A Country Clubhouse that Is Built like a Log Cabin

We have given the design of the clubhouse at Craftsman Farms for the use of country clubs that may find such a plan desirable. As we use it ourselves, it will be the general assembly house of the whole colony, so planned that meals may be served either indoors or out on a big veranda, according to the weather, and where meetings, lectures and entertainments of all kinds may be held by the people staying at the Farms and accommodation provided for guests invited from the outside. For our own purpose, no form of building is so suitable and desirable as a low, roomy house built of logs, and we imagine that many a country club will find that similar uses and surroundings seem to demand a building of this character.

As will be seen by comparison of the exterior view of the house with the plan of the lower floor, there are three main divisions in the building, indicated in the perspective drawing b) the projecting ends nl” the logs which form the log partition between the reception room and sitting room and kitchen on the one side, and serve as the outer wall of the house on the porch side. The width of this porch is the same as the width allowed for the sitting room and kitchen and the center of the building for the whole length is taken will be used for the assembly room or the indoor dining room, as seems necessary. The porch will be used as an outdoor living room or dining room, as the case may be, and the little sitting room at the back is meant for guests who may wish some place apart from the general assembly room for a quiet chat with a few friends.

The upper floor is divided into guest rooms, with a comfortable sitting1 room for ladies and a dressing room and two bathrooms, so that there is not only accommodation for transient guests but room for a few guests who may wish accommodation over night or for several days at a time.

The smoking room and dressing room for men are placed below the main floor, as in the case of the building at Craftsman Farms the ground slopes sufficiently away from the back of the house to allow ample accommodation for these basement rooms. This slope is sufficiently steep to expose the stone foundation to a depth of seven or eight feet, so that anyone entering the smoking room from the outside comes in on a level instead of going down as into a basement. Flower boxes placed between the pillars around this end of the porch will afford some protection where the slope is most abrupt.

As will be seen, the design of the house is very simple, the effect of comfort and of ample spaces depending entirely upon its proportions. The big sweep of the low pitched, widely overhanging roof is broken by the broad shallow dormers, which not only give sufficient additional height to make the greater part of the upper story habitable, but also adds much to the structural charm of the building. As the walls of the upper -i rj are of plaster, the logs being used after the manner of half-timber construction, the end of the dormers are also of plaster and plaster panels divide the groups of casement windows.

These plaster panels form one of the interesting features of the house because they put into effect our idea of a form of exterior decoration that shall be symbolic of the house itself and the environment in which it stands. Roughly modeled in low relief, are figures symbolizing the life and industries of the farm. Dull colored pigment will be used to emphasize these figures and to add a definite color accent to the house, but the pigments will in all cases come into harmony with the natural tones of wood, stone and earth. These panels form the sole decoration that exists purely for the sake of decoration. For the rest, the beauty of the house depends entirely upon structural features: upon the casement windows, which are all uniform in size and are so arranged as to form long horizontal lines; upon the use of the logs and of stone in the foundation and the chimneys and upon the color harmony of the whole in relation to the prevailing tones of the landscape.