Rural Architecture

L >> Lewis Falley Allen >> Rural Architecture

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In the available physical features of a country, no land upon earth
exceeds North America. From scenery the most sublime, through the
several gradations of magnificence and grandeur, down to the simply
picturesque and beautiful, in all variety and shade; in compass vast, or
in area limited, we have an endless variety, and, with a pouring out of
God's harmonies in the creation, without a parallel, inviting every
intelligent mind to study their features and character, in adapting them
to his own uses, and, in so doing, to even embellish--if such a thing be
possible--such exquisite objects with his own most ingenious handiwork.
Indeed, it is a profanation to do otherwise; and when so to improve them
requires no extraordinary application of skill, or any extravagant
outlay in expense, not to plan and to build in conformity with good
taste, is an absolute barbarism, inexcusable in a land like ours, and
among a population claiming the intelligence we do, or making but a
share of the general progress which we exhibit.

It is the idea of some, that a house or building which the farmer or
planter occupies, should, in shape, style, and character, be like some
of the stored-up commodities of his farm or plantation. We cannot
subscribe to this suggestion. We know of no good reason why the walls of
a farm house should appear like a hay rick, or its roof like the
thatched covering to his wheat stacks, because such are the shapes best
adapted to preserve his crops, any more than the grocer's habitation
should be made to imitate a tea chest, or the shipping merchant's a rum
puncheon, or cotton bale. We have an idea that the farmer, or the
planter, according to his means and requirements, should be as well
housed and accommodated, and in as agreeable style, too, as any other
class of community; not in like character, in all things, to be sure,
but in his own proper way and manner. Nor do we know why a farm house
should assume a peculiarly primitive or uncultivated style of
architecture, from other sensible houses. That it be a _farm_ house, is
sufficiently apparent from its locality upon the farm itself; that its
interior arrangement be for the convenience of the in-door farm work,
and the proper accommodation of the farmer's family, should be quite as
apparent; but, that it should assume an uncouth or clownish aspect, is
as unnecessary as that the farmer himself should be a boor in his
manners, or a dolt in his intellect.

The farm, in its proper cultivation, is the foundation of all human
prosperity, and from it is derived the main wealth of the community.
From the farm chiefly springs that energetic class of men, who replace
the enervated and physically decaying multitude continually thrown off
in the waste-weir of our great commercial and manufacturing cities and
towns, whose population, without the infusion--and that continually--of
the strong, substantial, and vigorous life blood of the country, would
soon dwindle into insignificance and decrepitude. Why then should not
this first, primitive, health-enjoying and life-sustaining class of our
people be equally accommodated in all that gives to social and
substantial life, its due development? It is absurd to deny them by
others, or that they deny themselves, the least of such advantages, or
that any mark of _caste_ be attempted to separate them from any other
class or profession of equal wealth, means, or necessity. It is quite as
well to say that the farmer should worship on the Sabbath in a
_meeting-house_, built after the fashion of his barn, or that his
district school house should look like a stable, as that his dwelling
should not exhibit all that cheerfulness and respectability in form and
feature which belongs to the houses of any class of our population
whatever. Not that the farm house should be like the town or the village
house, in character, style, or architecture, but that it should, in its
own proper character, express all the comfort, repose, and quietude
which belong to the retired and thoughtful occupation of him who
inhabits it. Sheltered in its own secluded, yet independent domain, with
a cheerful, _intelligent_ exterior, it should exhibit all the
pains-taking in home embellishment and rural decoration that becomes its
position, and which would make it an object of attraction and regard.

* * * * *

RURAL ARCHITECTURE.

* * * * *

GENERAL SUGGESTIONS.

In ascertaining what is desirable to the conveniences, or the
necessities in our household arrangement, it may be not unprofitable to
look about us, and consider somewhat, the existing condition of the
structures too many of us now inhabit, and which, in the light of true
fitness for the objects designed, are inconvenient, absurd, and out of
all harmony of purpose; yet, under the guidance of a better skill, and a
moderate outlay, might be well adapted, in most cases, to our
convenience and comfort, and quite well, to a reasonable standard of
taste in architectural appearance.

At the threshold--not of the house, but of this treatise--it may be well
to remark that it is not here assumed that there has been neither skill,
ingenuity, nor occasional good taste exhibited, for many generations
back, in the United States, in the construction of farm and country
houses. On the contrary, there are found in the older states many farm
and country houses that are almost models, in their way, for convenience
in the main purposes required of structures of their kind, and such as
can hardly be altered for the better. Such, however, form the exception,
not the rule; yet instead of standing as objects for imitation, they
have been ruled out as antiquated, and unfit for modern builders to
consult, who have in the introduction of some real improvements, also
left out, or discarded much that is valuable, and, where true comfort is
concerned, indispensable to perfect housekeeping. Alteration is not
always improvement, and in the rage for innovation of all kinds, among
much that is valuable, a great deal in house-building has been
introduced that is absolutely pernicious. Take, for instance, some of
our ancient-looking country houses of the last century, which, in
America, we call old. See their ample dimensions; their heavy, massive
walls; their low, comfortable ceilings; their high gables; sharp roofs;
deep porches, and spreading eaves, and contrast them with the ambitious,
tall, proportionless, and card-sided things of a modern date, and draw
the comparison in true comfort, which the ancient mansion really
affords, by the side of the other. Bating its huge chimneys, its wide
fire-places, its heavy beams dropping below the ceiling overhead, and
the lack of some modern conveniences, which, to be added, would give all
that is desired, and every man possessed of a proper judgment will
concede the superiority to the house of the last century.

That American house-building of the last fifty years is out of joint,
requires no better proof than that the main improvements which have been
applied to our rural architecture, are in the English style of farm and
country houses of two or three centuries ago; so, in that particular, we
acknowledge the better taste and judgment of our ancestors. True, modern
luxury, and in some particulars, modern improvement has made obsolete,
if not absurd, many things considered indispensable in a ruder age. The
wide, rambling halls and rooms; the huge, deep fire-places in the
chimneys; the proximity of out-buildings, and the contiguity of stables,
ricks, and cattle-yards--all these are wisely contracted, dispensed
with, or thrown off to a proper distance; but instead of such style
being abandoned altogether, as has too often been done, the house itself
might better have been partially reformed, and the interior arrangement
adapted to modern convenience. Such changes have in some instances been
made; and when so, how often does the old mansion, with outward features
in good preservation, outspeak, in all the expression of home-bred
comforts, the flashy, gimcrack neighbor, which in its plenitude of
modern pretension looks so flauntingly down upon it!

We cannot, in the United States, consistently adopt the domestic
architecture of any other country, throughout, to our use. We are
different in our institutions, our habits, our agriculture, our
climates. Utility is our chief object, and coupled with that, the
indulgence of an agreeable taste may be permitted to every one who
creates a home for himself, or founds one for his family. The frequent
changes of estates incident to our laws, and the many inducements held
out to our people to change their locality or residence, in the hope of
bettering their condition, is a strong hindrance to the adoption of a
universally correct system in the construction of our buildings;
deadening, as the effect of such changes, that home feeling which should
be a prominent trait of agricultural character. An attachment to
locality is not a conspicuous trait of American character; and if there
be a people on earth boasting a high civilization and intelligence, who
are at the same time a roving race, the Americans are that people; and
we acknowledge it a blemish in our domestic and social constitution.

Such remark is not dropped invidiously, but as a reason why we have thus
far made so little progress in the arts of home embellishment, and in
clustering about our habitations those innumerable attractions which win
us to them sufficiently to repel the temptation so often presented to
our enterprise, our ambition, or love of gain--and these not always
successful--in seeking other and distant places of abode. If, then, this
tendency to change--a want of attachment to any one spot--is a reason
why we have been so indifferent to domestic architecture; and if the
study and practice of a better system of building tends to cultivate a
home feeling, why should it not be encouraged? Home attachment is a
virtue. Therefore let that virtue be cherished. And if any one study
tend to exalt our taste, and promote our enjoyment, let us cultivate
that study to the highest extent within our reach.

STYLE OF BUILDING.--MISCELLANEOUS.

Diversified as are the features of our country in climate, soil,
surface, and position, no one style of rural architecture is properly
adapted to the whole; and it is a gratifying incident to the indulgence
in a variety of taste, that we possess the opportunity which we desire
in its display to almost any extent in mode and effect. The Swiss chalet
may hang in the mountain pass; the pointed Gothic may shoot up among the
evergreens of the rugged hill-side; the Italian roof, with its
overlooking campanile, may command the wooded slope or the open plain;
or the quaint and shadowy style of the old English mansion, embosomed in
its vines and shrubbery, may nestle in the quiet, shaded valley, all
suited to their respective positions, and each in harmony with the
natural features by which it is surrounded. Nor does the effect which
such structures give to the landscape in an ornamental point of view,
require that they be more imposing in character than the necessities of
the occasion may demand. True economy demands a structure sufficiently
spacious to accommodate its occupants in the best manner, so far as
convenience and comfort are concerned in a dwelling; and its conformity
to just rules in architecture need not be additionally expensive or
troublesome. He who builds at all, if it be anything beyond a rude or
temporary shelter, may as easily and cheaply build in accordance with
correct rules of architecture, as against such rules; and it no more
requires an extravagance in cost or a wasteful occupation of room to
produce a given effect in a house suited to humble means, than in one of
profuse accommodation. Magnificence, or the attempt at magnificence in
building, is the great fault with Americans who aim to build out of the
common line; and the consequence of such attempt is too often a failure,
apparent, always, at a glance, and of course a perfect condemnation in
itself of the judgment as well as taste of him who undertakes it.

Holding our tenures as we do, with no privilege of entail to our
posterity, an eye to his own interest, or to that of his family who is
to succeed to his estate, should admonish the builder of a house to the
adoption of a plan which will, in case of the sale of the estate,
involve no serious loss. He should build such a house as will be no
detriment, in its expense, to the selling value of the land on which it
stands, and always fitted for the spot it occupies. Hence, an imitation
of the high, extended, castellated mansions of England, or the
Continent, although in miniature, are altogether unsuited to the
American farmer or planter, whose lands, instead of increasing in his
family, are continually subject to division, or to sale in mass, on his
own demise; and when the estate is encumbered with unnecessarily large
and expensive buildings, they become an absolute drawback to its value
in either event. An expensive house requires a corresponding expense to
maintain it, otherwise its effect is lost, and many a worthy owner of a
costly mansion has been driven to sell and abandon his estate
altogether, from his unwillingness or inability to support "the
establishment" which it entailed; when, if the dwelling were only such
as the estate required and could reasonably maintain, a contented and
happy home would have remained to himself and family. It behooves,
therefore, the American builder to examine well his premises, to
ascertain the actual requirements of his farm or plantation, in
convenience and accommodation, and build only to such extent, and at
such cost as shall not impoverish his means, nor cause him future
disquietude.

Another difficulty with us is, that we oftener build to gratify the eyes
of the public than our own, and fit up our dwellings to accommodate
"company" or visitors, rather than our own families; and in the
indulgence of this false notion, subject ourselves to perpetual
inconvenience for the gratification of occasional hospitality or
ostentation. This is all wrong. A house should be planned and
constructed for the use of the household, with _incidental_
accommodation for our immediate friends or guests--which can always be
done without sacrifice to the comfort or convenience of the regular
inmates. In this remark, a stinted and parsimonious spirit is not
suggested. A liberal appropriation of rooms in every department; a spare
chamber or two, or an additional room on the ground floor, looking to a
possible increase of family, and the indulgence of an easy hospitality,
should always govern the resident of the country in erecting his
dwelling. The enjoyments of society and the intercourse of friends,
sharing for the time, our own table and fireside, is a crowning pleasure
of country life; and all this may be done without extraordinary expense,
in a wise construction of the dwelling.

The farm house too, should comport in character and area with the extent
and capacity of the farm itself, and the main design for which it is
erected. To the farmer proper--he who lives from the income which the
farm produces--it is important to know the extent of accommodation
required for the economical management of his estate, and then to build
in accordance with it, as well as to suit his own position in life, and
the station which he and his family hold in society. The owner of a
hundred acre farm, living upon the income he receives from it, will
require less house room than he who tills equally well his farm of
three, six, or ten hundred acres. Yet the numbers in their respective
families, the relative position of each in society, or their taste for
social intercourse may demand a larger or smaller household arrangement,
regardless of the size of their estates; still, the dwellings on each
should bear, in extent and expense, a consistent relation to the land
itself, and the means of its owner. For instance: a farm of one hundred
acres may safely and economically erect and maintain a house costing
eight hundred to two thousand dollars, while one of five hundred to a
thousand acres may range in an expenditure of twenty-five hundred to
five thousand dollars in its dwelling, and all be consistent with a
proper economy in farm management.

Let it be understood, that the above sums are named as simply comporting
with a financial view of the subject, and such as the economical
management of the estate may warrant. To one who has no regard to such
consideration, this rule of expenditure will not apply. He may invest
any amount he so chooses in building beyond, if he only be content to
pocket the loss which he can never expect to be returned in an increased
value to the property, over and above the price of cheaper buildings. On
the other hand, he would do well to consider that a farm is frequently
worth less to an ordinary purchaser, with an extravagant house upon it,
than with an economical one, and in many cases will bring even less in
market, in proportion as the dwelling is expensive. _Fancy_ purchasers
are few, and fastidious, while he who buys only for a home and an
occupation, is governed solely by the profitable returns the estate will
afford upon the capital invested.

There is again a grand error which many fall into in building, looking
as they do only at the extent of wood and timber; or stone and mortar in
the structure, and paying no attention to the surroundings, which in
most cases contribute more to the effect of the establishment than the
structure itself, and which, if uncultivated or neglected, any amount of
expenditure in building will fail to give that completeness and
perfection of character which every homestead should command. Thus the
tawdry erections in imitation of a cast-off feudalism in Europe, or a
copying of the massive piles of more recent date abroad, although in
miniature, both in extent and cost, is the sheerest affectation, in
which no sensible man should ever indulge. It is out of all keeping, or
propriety with other things, as we in this country have them, and the
indulgence of all such fancies is sooner or later regretted. Substance,
convenience, purpose, harmony--all, perhaps, better summed up in the
term EXPRESSION--these are the objects which should govern the
construction of our dwellings and out-buildings, and in their observance
we can hardly err in the acquisition of what will promote the highest
enjoyment which a dwelling can bestow.

POSITION.

The site of a dwelling should be an important study with every country
builder; for on this depends much of its utility, and in addition to
that, a large share of the enjoyment which its occupation will afford.
Custom, in many parts of the United States, in the location of the farm
buildings, gives advantages which are denied in others. In the south,
and in the slave states generally, the planter builds, regardless of
roads, on the most convenient site his plantation presents; the farmer
of German descent, in Pennsylvania and some other states, does the same:
while the Yankee, be he settled where he will, either in the east,
north, or west, inexorably huddles himself immediately upon the highway,
whether his possessions embrace both sides of it or not, disregarding
the facilities of access to his fields, the convenience of tilling his
crops, or the character of the ground which his buildings may occupy,
seeming to have no other object than proximity to the road--as if his
chief business was upon that, instead of its being simply a convenience
to his occupation. To the last, but little choice is left; and so long
as a close connection with the thoroughfare is to control, he is obliged
to conform to accident in what should be a matter of deliberate choice
and judgment. Still, there are right and wrong positions for a house,
which it is necessary to discuss, regardless of conventional rules, and
they should be considered in the light of propriety alone.

A fitness to the purposes for which the dwelling is constructed should,
unquestionably, be the governing point in determining its position. The
site should be dry, and slightly declining, if possible, on every side;
but if the surface be level, or where water occasionally flows from
contiguous grounds, or on a soil naturally damp, it should be thoroughly
drained of all superfluous moisture. That is indispensable to the
preservation of the house itself, and the health of its inmates. The
house should so stand as to present an agreeable aspect from the main
points at which it is seen, or the thoroughfares by which it is
approached. It should be so arranged as to afford protection from wind
and storm, to that part most usually occupied, as well as be easy of
access to the out-buildings appended to it. It should have an
unmistakable front, sides, and rear; and the uses to which its various
parts are applied, should distinctly appear in its outward character.
It should combine all the advantages of soil, cultivation, water, shade,
and shelter, which the most liberal gratification, consistent with the
circumstances of the owner, may demand. If a site on the estate command
a prospect of singular beauty, other things equal, the dwelling should
embrace it; if the luxury of a stream, or a sheet of water in repose,
present itself, it should, if possible, be enjoyed; if the shade and
protection of a grove be near, its benefits should be included; in fine,
any object in itself desirable, and not embarrassing to the main
purposes of the dwelling and its appendages, should be turned to the
best account, and appropriated in such manner as to combine all that is
desirable both in beauty and effect, as well as in utility, to make up a
perfect whole in the family residence.

Attached to the building site should be considered the quality of the
soil, as affording cultivation and growth to shrubbery and trees,--at
once the ornament most effective to all domestic buildings, grateful to
the eye always, as objects of admiration and beauty--delightful in the
repose they offer in hours of lassitude or weariness; and to them, that
indispensable feature in a perfect arrangement, the garden, both fruit
and vegetable, should be added. Happily for the American, our soils are
so universally adapted to the growth of vegetation in all its varieties,
that hardly a farm of considerable size can be found which does not
afford tolerable facilities for the exercise of all the taste which one
may indulge in the cultivation of the garden as well as in the planting
and growth of trees and shrubbery; and a due appropriation of these to
an agreeable residence is equal in importance to the style and
arrangement of the house itself.

The site selected for the dwelling, and the character of the scenery and
objects immediately surrounding it, should have a controlling influence
upon the style in which the house is to be constructed. A fitness and
harmony in all these is indispensable to both expression and effect. And
in their determination, a single object should not control, but the
entire picture, as completed, should be embraced in the view; and that
style of building constituting the most agreeable whole, as filling the
eye with the most grateful sensations, should be the one selected with
which to fill up and complete the design.

HOME EMBELLISHMENTS.

A discussion of the objects by way of embellishment, which may be
required to give character and effect to a country residence, would
embrace a range too wide, in all its parts, for a simply practical
treatise like this; and general hints on the subject are all indeed,
that will be required, as no specific rules or directions can be given
which would be applicable, indiscriminately, to guide the builder in the
execution of his work. A dwelling house, no matter what the style,
standing alone, either on hill or plain, apart from other objects, would
hardly be an attractive sight. As a mere representation of a particular
style of architecture, or as a model of imitation, it might excite our
admiration, but it would not be an object on which the eye and the
imagination could repose with satisfaction. It would be incomplete
unless accompanied by such associates as the eye is accustomed to
embrace in the full gratification of the sensations to which that organ
is the conductor. But assemble around that dwelling subordinate
structures, trees, and shrubbery properly disposed, and it becomes an
object of exceeding interest and pleasure in the contemplation. It is
therefore, that the particular style or outward arrangement of the house
is but a part of what should constitute the general effect, and such
style is to be consulted only so far as it may in itself please the
taste, and give benefit or utility in the purposes for which it is
intended. Still, the architectural design should be in harmony with the
features of the surrounding scenery, and is thus important in completing
the effect sought, and which cannot be accomplished without it.

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