International studio (47.1912)

Decorations of a Country House


DINING ROOM

FREDERICK MATHESIUS, JR., ARCHITECT
SARAH MADDOCK CUSHING, INTERIOR DECORATOR

Decorations of a country
house
BY JONATHAN A. RAWSON, Jr.
It is an interesting problem that
confronts the interior decorator when he is called
upon to develop a specified style for a house
which has been built regardless of period char-
acteristics. The wood trim, the arrangement
of the windows and, perhaps, other structural
elements can be relied upon to some degree,
but very little when the architect’s chief aim has
been to secure above all else the maximum of
light and air for every room, and when the most
attractive scenery is in the opposite direction from
the approach from the street. When a house has
been built primarily to secure the fullest possible
advantage of the prevailing winds and the best
view, for both of which purposes the windows are
the all-important agents, and when the allotment
of the floor space to the rooms has been made with

the primary purpose of securing a copious cross
draft for each room, the bare interior is a pathless
wilderness to the decorator if a certain definite
destination must be reached and if it is not permis-
sible for him to emerge wherever he pleases by any
route suggested by the exigencies of the moment.
A country house recently erected at New Canaan,
Conn., after plans by Frederick Mathesius, Jr.,
architect, presented a problem of this kind, and
because of conditions identical with those already
described. Still, the owner was a strong admirer
of Colonial architecture and furnishings, and de-
termined to have at least some of the Colonial
atmosphere about his house.
The illustrations show what he and his wife
accomplished with the assistance of Mr. Mathesius
and Mrs. Sarah Maddock Cushing, the interior
decorator. A trace of Dutch colonial influence in
the exterior was accidental rather than inten-
tional, and inside the house there was little but
the woodwork to help to carry out the Colonial

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