sketch which I knew would be available some day. That day, however, did not arrive until 1904, some eleven years afterward, when one afternoon, I realized I was taking a train, at last, out of the smoky, Liverpool Street Station in London, bound for Ipswich. Rarely had I shown the sketch I had made, to anyone. I proposed to keep the Sparrow house until I built a home for myself. Here was a rare, historic prototype awaiting transposition into a modern theme to make an ideal home for someone, and I thought it might as well be—me.
There are a number of interesting old buildings in Ipswich. There is a charming walk to be taken
through Gainsborough Lane approached by a meandering, rural path through private estates. The respective boundaries are indicated by quaint stiles after the manner of Mother Goose architecture, the path being hedged in from the adjoining lawns and gardens—one of those inalienable rights of way enjoyed by the public in England from time immemorial—but the Sparrow house is the main attraction.
Of course, you will be told that Charles II took refuge here for a night during a problematical period of his fortunes (it may have been so) and you are tempted to presume Cromwell, also, once stabled his horse in what is now the garage. The Sparrow house was renovated about the time of the Restor
ation, and the royal arms crowned by the initials “C. R.” appear in the wall spaces between the fascinating oriels. From this mute testimony, I should infer that the royal acquaintance amounted to something lengthier than a one night stand. These are the incidents, however, even if sometimes apocryphal, that create architecture, and develop it. Without their influence acting upon me through the medium of this ancient dwelling, I could no more have sat down and planned the Rabbit house at Wyoming, New Jersey—out of whole cloth, invented it as it were—than I could have invented a chapter of the history of England.
Many people think that an architect simply takes pencil and paper and proceeds to sketch from his imagination about as freely as you would sketch the House that Jack Built to amuse some child. I have been complimented for having evolved a design so “startlingly original” as the Rabbit house, and for “having gotten away with it.” I assure you I am not nearly so clever. When the wolf is at the door I can go into the garden and dig, I can go into the woods and fell trees, I can go out into the world to bargain and trade for a living, but I can do nothing about the design of a new house—a design equal in merit to that of the Rabbit house. Instead of the wolf’s cry of want driving the demons off, as Bertuccio in the play of the “Fool’s Re
GARDEN FRONT AND TERRACE, RABBIT HOUSE, WYOMING, N. J.
There are a number of interesting old buildings in Ipswich. There is a charming walk to be taken
through Gainsborough Lane approached by a meandering, rural path through private estates. The respective boundaries are indicated by quaint stiles after the manner of Mother Goose architecture, the path being hedged in from the adjoining lawns and gardens—one of those inalienable rights of way enjoyed by the public in England from time immemorial—but the Sparrow house is the main attraction.
Of course, you will be told that Charles II took refuge here for a night during a problematical period of his fortunes (it may have been so) and you are tempted to presume Cromwell, also, once stabled his horse in what is now the garage. The Sparrow house was renovated about the time of the Restor
ation, and the royal arms crowned by the initials “C. R.” appear in the wall spaces between the fascinating oriels. From this mute testimony, I should infer that the royal acquaintance amounted to something lengthier than a one night stand. These are the incidents, however, even if sometimes apocryphal, that create architecture, and develop it. Without their influence acting upon me through the medium of this ancient dwelling, I could no more have sat down and planned the Rabbit house at Wyoming, New Jersey—out of whole cloth, invented it as it were—than I could have invented a chapter of the history of England.
Many people think that an architect simply takes pencil and paper and proceeds to sketch from his imagination about as freely as you would sketch the House that Jack Built to amuse some child. I have been complimented for having evolved a design so “startlingly original” as the Rabbit house, and for “having gotten away with it.” I assure you I am not nearly so clever. When the wolf is at the door I can go into the garden and dig, I can go into the woods and fell trees, I can go out into the world to bargain and trade for a living, but I can do nothing about the design of a new house—a design equal in merit to that of the Rabbit house. Instead of the wolf’s cry of want driving the demons off, as Bertuccio in the play of the “Fool’s Re
GARDEN FRONT AND TERRACE, RABBIT HOUSE, WYOMING, N. J.