I send you two suggestions for treatment of your house site on Wenham Lake. As the charm of the situation lies wholly in the look down upon and over the lake, whatever increases the down-looking and overlooking effect adds to its value. This is the first consideration; the second is that as you do not mean the house to have the character of a villa but rather of a forest lodge for the summer, the more you avoid the common-places of a villa or a suburban cottage and the more bold, rustic and weather-proof consistently with substantial comeliness and comfort you make the immediate outworks of the house, the better.

For these two reasons I advise the house be set high, pushed as near the lake as it conveniently can be & that it shall be supported by a terrace boldly projected, following natural lines, “country-made” and highly picturesque in its outlines and material.

I should aim to obtain on this terrace wall something of the character and beauty of very old masonry. It should remind one of a ruin without being an imitation of one. The material to be mainly field-stones, laid with a large but variable batter and with many crannies.

The figures on the drawing on the West side of the wall show the elevation above the lake of proposed surface of garden; those on the East side the present elevation of ground upon which the wall would stand. The difference will be the height of the terrace wall except that two feet must be added for a parapet.

Supposing the entrance hall of the house to be carried through 20 feet from the South end, as suggested by Mr Stearns and that it should serve as a billiard room &c., I have supposed that the end toward the lake would have a large window, which could be thrown wide open. The space A in study no 1 would in that case be a level flagged floor serving as an out of door extension of the hall, ending in a balcony overhanging the face of the terrace and at a point where there is a natural depression of the hill slope below. The whole might be covered with an awning.

The surface of the terrace is designed as the figures will show to slope gently away on both sides of the balcony, so that at the end of the lawn a man’s head would be below the level of the eye of one sitting at the balcony. This will allow the garden to be sufficiently furnished with rich forground shrubbery without shutting off the view.

At the South end of the garden a pavilion is to be placed partly overhanging the terrace wall. This is designed to be not a mere shelter but a useful [493]

“Plan of the Phillips Estate, Beverly, Massachusetts” (1892)

[494]

John C. Phillips Estate, “Preliminary Study no. 1”

The plot between the walk leading to it from the central balcony and the parapet of the terrace is to be of finely kept turf with a few shrubs as indicated but vines and creepers are to be planted all along the base of the parapet & grow over it.

The ground below the terrace wall is to be a “wild garden;” with ferns and perennials seen among groups of low trees which like the sumachs and dogwoods, and pinus Mugho might appear to advantage when looked down upon.

In study no 2 a modification of the same plan is shown, by which at some additional cost, considerable would be gained.

The pavilion stands over the lake and is approached by an easy stairway carried in a wall thrown out from the terrace. This wall is to be pierced by an archway and from the pavilion stairs lead on down to a road carried under it. The stair-case and the garden-wall of the terrace is to be covered with a trellis [495]

John C. Phillips estate, “Sketch no. 2”

Built as I have suggested of field stones well clothed with lichens, and shaded by vines, this entire arrangment would be extremely interesting even quaint, but not affected because it grows naturally out of the situation.

The pergola would give you an agreeable shady promenade, long before it would be possible to obtain much shade by trees, and its top may be kept so low as to interfere much less than trees would do with the Southerly views from the house. On a line South from the balcony the top of the trellis loaded with vines would be six feet below the line of the eye of a man standing on the floor of the balcony. You will observe that the natural slope of the hill favors this arrangment.

The house is outlined in accordance with the largest dimensions each way which were named when we were on the ground. I do not expect the form or dimensions to be adhered to but the outline of terrace is well fitted to [496] the ground, and it is desirable that the house be designed to correspond with it as nearly as shall be found practicable. This could be done just as well if the suggestion of Mr Stearns of a diagonal kitchen wing should be adopted. Of course all the walks &c can be readily adjusted to a narrower or shorter house.