International studio (81.1925)

mceRnACionAL

SO

all appealed to him. He decided
to build there.

He bought land away from
the road but having a right of
way to it, most of it lying in a
sheltered valley through which
ran two brooks. He selected a
piece of high ground beside one
of these as the site for his house.
That was late in 1919. Early in
the spring of the next year he
rented one of the houses on the
road near his land, and began to
build.

Most of the old houses in
that part of New York State
either date from the early Dutch
settlements or were built by the
descendants of the original colo-
nists. They were, almost With- ^est front of the house, at left: the one-story kitchen; right: studio
out exception, built of the red-
dish sandstone which underlies most of the land was an abandoned quarry. There was some stone
and were similar in design to the Dutch houses of already cut. There was plenty more to be had for
northern New Jersey. They were simply and the labor. In the woods nearby stood many
sturdily built, most of them with gambrel roofs, chestnuts, killed by the blight which ruined most
and were perfectly suited to the rocky hills which of those trees some years ago.
formed their environment. Before he had seen He laid out the lines of the foundations and

these, however, Mr. Poor had admired the stone dug the trenches. He had some help there for he
cottages of northern France and had hoped some was anxious to get at the actual building. He laid
day to build a house in their image. The Dutch a rough track to the quarry and rigged a winch

houses of Rnrkhmd Omntv an<^ tackle to haul his stone,

nouses 01 rvockianci ^ounij the h0use under construction

recalled his dream and he , , ; 1 1 t ,1 With the dream before him

lecanea nis aream ana ne Showing the heavv lintels and one end of the

designed his American home ;,uee beam which holds the second floor beams 01 a house that should be

one with the hill on which

as a combination of the two
forms.

One of the qualities in
both types of cottage which
appealed strongly to him
was the way in which each
seemed to form part of the
landscape—to belong to the
land. So, in planning for
his own building he made
sketches of his site and drew
houses on them until he
arrived at a satisfactory so-
lution. The form deter-
mined, he worked out a
simple and compact plan,
avoiding all waste space and
conforming to the contours
of the land.

His material, the sand-
stone—red, gray and purple
—was at hand. Not far
from his site and on his land

it stood, he began to build.

He built his walls as he
would paint a picture. Each
stone was selected and
placed for its form and color
in relation to the others—
brush strokes in stone.
When he could, he used the
stone already quarried;
when that was unsuitable
he blasted and cut more.

A stone fireplace be-
longed to his dream. No-
tice, in the photograph of
the living room, the huge
stone which forms the top
of the fireplace and the
mantel. Until he cut that
out and squared it, it was
part of the hill. But he did
more than square and
dress it. From front to

may 1925

ninety-seven