The Architecture of Country Houses…

Published 1850, by Andrew Jackson Downing (1815–1852)

…Including Designs for Cottages, Farm Houses, and Villas, with Remarks on Interiors, Furniture, and the Best Modes of Warming and Ventilating. With three hundred and twenty illustrations. New York: D. Appleton & Co. ((Download free ebook at the Internet Archive for Kindle, ePub and other portable eReader formats))

Downing started his writing career as a horticulturist in Newburgh, New York, introducing landscape design for the first time to the new Republic. He popularized the “Picturesque” style of dwellings in Country Houses – the first “pattern book” published in the United States. Featuring Gothic Revival and Italianate style houses among others, he also had a direct influence on Carpenter Gothic and Hudson River Bracketed vernacular styles. The book presents floor plans and renderings of 28 houses, recommendations for interior design and furniture, as well as his philosophy about the importance of providing homes for families of any income level.

People’s pride in their country is connected to pride in their home. If they can decorate and build their homes to symbolize the values they hope to embody, such as prosperity, education and patriotism, they will be happier people and better citizens.

In 1850, Downing met Calvert Vaux in London who emigrated to America and soon became partner in a landscape design practice in Newburgh, along with Frederick Clarke Withers. They created designs for gardens at the White House, Smithsonian Institute and parts of the National Mall in Washington, D.C. An early proponent for blending buildings into the surrounding environment, Downing is credited for the popularity of the front porch to connect the house with nature.

Downing and his family perished in a boat accident on the Hudson river in 1852. Withers and Vaux took over the architecture practice and later, the Greensward Plan by Vaux and landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted was approved in 1858 for the design of Central Park in New York City.