Rural Architecture | Page 6

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