Villa and Cottage Architecture: The Style-Book of the Hudson River School

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Summary: comments on Calvert Vaux's "Villa and Cottage Architecture"
Review: Similar to Andrew Jackson Downing's "Victorian Cottage Residences," Calvert Vaux's "Village and Cottage Architecture" is a fairly thick black-and-white book containing a sizable number of floor plans ranging from a log cabin to enormous estate homes. The first third of the book is devoted to an essay on houses and the proper furnishings of the day, which is probably a little boring for the average reader; however, the book improves with the appearance of the floor plans. Though the elevations and plans are black-and-white and sometimes a little on the small side, and the attics and cellars left entirely to the reader's imagination, this is nonetheless one of the best books on Victorian architecture going. Vaux's advice is also amusingly outdated; at one point he advises keeping a bird-cage in the parlor if young ladies are about. Nonetheless, the varied floor plans are a fabulous example of the Hudson River school of architecture.