tal principle, and it should be our aim to work with
the underlying idea of creating that which will best meet our special
needs, not merely to reproduce the old in imitation of itself.

Nature lends itself to the remodeling and suggests many ideas that help
to identify the house with the personality of its owner. Everything
attempted in the way of improvements can be broad and expansive and not
congested, as would be necessary in the city. You should in every
particular make the house grow to fit the surroundings and do it in such
a way that it will seem to have been so always. Often the house has to
be moved on its foundations to meet this need, but that is not a
difficult matter to accomplish, if the timbers are stanch and the
underpinning steady.

If the owner's ideas are carried out, the house in its finished
condition will be but an expression of his taste and understanding. In
it we will be able to read his likes and dislikes. Unity should be the
keynote of it all and should permeate not only the house itself in all
its details, but its gardens, lawns, stables, and every aspect of the
estate.

[Illustration: THREE ACRES, FROM THE MAIN ROAD]

There is a house that has been given rare individuality in this way at
Duxbury, Massachusetts. As one drives along the picturesque country
road, he comes to a winding lane that leads by graceful turns to a
little brown farmhouse situated on the crest of a hill about three
hundred yards from the main road. If the farmhouse alone is attractive,
how much more so is it made by the entrance, for on either side are
graceful elms that form an archway, disclosing the house beyond like a
picture set in a rustic frame. On either side of the roadway one finds
meadow lands and flower and vegetable gardens, everywhere dotted with
graceful trees and the picturesque sumach. Vines clamber over the stone
walls, partly hiding their roughness and giving their homelike
atmosphere to the grounds. There are just three acres in this little
property, bounded on two sides by delightful woodlands and on the others
by rolling farmland and pastures; but there is room in even these small
confines for a garden to supply the table all the year round and a bit
of orchard where the gnarled old apple-trees are still fruitful.

Originally the old farmhouse was in a most unprepossessing condition. It
had been inhabited for many years by farmer folk who took little pains
with its appearance either without o