Ella Condie Lamb: Building a Country House

"Field Daisy" by Ella Condie Lamb

"In 1899, Charles Lamb began construction on a country house in Cresskill, New Jersey, a home which was to be a refuge from city pressures and cares. 'They came,' recalled their daughter Katharine, 'because of the gorgeous sunsets and the view, and because they did not want to be too far from New York. This place reminded them of Italy because of the cypress trees.' And they called the house 'The Fold.'

It was designed by Charles to harmonize with nature, to blend in with its surroundings. Ella explained:

'Our house belongs there on the edge of the woods just as much as the growing trees and shrubs do, for much of it has always been there. We brought out the foreign materials only when our own land could not supply our needs. You see we loved the land, and valued her assistance. And in return we did not encroach upon her reserve, or destroy her individuality, or try in any way to change her particular beauty by rendering it conventional. We cleared off no spaces, nor did we smooth out the pleasant wrinkled surface of the old pasture into hard flat lawns - that would have been a poor return for all the meadows were giving us.'

Some of William Morris' ideals of living and comfort were expressed in the house - restraint in decoration, bookcases with plenty of books, chairs that give comfort, tables commodious in size, vases for flowers, some real works of art on the walls, and the fireplace the chief object in the room.

For Ella, only one thing was missing - good light for her studio. The house had four foot eaves which made the upstairs studio room too dark. When Ella expressed her concern to Charles, he replied, 'Oh, that's all right, we'll go and cut a hole.' Katharine wrote, 'He got a carpenter to cut a five foot square hole... It brought in a tremendous amount of northern light, and now that's done in all the modern houses, you know, holes in the roof.'

And, of course, Ella shared, 'We had to have a garden. The children needed it to grow in, I needed it to work off city nerves, and as for Mr. Lamb - well, every artist should have a flower garden.' After it was established, she wrote: 'The most wonderful time of all is of a moonlight night. Then the white light sifts through the purple shadows of the grapevine over the wall's seat and sundial, the phlox, lilies, and pinks gleam white and fill the air with fragrance. Over in the woodland a whippoorwill or a hoot owl calls. A star shines in the pool and verily, 'God walks in my garden.'"

To be continued

(Excerpts from "Ella's Certain Window" by Barea Lamb Seeley.)