Repository: UIHistories Project: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1872 [PAGE 233]

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229 without attics, its wide eaves and verandahs, suit our summer climate 5 its horizontal lines harmonize with our landscapes; it is more economical in its structure and capacity, with almost equal irregularity and pieturesqueness of outline. And this is the conclusion of Downing, who speaks of it as best adapted to our climate, our landscape and our domestic wants* The grave objection to the gothic style is that it requires sleeping rooms in the roof and expensive details in ornamentation. And Henry Ward Beecher condemns the pure Grecian in the following characteristic words : "We abhor Grecian architecture for private dwellings, and especially for country homes. It is cheerless, pretentious, frigid. Those cold, long-legged columns, holding up a useless pediment that shelters nothing and shades nothing, reminds one of certain useless men, forever occupied with maintaining their dignity, which means their perpendicularity." The site of a house must be first healthy, and, as I have said, convenient of access. "He that buildeth a fair house upon an ill site," says Bacon, "committeth himself to prison." Armstrong gives some good hints, which, mutatis mutandis, are worthy of our consideration:

"Avoid the mournful plain, Where ofeiers thrive and trees that love the lake.

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"Mark where the dry champaign Swells into cheerful hills; where marjoram And thyme, the love of hees, perfume the air; And where the cynorrhoden with the rose For fragrance vies—for in the thirsty soil Most frequent breathe the aromatic tribes. There build thy roofs high, on the basking steep Ascend; there light thy hospitable fires, And let them see the winter morn arise, And summer evenings, blushing in the west; While, with umbrageous oaks, the ridge behind O'erhung, defends you from the blustering north, And bleak affliction of the peevish east. Oh, when the growling winds contend, and all The sounding forest fluctuates in the storm, To sink in warm repose and hear the din Howl o'er the steady battlements, delights Above the luxury of common sleep."

The sum of which old fashioned poetry is, that we should build on a dry site, sheltered from the bleaker winds. If possible, our farm houses should front south or east, with the farm buildings on the northwest, back, and upon side of the house, so as to be reached by side road or lane, which may also furnish access to the rear or side entrance to the dwelling. It is not necessary to say to the present company that a large hog lot in front of the house, although sanctioned by long usage among some of our early settlers, does not