Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 297, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 December 1910 — CEMENT COTTAGES FOR POOR [ARTICLE]

CEMENT COTTAGES FOR POOR

Method for Construction of Cheap but Substantial Homes for Working Classes.

London.- -Two neat little tiled cottages at Newlands Corner, near Guildford, stand for a practical and successful effort to deal with one of the most pressing questions of English rural life—the problem of cheap housing. In bui'/llng these comfortable, well ordered dwellings for two of his undergardwiers at a cost for the two of $1,500, St. Loe Strachey, editor of the Spectator, has justified the faith which he publicly expressed and which moved him to promote the Cheap Cottage exhibition at Letchworth in 1905. The argument which Mr. Strachey then advanced and has now established is this: The agricultural laborer cannot afford to pay more than $1.50 a week house rent out of his wages. Any improvement in his dwelling above that standard must ordinarily be provided by philanthropy. The obvious way to cope with this situation Is to cheapen the cost of construction. This Mr. Strachey, in co-operation with a local builder, has done, by using for the walls of his cottage concrete blocks made in molds on the spot. The ground floors of the cottages have a scullery, a pantry and a large kitchen sitting room, from which an open staircase leads picturesquely to the upper story of three bedrooms. As Mr. Strachey points out, this extraordinarily low cost of $1,500 tor t pair of cottages—s2,2so is the figure usually accepted—has been reached not only by the employment, of cheap material byt by rigid exclusion of showy and unnecessary ornament, by dipenslng with an architect and by leaving only a small margin for builder’s profit. At the same time he maintains that his experiment has Shown that it would be possible for any country landlord to house his people at the

same cost by employing the labor and material of his estate. Further, Mr. Strachey asserts, the addition if S6O to the sale value of the cottages would turn them into a profitable venture for the commercial builder;