobile and commuting trains, was the solution. A country place near enough to the city, so that the owner could have his cake and eat it, too.