Saturday, June 30, 2012

"The Pines"

"The Pines" The House of Philip S. Sears, Esq., Prides Crossing, Massachusetts
by Barr Ferree - 1908

'LONG drive in the woods, through a forest, if not exactly impenetrable, at least dense enough seemingly to swallow one up; beautiful woods, such as the soil of Massachusetts seems to produce in a special abundance; woods soft and quiet, with scarce a house to indicate man's presence, and only the hard dry roads to show he has been here and at least visits here, if he does not permanently remain within these leafy shadows - all this is but a foretaste, and a most delightful one, to the pleasure that awaits one who visits Mr. Sears in his charming pine-land home.
"The Pines" - dense woods embower the house in rich greens on all side, save where space has been cleared for the house and garden. 
Apparently there is no reason why his home should stand exactly where it does. There is not much traveled roadway leading to it; there is no other house close beside it; its site, surely, is not more beautiful - for here is so much beauty -than a hundred others near at hand. It is more to the point, beside these unnecessary academic speculations, that the house stands just where it ought to stand - in a clearing in the pine woods, an opening only sufficient to give it space and room for its attendant garden and terrace. As for its entrance, the forest comes almost to its front door, a dear untidy forest, with disheveled ground, gentle hillocks of moss and piles of pine needles, and all the wild delights of the wildland.


Surely if one knew nothing of the house, had not seen it pictured in photograph or roughly described in words, one would pause instinctively at first sight of it. It gives one - and it certainly gave me - the same delight as the discovery of some rare flower, blooming alone in the dense dark woods. 


Like a rare orchid it raises its soft yellowed walls in the center of a great tree wreath, standing all around it like sentinels to guard its simple beauty. It is a house to be seen to be appreciated to the full, seen with the odor of the pine needles in one's nostrils, and with the soft green of the trees decking it in the near-by distance.


Let me say at once that this is a lovely and exquisite house. It is a house of absolute simplicity and perfect directness. Take, if you will, the entrance front, the front by which it may be judged, although the house is so sequestered that each front belongs to the owner alone. There is not a single bit of ornament on this whole front. 
The entrance doorway, with its glazed and curved Tympanum, is the most striking feature of the exterior.  
There is the doorway, it is true, but its detail is of the simplest possible description, so simple that its very severity but enhances the importance of its curved summit, with its glazed tympanum and its lantern that projects without and within. The curves above the doorway have, therefore, an intensely decorative character because they offer a beautiful contrast with the severity of the remainder of the front.
The studied simplicity of the entrance front is apparent in the quiet refinement of the detail.
So also the great triple window above it has a special significance and a decorative value it would not have were its neighbors of the same shape and form. It is not actually a triple window, but a doorway to the balcony with a narrow window on each side. The balcony is of wrought its iron, very simple in design, and identical with the other uppermost balconies in the end pavilions. The door has a gently curved top, its uppermost molding being continued as the crowning molding on either side. Then comes the little semicircular window above, and finally the curved gable.


Everything else is plain, simple and severe. Everything else is solid walls, straight lines, plain rectangular windows. The lines are wholly structural, and are formed by the changes in the surface of the walls; by projecting the central bay somewhat forward, and bringing the end portions still further forward, swelling out their inner walls at the base, and building a seat within the recess thus formed. And over all is the roof, sloping down from the ridge over the center and end wings in a continuous slope, without other crown to the walls than its eaves, which are projected still further forward over the uppermost window toward each end.

Structurally this is all. Of  horizontal lines there are none at all; of breaks of any sort, of imaginary ornamental detail, of unnecessary features, of the thousand and one details with which architecture  is so often supposed to be concerned - of these, none. It is all so simple and quiet that the very leaders act as decorative features, as it is quite right they should. 


There is nothing else save the color. And this is so supremely important that more than a passing word must be given to it. The house is built of stucco, colored an exquisite buff. The wood trim is painted white; the shutters are green, the door French gray, the iron work black, the roof shingles left to weather finish. The dominant color is, of course, that of the walls. One need not wonder if any other color would have answered as well; it is sufficient that it is exactly the right color to have used.


Hence there is no somberness to this house. It is alive with light and brightness, with gentle soft color that, after all, is the crowning beauty of the house. A word as to the shutters. In a design which bears so much testimony to the exceeding care its architect - Mr. H. F. Bigelow, of Boston - has given it, no ordinary shutter would suffice. These have been carefully designed for the house, and are of two general types. The small shutters of both lower stories have solid panels, marked within by a narrow band swelled to a curve at the top. In the larger windows these panels have been confined to the lower parts of the shutters, the upper sections having blinds of the usual type. The point is of interest as evidence of the intense individuality of the design.


So striking is the exterior of this house that one enters the entrance doorway with many pleasurable anticipations of what it has to show within. And one is not disappointed. The door opens immediately into a vestibule-hall, covered with a groined vault. The walls are covered with light buff plaster, and have a low wainscot of wood, painted white. The door frames are simply molded and are also painted white. This entrance passageway—for it is scarce more than that—adjoins a longer passage to the right, where the stairs rise against the entrance wall. The stairs have white risers and oak treads, covered with a green carpet, and have a wrought iron hand rail. The window on the stairs has green curtains with white sash curtains.
The library fireplace is built of Caen stone.

The library is lined with shelves and plain rectangle panels of wood.
A doorway at the end of the passage admits to the library. It is paneled throughout to the ceiling in black cypress, with built-in bookcases. These are stopped somewhat below the ceiling, with the upper panels brought out flush with the shelf supports, thus giving a frieze-like finish, which is completed with a narrow molding below the white ceiling. There are curtains of gold and yellow at the doors and windows, and a green rug on the hardwood floor. The furniture is green tapestry and black leather.
The mantel of the billiard room is brick : the walls and curtains are green.
The center of the house is occupied by two rooms which face the entrance door. That nearest the library is the billiard-room. The walls are covered with a dark green cloth, and have a small molding at the summit below the white ceiling. The fireplace on one side is of brick, with a double curved opening that approximates the form of the leading curves of the house front. The bricks are arranged in pattern form and support a small wooden shelf. There is a very shallow base mold, and the doors and trim are black cypress. One window has a built-in seat, and all of them have green curtains lined with white silk. An Oriental rug is laid before the fireplace.
The dining room is papered in soft grays; the rug is deep blue; the window curtains are pale blue silk.
The dining-room adjoins. The woodwork is white. The base mold is extremely narrow, and a second band of wood is carried around the room just above the chair tops. The white and gray paper which cover the walls has a boldly conventional design. The side of the room containing the mantel has a high paneled wainscot, which forms part of the mantel design. The fireplace is sandstone with double curved opening, which, however, is strictly individual in form. The wainscot adjoining is continued on one side to a closet with glazed doors. The color of the room is given by the rug and the window curtains. The former is deep blue; the latter of light blue watered silk, lined with white, with white sash curtains. 
The porch on the terrace is furnished as an outdoor living space.
From these rooms one may reach the porch situated on the terrace or inner front of the house. It is rectangular in form, supported by stucco columns, yellow like the walls, with narrow rim-like white capitals. It is furnished as an outdoor living-room, the edges being projected by awnings. It stands in the midst of a grassed terrace, and contained within a low stone retaining wall, below which is a cleared space, and then the forest, growing beyond lofty rocks.
The terrace front has three-stories, with simple dormers in the sloping roof.
The inner porch overlooks a terrace supported by walls of stone.
The terrace front of the house is designed with even greater simplicity than the entrance front. The center projects quite far forward, while the ends are apparently as much recessed. The porch is the chief feature here, and a very necessary one for a house built in the woods. A third story is added, by means of three dormers, in the central building.
The side portal stands a-top a semicircle pyramid of steps leading to the garden. 
Below the library door is a flower garden, a garden too irregular to be termed formal, yet arranged in a formal manner. That is to say, the flower beds are given definite shape and form, bordered with brick. Its limits are defined by a huge rock and by a rustic fence beyond which stand great pine trees of the primeval forest.


But one does not need a flower garden to give beauty to the house, albeit so charming an addition detracts nothing from it. It is a house well able to stand alone, although designed for this precise spot, and of a form and coloring nowhere else yielding such delightful results. This, in truth, is its exceeding merit: that every aspect of it is interesting. Every part of it counts in the final result, because such a result was anticipated from the beginning. Yet, after all, its loveliness is the greater because hidden in the midst of these Massachusetts woods, watched perpetually by the pine trees that have given their name to it.


The quiet gentleness of the woods has been well matched by the simple repose of the dwelling. It fits into its surroundings and belongs with them.'


***Click HERE to see "The Pines" at wikimapia.  HERE for a post on his  home in Brookline.***  

Pictorial Index

Click HERE to see a pictorial index of all posts.

Thursday, June 28, 2012

"Goodwin Place"

Published 1920 - author unknown

The house of Philip Goodwin at Woodbury, L. I., is French in style, and is interesting in composition and extremely handsome in its mass and detail. The conditions of grades, exposure and position of the main road passing the property presented an unusual problem. 
RESIDENCE AT WOODBURY, L. I., OF PHILIP L. GOODWIN, OF GOODWIN, BULLARD & WOOLSEY, ARCHITECTS.
The site necessitated building the house on two levels on an "L" shaped plan, with the kitchen, service and kitchen courtyard, dining room and loggia on one floor, and the entrance hall, the living room, library, and principal bedroom on the floor above, on a level with the forecourt. The plan is very well balanced, and the facade facing the dining room terrace is perfectly symmetrical. 

RESIDENCE AT WOODBURY, L. I., OF PHILIP L. GOODWIN, OF GOODWIN, BULLARD & WOOLSEY, ARCHITECTS.
On the entrance side, at the junction of the main body of the house and the service wing, is placed an octagonal tower, two stories in height, containing the stair hall, which gives an unusual and picturesque character to the court.
RESIDENCE AT WOODBURY, L. I., OF PHILIP L. GOODWIN, OF GOODWIN, BULLARD & WOOLSEY, ARCHITECTS.
RESIDENCE AT WOODBURY, L. I., OF PHILIP L. GOODWIN, OF GOODWIN, BULLARD & WOOLSEY, ARCHITECTS.
The plan of the house is as formal as it well could be, and yet it is essentially livable. The drop from one side of the big room, with the level court on the other side, the beautiful staircase leading down as well as up from the entrance hall, the loggia built under the house on the terrace side, and the effect of a balanced two-story house on one side, contrasting with a picturesque one-story house on the other side, yet all consistently treated and forming a perfect whole, give the house an unusual and interesting character.
RESIDENCE AT WOODBURY, L. I., OF PHILIP L. GOODWIN, OF GOODWIN, BULLARD & WOOLSEY, ARCHITECTS.
RESIDENCE AT WOODBURY, L. I., OF PHILIP L. GOODWIN, OF GOODWIN, BULLARD & WOOLSEY, ARCHITECTS.

The style of the exterior is a quite strict adaptation of the early French Renaissance. 
DRAWING ROOM * RESIDENCE AT WOODBURY, L. I., OF PHILIP L. GOODWIN, OF GOODWIN, BULLARD & WOOLSEY, ARCHITECTS.
On the interior the rooms are treated in a freer manner. The big room, although its furniture is old French, quite gives the effect of an Italian room, with no woodwork around the doors or windows, softly modeled plaster walls and richly painted beamed ceiling. The ceiling is made of solid, heavy constructive beams and girders, and is just the right scale for the height and proportions of the room. The design and arrangement of the furniture is extremely good.


RESIDENCE AT WOODBURY, L. I., OF PHILIP L. GOODWIN, OF GOODWIN, BULLARD & WOOLSEY, ARCHITECTS.
RESIDENCE AT WOODBURY, L. I., OF PHILIP L. GOODWIN, OF GOODWIN, BULLARD & WOOLSEY, ARCHITECTS.

The underlying principles of Italian design, its simplicity, directness and studied relationships of mass and wall surfaces contrasting with interesting openings, mark the work of Bigelow & Wadsworth on Mr. Philip Sears' place at Brookline, Mass. (CLICK HERE). The house is a large one, built amid rolling hills with a gentle slope on one side and a wide flat shaded terrace overlooking the valley on the other. It consists of several outside courts and terraces, upon which the various rooms give, and is a closely knit and well balanced plan.


In addition to the aesthetic side, the practical needs of living have been well taken care of, a rare and happy combination. The kitchens and service are conveniently arranged; the service court is placed at one side and hidden; the entrance drive goes to the entrance door and stops there, and the rest of the place is developed into secluded gardens and informal lawns.
RESIDENCE AT WOODBURY, L. I., OF PHILIP L. GOODWIN, OF GOODWIN, BULLARD & WOOLSEY, ARCHITECTS.
From the gateway of the forecourt one gets a view of the fine Georgian facade and the beautiful wall which partially screens the service wing, culminating in the high entrance pavilion.
ENTRANCE HALL * RESIDENCE AT WOODBURY, L. I., OF PHILIP L. GOODWIN, OF GOODWIN, BULLARD & WOOLSEY, ARCHITECTS.
The entrance hall is a most unusual and beautiful room. The ceiling is of dark wood finished with a satiny, ancient texture, and rests on simple walls and columns of fine proportion and finish. The plaster walls have a most interesting texture and color, the finish of the plaster looking like paint that has been put on with a palette knife by a master, and varying in color through greys almost to a yellow, which gives a warmth and glow to the walls almost like old silver gilt. The effect of the whole room is one of great simplicity and great beauty. All the parts are well arranged. The sweep of the stairway is just right for the ceiling height; the doors are well shaped and well placed. In reality it is even finer than the illustration. It is a rare example of that subtle quality so much discussed and so little understood—proportion.
FIREPLACE IN DINING ROOM * RESIDENCE AT WOODBURY, L. I., OF PHILIP L. GOODWIN, OF GOODWIN, BULLARD & WOOLSEY, ARCHITECTS.


LIBRARY * RESIDENCE AT WOODBURY, L. I., OF PHILIP L. GOODWIN, OF GOODWIN, BULLARD & WOOLSEY, ARCHITECTS.
The dining room, the drawing room and the library are all paneled, and the treatment of bookcases set into the wood walls flanking the door in the latter room is particularly worthy of notice.


***Neglected and empty a fire in 1975 destroyed the house.   
Click HERE to see a 1953 aerial showing estate still extant. Remnants of a long allee the stretched to the south of house  remain - click HERE to view where the house stood. HERE to see farm group(no longer extant). Philip Lippincott Goodwin(1885-1958) was the son of James J. and Josephine Sarah Goodwin of Hartford, Connecticut and New York City, he was a graduate of Yale and Columbia, studied architecture in Paris from 1912-1914, started as a draftsman for a New York City firm and became a partner in Goodwin, Bullard & Woolsey, 1916-1921("Apple Trees", "Roundbush", designed Oriental changing houses at "Erchless") He served as 1st Lieutenant, Infantry, in World War I and was a member of the International section, American Commission to Negotiate Peace, 1919.***

Residence of Philip Sears, ESQ., Brookline, Mass.

FRONT VIEW - RESIDENCE OF PHILIP SEARS, ESQ., BROOKLINE, MASS. Bigelow & Wadsworih, Architects.

FIRST FLOOR PLANS - RESIDENCE OF PHILIP SEARS, ESQ., BROOKLINE, MASS. Bigelow & Wadsworih, Architects.

SECOND FLOOR PLANS - RESIDENCE OF PHILIP SEARS, ESQ., BROOKLINE, MASS. Bigelow & Wadsworih, Architects.
DETAIL OF ENTRANCE - RESIDENCE OF PHILIP SEARS, ESQ., BROOKLINE, MASS. Bigelow & Wadsworih, Architects.

HALL TOWARDS STAIRS - RESIDENCE OF PHILIP SEARS, ESQ., BROOKLINE, MASS. Bigelow & Wadsworih, Architects.

HALL TOWARDS DINING ROOM - RESIDENCE OF PHILIP SEARS, ESQ., BROOKLINE, MASS. Bigelow & Wadsworih, Architects.

DINING ROOM  - RESIDENCE OF PHILIP SEARS, ESQ., BROOKLINE, MASS. Bigelow & Wadsworih, Architects.

DEN - RESIDENCE OF PHILIP SEARS, ESQ., BROOKLINE, MASS. Bigelow & Wadsworih, Architects.
LIBRARY - RESIDENCE OF PHILIP SEARS, ESQ., BROOKLINE, MASS. Bigelow & Wadsworih, Architects.
 Unfortunately I haven't found any information on who Mr. Sears was or if this property is still extant.

Tuesday, June 26, 2012

"Pidgeon Hill"


SEPTEMBER, 1920
"PIDGEON HILL" RESIDENCE of MEREDITH HARE, ESQ., Huntington, L.I. ~ Charles A Platt - Architect
By
HERBERT CROLY
FRONT ELEVATION -"PIDGEON HILL" RESIDENCE OF MEREDITH HARE, ESQ., HUNTINGTON, L. I.  CHARLES A. PLATT, ARCHITECT
IT was something less than twenty years ago that well-to-do residents of New York began to build new houses on Long Island, within easy commuting distance of the city. Since then the district on Long Island between twenty and forty miles from the Pennsylvania Station has steadily increased in popularity. Improvements in transit by motor and the construction of the tunnels under the East River have had much to do with this increase in popularity, but it is also traceable to the desire of New Yorkers for country houses, at a convenient distance from the city, which were available for residence throughout the whole of the year and that afforded the opportunity not only for the usual country games and sports, but for gardening, farming, the raising of stock and the other less frivolous occupations of rural life. A much more wholesome attitude towards the country has prompted the building of the Long Island houses than the attitude which prompted the earlier building of villas, sometimes by the same families, either at Newport or anywhere else on the coast.



This more wholesome attitude is expressed in the character and the design of the houses. There are comparatively few examples on Long Island of the pompous formality and the palatial pretentiousness which characterized so many houses erected by rich Americans during the last decade of the nineteenth century. More and more the builders of the new houses have started with their minds fastened on the kind of residence which an English country gentleman would wish rather than a seventeenth century nobleman; and this comparative unpretentiousness of outlook has released the architects of these buildings from the necessity of complying with many embarrassing and paralyzing demands. The newer houses have usually remained formal, which is a good thing, because sound architectural design requires a large infusion of formality; but their avoidance of mere informality and picturesqueness has not stood in the way of a great gain in individuality, in homeliness, and in domestic propriety. In many cases the houses bespeak a living relationship with the people who occupy them; and the people who occupy them possess standards and interests which are adapted to sincere, beautiful and significant expression. When the history of American domestic architecture of the existing generation comes to be written, the Long Island houses, particularly those built during the past twelve or thirteen years, will form the best and the richest material which the historian will have to use.


Long Island before the advent of the modern architectural movement possessed the advantage of a peculiar species of domestic design. The usual farmhouse of that region was not clap-boarded or sheathed but was shingled; and the shingles were somewhat larger in size than those used elsewhere, somewhat thicker and were painted white. Since in a wooden building so much of the effect depends upon the surface, the texture, and the delineation of the material, these Long Island shingles, super-imposed upon the generally good lines and appropriate details of the early farmhouse, created perhaps the most interesting type of small residence, for the use of the yeoman farmer, which was erected in this country. It certainly created a type which was more flexible than the New England farmhouse, and whose elements could be developed and varied without necessarily losing the merits of the original design. It is no wonder, consequent'y, that during the revival of domestic building that has recently taken place on Long Island the builders have frequently altered and enlarged the old farmhouses. In many cases they have succeeded in converting them from the residences of yeomen farmers into the residences of gentlemen farmers, without any falsification of the original type.


In some few instances, however, architects have perpetuated the type not merely in alterations but in an entirely new building. Such is the case with the house of Mr. Meredith Hare at Huntington, Long Island, designed by Charles A. Platt. The Hare residence is an excellent example of the very best qualities which are now characterizing American domestic architecture. It combines in a very happy way spaciousness with economy. Architects always find it difficult to design a house which locks ample enough to form the background for a liberal life without becoming wasteful of space; but in Mr. Hare's house, Mr. Platt has succeeded in excluding all superfluities while retaining an atmosphere of generosity and abundance. He has kept the scale and the general appearance of a Long Island farmhouse, which formed, of course, the background for anything but a spacious life; and without departing from the unpretentious simplicity essential to the type, he has designed a building which forms an entirely appropriate residence for people with leisure who prefer to devote the time, no longer occupied with the struggle for existence, to cultivating the arts and amenities of life. This house was designed, and successfully designed, for the purpose of providing an appropriate setting for the life of a particular family. When a nation educates architects who are capable of creating propriety of relationship between buildings and lives, and when the life which is expressed in the building possesses sincerity, distinction and value, it is by way of creating a domestic architecture which will endure, and deserve to endure, in the aesthetic consciousness of future Americans.


But, of course, a country house needs also another kind of propriety. It needs to fit not only the lives of its occupants, but also the particular site on which it is built. There are some residences, of which the Newport palaces form the perfect illustration, which can never become adapted to their sites. There are others, of which one finds so many examples in England, that, while they were not designed for their sites, have after a few hundred years grown into the landscape and now look as if they were always intended to be just where they are. Finally, there are others that only a few years after their erection look as if they had grown up on their site. They obtain their confirmation not from the weathering of time, but from their intimate relationship to the advantages and limitations of their immediate surroundings. 


Among the many American architects who have made a personal contribution to American domestic architecture there is none who has so frequently succeeded in providing for his clients buildings which in a few years look as if they had been a very long time where they are. Mr. Hare's house does not look old yet. It is not old enough to settle down into its landscape with gentlemanly assurance and with complete self-possession. A few more years must elapse before it will become really mellow. 
BLOCK PLAN -"PIDGEON HILL" RESIDENCE OF MEREDITH HARE, ESQ., HUNTINGTON, L. I.  CHARLES A. PLATT, ARCHITECT


But it is clearly becoming mellow very rapidly; and if the reader would like to know why, he can discover the reason by examining the plan and the lay-out in relation to the design. The scale and the dimensions of the house are nicely adjusted to a site which demanded intimacy and some informality of treatment. This the illustrations clearly show. 
FIRST FLOOR PLAN -"PIDGEON HILL" RESIDENCE OF MEREDITH HARE, ESQ., HUNTINGTON, L. I.  CHARLES A. PLATT, ARCHITECT

SECOND FLOOR PLAN - "PIDGEON HILL" RESIDENCE OF MEREDITH HARE, ESQ., HUNTINGTON, L. I.  CHARLES A. PLATT, ARCHITECT
FRONT PORCH - "PIDGEON HILL" RESIDENCE OF MEREDITH HARE, ESQ., HUNTINGTON, L. I.  CHARLES A. PLATT, ARCHITECT 
What they cannot show so well is the success with which the porch of the house provides its residents with an introductory approach to that which is best worth looking at in the surrounding landscape.
GARDEN ELEVATION  -"PIDGEON HILL" RESIDENCE OF MEREDITH HARE, ESQ., HUNTINGTON, L. I.  CHARLES A. PLATT, ARCHITECT

GARDEN ELEVATION -"PIDGEON HILL" RESIDENCE OF MEREDITH HARE, ESQ., HUNTINGTON, L. I.  CHARLES A. PLATT, ARCHITECT
DETAIL OF GARDEN ELEVATION  -"PIDGEON HILL" RESIDENCE OF MEREDITH HARE, ESQ., HUNTINGTON, L. I.  CHARLES A. PLATT, ARCHITECT

DETAIL OF GARDEN ELEVATION  -"PIDGEON HILL" RESIDENCE OF MEREDITH HARE, ESQ., HUNTINGTON, L. I.  CHARLES A. PLATT, ARCHITECT

EAST END OF TERRACE -"PIDGEON HILL" RESIDENCE OF MEREDITH HARE, ESQ., HUNTINGTON, L. I.  CHARLES A. PLATT, ARCHITECT
STAIR HALL -"PIDGEON HILL" RESIDENCE OF MEREDITH HARE, ESQ., HUNTINGTON, L. I.  CHARLES A. PLATT, ARCHITECT

LIBRARY AND LIVING ROOM -"PIDGEON HILL" RESIDENCE OF MEREDITH HARE, ESQ., HUNTINGTON, L. I.  CHARLES A. PLATT, ARCHITECT

DINING ROOM -"PIDGEON HILL" RESIDENCE OF MEREDITH HARE, ESQ., HUNTINGTON, L. I.  CHARLES A. PLATT, ARCHITECT

A SECLUDED SPOT -"PIDGEON HILL" RESIDENCE OF MEREDITH HARE, ESQ., HUNTINGTON, L. I.  CHARLES A. PLATT, ARCHITECT
House demolished and surrounding one-hundred acre property developed for residential housing in the 1960's. Click HERE to see the  estate still extant. HERE for a earlier post on "Pidgeon Hill". 

Sunday, June 24, 2012

The Garden of Mrs. Meredith Hare at "Pidgeon Hill"


The Garden of Mrs. Meredith Hare at "Pidgeon Hill", HUNTINGTON, L. I.




Its air of repose and delightful quaintness reminiscent of bygone years make it an ideal letting for the folk of Du Maurier's day who seem here perfectly at home. Through the courtesy of Mrs. Hare and her warm-hearted interest in stricken people everywhere, Peter Ibbetson was recently played in the garden by the Paramount Pictures under the auspices of the Film Mutual Benefit Bureau(supplied companies with production locations for the benefit of nonprofits) to aid the work of the American Committee for Devastated France.


Click HERE for more on "Pidgeon Hill".


The house and garden no longer survive. Click HERE to see where house and garden stood.