XXXV. The Terrace House

Much has recently been written on the improvement which it is assumed has taken place in recent years in the design and adornment of the home. If the prevalent use of “art” wall-papers and “art” furniture, and the continuous construction of “art” villas may be taken as an evidence of progress, there may indeed be some reason for congratulation on a national advance in this important matter. But to the better informed this artistic progress is a mere chimera and only evidences the ignorance of the general public as to what constitutes beauty and fitness in domestic surroundings, and the commercial acumen of the various tradesmen who pander to the popular taste. It is true that here and there, in isolated instances, houses are built and furnished with modest comeliness, but in the rank and file of building, in the average home of the average family, modern progress has chiefly consisted in the substitution of spurious art for confessed ugliness.

A great part of this rank and file of modern houses is made up of row upon row of terraces—houses built on plots of standard width and designed on a standard plan, so that an absent-minded occupant of one of them might be excused for entering his neighbour’s house in mistake for his own, and would find little in its interior arrangements to undeceive him. All this regularity and similarity might find some excuse for itself if it represented the final outcome of a logical scheme. It has again and again been urged that the standard plan represents the best solution of the terrace problem, and that attempts to modify it have not been successful. If it were conceded that in the planning of the terrace house it is first of all essential that there should be a seldom occupied sitting-room with a bay-window commanding a view of another similar bay-window on the opposite side of the street—that kitchens and other compartments of the house connected with domestic service are shameful things, and should be hidden at the back, regardless of aspect—that the interior of the house should be subdivided as far as possible into as many little apartments as possible, which, though they must needs be small, may at least be lofty—that the comfort of the family is really quite a secondary matter in comparison to the proper respect due to furniture, for the proper display of which the house is built, &c. &c.—one might, perhaps, then admit that the stereotyped plan is the best that can be arrived at, and it is in accepting these unwritten canons without question that attempted modifications have failed. One of the primary factors which induces variety of plan is the aspect of the houses; but this question is not considered at all in the plan of the terrace house. In view of the importance of sunlight in the principal rooms, it seems unreasonable that the houses on the north side of a road should be of the same plan as those on the south. In the case of a terrace with a north aspect towards the road, is it really the best arrangement to make the principal sitting-room sunless, and in this case, at any rate, is it desirable to place there the usual bay-window with i: s plate-glass, lace curtains, Venetian blinds, and I other upholsteries? Were it not better done to place the kitchen premises here, and thus gain the full breadth of the garden at the back, and make there the principal room, with its bay-window overlooking a sunny garden, thus reducing to a minimum the line of communication between the kitchen and thee road, and obviating at oice all that traffic across the house which the position of the kitchen premises at the back usually entails?

The conception of the house, which primarily consists, as I have endeavoured to show it should consist, of one good -sized living-room or hall, makes the position and outlook of this room a fundamental question. There the i family live, and there, at any rate, they must have sunlight, a pleasant outlook, and cheerful surroundings.

In the ordinary terrace house there is no such dominating room f for the family use. The principal apartment overlooking the road is usually preserved for visitors, and a 1 ttle dining-room at the back is badly lighted by a window blocked by kitchea premises which leave only a narrow strip of g ground available for a garden.

If you ask me “where the family live I cannot tell you, but, judging from the unlighted rows of front bay-windows, one may at least conclude that they support existence somewhere in the back, and reserve their front apartment to display all those evidences of advance in modern domestic furnishings on which we congratulate ourselves nowadays.

If, however, the family life is centralised in one large apartment, the position of this apartment, in its relation to the road, would vary according to aspect, while the general tendency of the occupants of houses in terraces to live at the back, where freedom from dust and noise and an outlook con to a private garden may be enjoyed, suggests the advisability of a complete reversal, wherever possible, of the present scheme for the terrace; house described in the phrase “Queen Anne in front and Mary Ann at the: back,” a reversal which would place the kitchen premises adjacent to the road a and the sitting-rooms overlooking a garden at the back.

In such cases the house with its back to the road may be placed as c close to it as possible without the usual disadvantages of such a position. Inn other cases, where considerations of aspect suggest that the principal sittingig-room should be placed towards the road, it would be better for the houses to o be set well back.

In the case of roads which run east and west, it would be best if these divided each single set of plots, so that in all the house would face i south. In roads which run north and south, the question of aspect will ha-uve less influence on the plan. Thus one is brought to consider the question of laying out an estate, not entirely with a view of convenience for traffiffic, but to allow the best conditions for the individual house, and where terraces are introduced it is desirable that these should run east and west, and,; instead of being planned vith houses facing the street on both sides, should have houses close up to the road on the north side and gardens on the south.

Special local conditions must necessarily modify such arrangements in special cases, but the estate plan should be evolved in this way from the individual house, which should be again evolved from real requirements, and not based on fantastic chimeras and conventions.

As to the amount of frontage given to the houses, some variety may also be introduced, and a terrace with a liberal frontage allowance is better than detached Houses set close together, because in the latter cases the spaces between the houses are practically useless for light or outlook.

It is, moreover, unreasonable in building a terrace that all the houses should hawe exactly the same accommodation.

The taailor who sells ready-made clothes recognises certain variations from the normal in the human frame which it is impossible to ignore, and the same variations occur in families. So that while the majority of the houses may contain ncDrmal accommodation there should also be a certain number adapted for abnorimal cases. It will thus be seen how many factors there are which tend to suggest variety in the plan of the terrace house, and when to these are added the peculiar local conditions which it is impossible to deal with here, it may well be urged that there is no rational excuse for the standard terrace plan, and, so long as the large majority of the population are doomed to live in such dwellings, it is doubtful whether there is much cause for congratulating ourselves on the improvement of the British homes of to-day.

In the two plans for terrace houses shown, the first would be appropriate for a terrace w/here the road is on the sunny side, and where it is therefore desirable that the principal windows should look towards the road. In such a case it would be (desirable that the houses should be set well back, so that the garden space should be in front, and the house should be to some extent free from the dust amd the noise of the road.

The straight walk leading to the front entrance might be flanked on the one side with a range of posts and roofed with branches so as to form a pergola, of which one side is formed by the division-wall between the houses, and the other afford glimpses of a long flower border. This path would then appear as a simple kind of cloister. The whole of the ground plan of the main tx)lock of the house would then consist of one large room, with its dining recess, serving-room and staircase. In this room the usual passage at the side is incorporated, and is merely divided by a curtain, for it seems unreasonable that so much space as is usually occupied by this passage should be entirely cut off” from the house for only occasional use. This large room is heated by a fireplace of ample proportions, and the whole effect on entering from the porch is one of homely comfort and breadth.

In order to get the maximum amount of light at the back, the kitchens are treated! as a separate block, and represent a little additional house for the servants, with its separate stair and bedroom accommodation over the kitchen. In the main block the family bedrooms are provided on two floors, of which the upper is in the roof.

In the second plan for a terrace house it is assumed that the road is on the north side;, and so the kitchens are placed on the road side and the whole of the south ] front then remains to be treated as a private garden. The frontage is here about twenty-eight feet, and here, as before, the essential feature of the ground plan is the large hall. Instead of the usual three small sitting-rooms there is this roomy hall, with the other two sitting-rooms represented by the relatively small bower or reception-room and the dining-recess, both of which appear as mere appendages to the principal room. There is no attempt to secure the usual apology for a garden towards the road, but a certain character is given to the approach by introducing a little square paved court which is approached from the road by an archway in the wall. Under the kitchen wing would be a basement which would afford space for a larder, washhouse and cellar.

On the upper floor the bedroom accommodation consists of two rooms facing the south, and two smaller ones overlooking the entrance court. The position of the bathroom admits of a domed ceiling carried into the roof-space, and lighted from above with a central circular skylight. The main roof-space would contain, besides the servants’ bedroom, two additional attics which might be used either as additional bedrooms, children’s playroom or study. It is doubtful whether such a plan as this would appeal to the speculative builder who is at present the sole arbiter of the fate of those who dwell in terraces. Not because of its cost, because it could be built as cheaply as the ordinary type of house, but merely because it is unusual and runs counter to those cherished accepted traditions which have made the terrace house so irrational and inartistic.

The miniature gardens to these houses would admit of a variety of treatment, and it is not suggested that they should all be similar in plan and arrangement. In the garden, of which a plan and view is given, a more liberal use of water has been made than is usual. The little square rose garden, with its central fountain, overlooks a semicircular pool in which is reflected the terrace wall and sundial, and beyond this a narrow stream conducts the water to the lower pool, beyond which is the pergola forming the termination to the garden. The posts of the pergola would be made of pine-trunks with the bark on. In their natural state these are a little dark in tone, so they could be whitewashed and would thus eventually show that pearly grey tone which may be noticed in the tree trunks of old fruit-trees which have been treated in this way. The importance of the proper study of reflections in the use of water in a garden has suggested that the pergola should begin at the edge of the water so that its columns and the lantern which marks the line of the central vista are reflected there.