Prices of vacant property in different sections vary so greatly that one cannot safely approximate the cost of a building lot. It is safe to say, though, that if values are figured on a proper basis, a satisfactory site for a moderate-priced home can be purchased for $1,000 in the town of our choice.
We have made it clear to ourselves that a home--anyone's home--should be much more than a house plumped down upon any bit of ground that will hold it. When we come to consider the house itself, we are confronted by the knowledge that here the tastes and habits, as well as the size and resources of the family, must govern the decision of many problems considered. Numbers alone are not always a fair guide, for sometimes the man or the woman of the house, or the baby, counts for much more than one in figuring space requirements.
We have in mind here that we are a family of four, that we have an income of from $1,500 to $2,500, and that we are prepared to spend or obligate ourselves to spend from $2,000 to $3,500 for a house to go on a lot to cost $1,000. The house we think of would be not too large for two and certainly would comfortably accommodate five or even six, depending upon their relations to one another. The extremes of income mentioned would scarcely affect our plans, and the difference in cost is accounted for by the choice of nonessentials and not by differences in the principal features of the house.
Now, if we have already set our hearts upon having a house just like that "love of a place" we saw in Wayout-on-the-Hill the other day, we shall have to reconsider the entire lot proposition. We may as well face the fact that the house which is everything appropriate and artistic in one place may in another be simply grotesque. In this phase of the selective work we will profit by the advice of the architect, if he be something of an artist and not simply a draughtsman. At any rate, if we have the lot, let us decide what style of house should be on it; if we are surely settled upon the house, then by all means let us get a lot it will fit--and have a care, too, with regard to the style of architecture (or lack of it) in our prospective neighbors' houses.
There have been two extremes in later American home architecture--overornamentation and absolute disregard for appearance. The first arose from a feeling that every dollar spent in the interest of art (!) should be so gewgawed to the outer world that all who passed might note the costliness and wonder. The second extreme had its birth in an elementary practicality that believes anything artistic must be both extravagant and useless.