The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1896-03-19
SOUTHERN HOMES.
Southern Style of Architecture
should He Retained

SOutneEn SsyIe OF AFcnIteCtufe
should he Retained.
Old Point Comfort Va. March 16.-To
the northern eye, the architecture of your
charming, old-fashioned southern homes,
of which you have such splendid types in
Savannah, and which prevail to a greater
or less extent in all your southern cities.
is very attractive and alluring. The visit
or however is startled by the dangerous
tendency prevailing among some of your
wealthy men. when erecting new homes,
to abandon the southern type. and initiate
some structure commanding admiration
In New York, Chicago or some other
northern city, where the surrounding con-
ditions are entirely different. What makes
London so attractive Is that not only its
buildings, but even the paving blocks In
the streets, seem so thoroughly English"
We love Paris simply because in every
thing 1t is so completely PARTISAN" Ven
ice attracts us because of those things
we cannot see elsewhere-every country,
and each individual section of a country
is attractive to tourists and sight-seers,
and, in fact, to everybody, because of its
distinct individuality, and because Of those
things wherein IL breaks away from the
mon0tonNfof being the same as every other
place you have ever seen, and If there is
anything that the south should cling to
because 1t is so markedly characteristic
besides being so attractively beautiful, IL
is its old southern home"
Where space Is exceedingly valuable, II
is pardonable to have narrow houses, with
small rooms, without a Veranda to catch
natures grea test blessing-sunshine On
account of the necessity of making the
house very tall, we may possibly even for
give low ceiling. To distinguish the house
from the almost undistinguishable faces OF
all of it's neighbors we may even overlook
some angles in the front of the building,
spelling the rooms inside, but what excuse
can there be for all this in a city not
overcrowded, where land is compare lively
cheap and where there is plenty of room
to spread? a
Can you forgive the stupidity Of man
in any of the cities of the sweet sunny
south" who will build row of connected
houses, the sworn foes Of home-like quiet
tude, of individuality, and above all, of
sunshine?
In one southern city saw a very ex-
pensive house. built without a foot of
ground for those plants, flowers and ex-
otics that are so cheerful under your
southern sky. / simply concluded that
the man probably grew rich suddenly,
and thought to swell" himself by becom-
ing an imitator Of something he had seen
in some overcrowded city of the north.
If you desire your southern cities TO at
tract northern visitors with their resist
less energy and unbounded enterprise,
and their open pocketbooks, hold fast to
your simple but delightful, your artistical-
ly lovely southern NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS.
weather. you may make you homes
more elaborate, If you please-but perpet-
uate you square cornered" houses with
their spreading XefdnudS their nigh
ceilings, spacious salons, wide halls, and
above all their generous grounds daz-
zling the eye and sending forth natures
sweetest perfume.
/ am no architect, and don't know
whence your old style of architecture is
derived, but call 1t southern" and ev-
cry northern man and surely all of you
will know just what | mean.
Some of your new hotels are wonder
ful-in fact they are gorgeous-oid Span
ish palaces have been duplicated and inn
proved upon almost beyond the dream
of art. Every style of architecture had
been used as a model apparently simply
to show how American genius can even
improve upon Greek, Roman and Spanish
and Moorish art. Why shouldn't some
of our rich men, among whom hotel
building seemed to have become mon
umental" fad, build a great hotel in the
south, which shall be characteristically
and essentially southern, using one OF
your ideal southern homes as a model?
1t would be beautifully grand and
grandly beautiful. Henry Wollman,
OF Kansas City.