Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 308, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 January 1918 — HOME TOWN HELPS [ARTICLE]

HOME TOWN HELPS

SEEKING SITE TO FIT HOME Many People Do Not Stop to Think at . All of the Vast Importance of the House's Setting. Most of the people who are saving to build a house —the sort they have . dreamed of possessing—give so much attention to the actual plans of the dwelling that they do not stop to think at all of the vast importance of the honse’s setting. They are joys and profits in site hunting that the average home-builder who is willing to content himself with the first stflp of land in a desirable neighborhood with which his real estate dealer confronts him never guesses. Obviously the average city lot is the “flat, treeless, 50 by 100,” on which, of course, there is little possible latitude In building. The house must be oblong and stand on one of its ends about in the center of tlie lot. with an Inconsequential margin on either side, and a flower-trimmed square of green in front and rear. There are many streets of this type in every suburb. But in every suburb also there are odd corners that have been passed by as unsuitable. Like the neglected creed beds in the farmer’s fields, they are generally of odd shapes and wooded, the hand of the “improver” having passed them as hopeless. In rural districts where land is rated by its cultivatable area, these are literally waste and can often be bought for very little. - One of the least appreciated kind of sites for a home is the gully or draw. Everywhere among the hills there are places where the waters have cut out a bed to the rocks and a stream ’ splashes swiftly downward among the trees. There are few greater outdoor joys for folk who like to plan things themselves and execute them with their own hands than the development o> one of these spots. If you have a definite plan for your house in mind before you have an idea for the site, you should seek your site to fit the horde. A chateau would be out of place where a bungalow cottage would be wholly, at ease. A barn might be badly misplaced on the ideal site for a farmhouse. But site hunting untrammeled by aught save the limits of one’s Imagination is great fun and a liberal educatidn.