Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 253, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 October 1910 — HEW HOUSE SCHEHE [ARTICLE]

HEW HOUSE SCHEHE

London Suburb-Soon to Witness * Unique Attempt. , % 1 • \ Combine Privacy and Exclusiveness, So Dear to Heart of Every Englishman, With All Other 1 Advantages. London.—A garden village, situated on a tableland some 300 feet above sea level—as high as St. Paul’s catheflral—ln one of London’s prettiest and healthiest northern suburbs, and not more than seven miles distant from Charing Cross, Is on the point of making its successful debut as a pioneer housing scheme. The plan will combine the privacy and exclusiveness of home, so dear to the heart of the average Englishman, with all the advantages, economical and otherwise, of co-operative housekeeping. » On the beautifully wooded estate of Brent Lodge, consisting of 24 acres, It is proposed to build houses, allowing six only to the acre, which will permit of a fairly large garden for each house, at rentals of from £35 ($175) to £6O ($300) a year, together with three quadrangles of flats. In addition, large spaces will be reserved for the tenants, who must also be shareholders In the enterprise, as recreation grounds. Every house will he fitted with an appliance for constant hot-water service, electric wiring and power for vacuum cleaning, rand taany other advantages and economies Will result to the tenants. The old mansion of Brent Lodge, standing in a spacious center of lawns stretching under wide-spreading cedars, will be preserved as a clubhouse, dining hall and “center of general reunion.’’ Here meals will be served in the three big reception kooms, opening one Into the other, ■from which a charming view of the 'surrounding gardens and trees can |be obtained. By this means domestic labor will be reduced to a minimum Sand the servant problem satisfactorily solved. In addition to a co-operative kitchen, there will be a co-operative

nursery and laundry and a cooperative staff of servants. Those tenants who prefer to do their own catering, instead of “dining out,” and to keep their own servants, will, of course, be at liberty to do so, as entire freedom of action Is one of the results aimed at. It will be seen that the scheme is not In any sense a land speculation or a philanthropic enterprise, but a practical effort on the part of Its initiator and actual working secretary—Mrs. Alice Melvin—-to cope with some of the difficulties that beset the lives of people with strictly limited means. It Is estimated that a capital of from £70,000 to £BO,OOO ($350,000 to $400,000) will be required for the Brent Garden Village estate, but onethird of that amount will suffice for the Initial outlay. As mentioned above, all tenants must be shareholders and copartners In the Bcheme. "In this way,” Bald Mrs. Melvin, who told the correspondent, “that she used to think and think and

think,” until her thoughts finally crystallized and resolved themselves Into the present scheme; “It is hoped that much of the drudgery inseparable from the life of the average woman with small means will be done away with and that she will have more leisure to devote to the training of her children, or, If Intellectually inclined, to lead her own life and develop it along those lines which most peculiarly appeal to her. A civilized home should not need all the hours between waking and sleeping to keep it going.” Proof that the scheme Is filling a long-felt want is seen In the fact that between thirty and forty houses were booked before the purchase of the estate was settled. Brent Lodge, it is Interesting to note, was originally only a cottage on Finchley Common, and It grew and grew and was added to until it finally became the home for a time of the late Baroness Burdett-Coutts, during whose tenancy the duke of Wellington stayed there.