DOI issue:
The international Studio (Obtober, 1908)
DOI article:Embury, Aymar: Some country houses in the Italian style
DOI Page / Citation link: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.28255#0445
Italian Style
SOME COUNTRY HOUSES IN THE
ITALIAN STYLE
BY AYMAR EMBURY II
Every little while some home-coming
traveler tells his architect of a lovely house in Italy
which he has seen and wants one like it, and the
architect designs a house to fit his client’s needs.
Perhaps, with a true and deep appreciation of the
quiet and restful beauty of the old Italian work, the
architect finds that he is outdoing the Italians them-
selves, perhaps he simply makes a copy, possibly a
flawless one, but which, after all, is only a copy.
Most architects would prefer not to be set a style to
follow, and American architecture as a whole
would be benefited if he did not have to; yet, when
we see the results produced by an intelligent and
artistic client working with a capable architect, we
are forced to acknowledge that for the individual
case the method could hardly be bettered.
Italian work, like the Italian mind, is of a fine
subtilty; of all the styles in all the world which we
are gradually adopting, assimilating and welding
into a compact and homogeneous style of our own, it
is both the easiest and the most difficult to use—
the easiest to reproduce by the simple copying of
its members, with a plausible surface similarity; the
most difficult in which to sink ourselves and pro-
duce, not reproduce, the feeling and sentiment of
our elders; or, better yet, to grasp and master and
lift to something different and beyond the older
work and yet a part of it.
Of the five examples on the following pages, the
lovely Casa del Ponte is the most thoroughly Italian
of all. The architects have imbued themselves so
completely in the Italian work that this little house
looks as if it might have come from the shores of
Maggiore or Como instead of from the bare Con-
necticut coast. It is by no means of the formal and
conventional type which we are most apt to think of
as Italian, but rather the simple and delightful
house which the not too rich of that joyous race are
accustomed to build. Exquisite in the spacing of
its windows and in the proportion of its wall to open-
ings, it is evidently spontaneous and very cheerful.
The ornament is so well placed, the trees come into
the picture so well, that it really seems that no other
house could here have been so good. Very differ-
ent is the Cheney house at South Manchester.
Lacking the playfulness and in some measure the
grace of Casa del Ponte, it is strong, sturdy and
dominant, the fitting descendant of the old red
brick Colonial type, but both refined and strength-
ened by the use of the Italian detail in cornice and
pergola-porches. Formal it is, but not dry; digni-
fied, without being stiff, and thoroughly American.
Many of the best houses nowadays have this same
character, half Colonial, half Italian, making them
very difficult to classify and yet showing the freedom
of selection from all sources which makes the
strength of present-day design.
The Cabot house, again, is more like Casa del
Ponte. The same freedom of treatment in the win-
dows, the same simple cornice and wall treatment
and dependence upon the proportion of the entire
mass of the house for its effect are apparent. The
beautiful setting and the skill with which the house
and surroundings are blended also make toward
the charm of the place. And this relation of house
to setting is not less a part of the architect’s business
than is the selection of a proper setting for a gem
part of the jeweler’s.
The Bloss house is somewhat more formal than
the Cabot house and Casa del Ponte, but has much
of their homelike quality. As in the latter, the
purely artificial superstructure passes through an
intermediate stage in the foundation and porch,
where the use of natural field stone serves as a tie to
connect it with the ground. The tile roof, so
marked a feature of the Italian house, is here em-
ployed, although the dormers necessary in this
country are entirely unheard of in Italy. What do
they do with their attics, anyway? The dormers,
however, are treated in such a manner that they do
not appear as mere excrescences, but as an integral
part of the construction.
These foregoing examples are all most excellent
examples of their several kinds, but in the Bartlett
house at Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, Mr. Howard
Shaw has treated the style he employed with much
less of convention. This is a building which,
founded upon a historical style, owes little to it.
Here is a house playful, full of life, movement and
color, and not in the least trivial or restless. Every
detail is thought out, every point looked after; the
very pavement under foot a thing of beauty.
Informal formality is the keynote of the whole
scheme. It seems as if people walking in the court-
yard must be of a simple courtesy, not too magnifi-
cent, but kindly and delightful. If we examine the
method by which this effect is produced, we find
that it is due to an extremely simple general scheme,
with an infinitude of thoughtfully designed detail,
which well repays careful study. The base under
the plain cement stucco of the wall is only a single
line of brick on end, and yet it is very satisfying.
The treatment of the trellis between the windows is
very distinctive, terminating as it does in oval
CVII
SOME COUNTRY HOUSES IN THE
ITALIAN STYLE
BY AYMAR EMBURY II
Every little while some home-coming
traveler tells his architect of a lovely house in Italy
which he has seen and wants one like it, and the
architect designs a house to fit his client’s needs.
Perhaps, with a true and deep appreciation of the
quiet and restful beauty of the old Italian work, the
architect finds that he is outdoing the Italians them-
selves, perhaps he simply makes a copy, possibly a
flawless one, but which, after all, is only a copy.
Most architects would prefer not to be set a style to
follow, and American architecture as a whole
would be benefited if he did not have to; yet, when
we see the results produced by an intelligent and
artistic client working with a capable architect, we
are forced to acknowledge that for the individual
case the method could hardly be bettered.
Italian work, like the Italian mind, is of a fine
subtilty; of all the styles in all the world which we
are gradually adopting, assimilating and welding
into a compact and homogeneous style of our own, it
is both the easiest and the most difficult to use—
the easiest to reproduce by the simple copying of
its members, with a plausible surface similarity; the
most difficult in which to sink ourselves and pro-
duce, not reproduce, the feeling and sentiment of
our elders; or, better yet, to grasp and master and
lift to something different and beyond the older
work and yet a part of it.
Of the five examples on the following pages, the
lovely Casa del Ponte is the most thoroughly Italian
of all. The architects have imbued themselves so
completely in the Italian work that this little house
looks as if it might have come from the shores of
Maggiore or Como instead of from the bare Con-
necticut coast. It is by no means of the formal and
conventional type which we are most apt to think of
as Italian, but rather the simple and delightful
house which the not too rich of that joyous race are
accustomed to build. Exquisite in the spacing of
its windows and in the proportion of its wall to open-
ings, it is evidently spontaneous and very cheerful.
The ornament is so well placed, the trees come into
the picture so well, that it really seems that no other
house could here have been so good. Very differ-
ent is the Cheney house at South Manchester.
Lacking the playfulness and in some measure the
grace of Casa del Ponte, it is strong, sturdy and
dominant, the fitting descendant of the old red
brick Colonial type, but both refined and strength-
ened by the use of the Italian detail in cornice and
pergola-porches. Formal it is, but not dry; digni-
fied, without being stiff, and thoroughly American.
Many of the best houses nowadays have this same
character, half Colonial, half Italian, making them
very difficult to classify and yet showing the freedom
of selection from all sources which makes the
strength of present-day design.
The Cabot house, again, is more like Casa del
Ponte. The same freedom of treatment in the win-
dows, the same simple cornice and wall treatment
and dependence upon the proportion of the entire
mass of the house for its effect are apparent. The
beautiful setting and the skill with which the house
and surroundings are blended also make toward
the charm of the place. And this relation of house
to setting is not less a part of the architect’s business
than is the selection of a proper setting for a gem
part of the jeweler’s.
The Bloss house is somewhat more formal than
the Cabot house and Casa del Ponte, but has much
of their homelike quality. As in the latter, the
purely artificial superstructure passes through an
intermediate stage in the foundation and porch,
where the use of natural field stone serves as a tie to
connect it with the ground. The tile roof, so
marked a feature of the Italian house, is here em-
ployed, although the dormers necessary in this
country are entirely unheard of in Italy. What do
they do with their attics, anyway? The dormers,
however, are treated in such a manner that they do
not appear as mere excrescences, but as an integral
part of the construction.
These foregoing examples are all most excellent
examples of their several kinds, but in the Bartlett
house at Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, Mr. Howard
Shaw has treated the style he employed with much
less of convention. This is a building which,
founded upon a historical style, owes little to it.
Here is a house playful, full of life, movement and
color, and not in the least trivial or restless. Every
detail is thought out, every point looked after; the
very pavement under foot a thing of beauty.
Informal formality is the keynote of the whole
scheme. It seems as if people walking in the court-
yard must be of a simple courtesy, not too magnifi-
cent, but kindly and delightful. If we examine the
method by which this effect is produced, we find
that it is due to an extremely simple general scheme,
with an infinitude of thoughtfully designed detail,
which well repays careful study. The base under
the plain cement stucco of the wall is only a single
line of brick on end, and yet it is very satisfying.
The treatment of the trellis between the windows is
very distinctive, terminating as it does in oval
CVII