Courtesy of Hudson View Gardens • publication date unknown
Architecture and Gardening developed in the early 16th Century manner
Modern day floor plans are a vast improvement over the layouts of earlier periods, but in choosing a suitable exterior design for Hudson View Gardens, Dr. Paterno decided to go back four hundred years and adopt Tudor architecture. This style, while thoroughly domestic and informal, is neither rustic nor provincial. Pointed arched doorways reveal Gothic and ecclesiastical influence. The long lines of its steep gables make the buildings blend with the landscape, an effect enhanced at Hudson View Gardens by the planting of tall cedars, which in a few short years will be supplemented by clinging vines, already planted.
Mr. George Fred Pelham, the architect, has been an exponent of Tudor architecture applied to modern buildings. Hudson View Gardens offered him his greatest opportunity deliberately to apply to new elevations the lines that early 16th Century buildings acquired in the course of years through the addition of wings and extensions. An observing visitor at Hudson View Gardens will enjoy the many touches of originality with which Mr. Pelham avoided monotonous repetition. All outside walls are front walls, and every one is separately designed.
To carry out the illusion of Old Word architecture the materials used – brick, timber and stucco – are the same as employed in the construction of the finest examples of Tudor. Dr. Paterno purchased his front brick abroad, in Holland*, where clay is impregnated with a peculiar pigment not found on this side of the Atlantic. The very size of the Holland brick, too, differs from New World standards.
Casement windows are a feature of Tudor architecture which was created before the days of counterbalanced sash. At Hudson View Gardens casement windows of delightful proportions have been used. One of the common faults of modern architecture in apartment houses, in the part of the country especially, is that the windows are too narrow and too high. The use of the famous Hope metal casement windows [Hope Metal Casement Window Company of Birmingham , England] at Hudson View Gardens precluded such an error.
Long, flat surfaces were avoided at Hudson View Gardens. Walls rise at different angles, some terminating in gables, some in mansard roofs, and others in turrets. Roofs are of polychrome slate shingles. Timber is painted a dark weathered brown. The stucco is rather rough to give the elements a chance to weather it quickly.
Nature puts the final and longest touch on all architecture. One of the virtues of the Tudor style is that like good wine, it improves with age. Monumental buildings must be sandblasted periodically; frame mansions depend upon fresh paint to cover the ravages of the sun, rain and sleet; but Hudson View Gardens depend upon the elements to mellow their variegated facades.
*More about the Holland brick:
Ten Million Brick From Holland Used In Paterno Colony
The New York Herald, The New York Tribune 4 May 1924
Construction of 14 Co-operative Apartments on Seven-Acre Plot Opposite Castle Great Undertaking
Dr. Charles V. Paterno expects to have ready in August the first units of the group of fourteen apartment houses which he is erecting on seven acres opposite his home, The Castle, on Fort Washington Avenue. [Correction: On Northern Avenue, now known as Cabrini Boulevard] Dr. Paterno erected the apartment house at 270 Park Avenue, said to be the largest in the world. He said yesterday that the detail of this project was nothing compared with that involved in the co-operative group which he is rushing along at a pace which will establish a record for fast building in this city if nothing happens to delay matters.
The colony covers most of the site of Fort Washington and fronts on Fort Washington Avenue [Correction: Northern Avenue, now known as Cabrini Boulevard] and Pinehurst Avenues between 182nd Street and 186th Street. The population of the Hudson View Gardens will be 354 families, or about 1,500 persons.
About 10,000,000 brick will be used in the construction of the fourteen apartment buildings. Dr. Paterno sent to Holland for shiploads of brick, which produce a soft and mellow effect which make Continental homes at once the envy and the despair of American builders. From England have come thousands of the Hope metal casement window frames of special design.
Dr. Paterno staggered the manufacturers with an order for 354 motor-driven dishwashing machines, the same number of combination kitchen cabinet and refrigerators, each seven feet wide, incorporating four refrigerating compartments, flour and sugar bins, dough and bread boards, pot closet, coffee, tea and spice jars, and so forth; ironing boards which fold into broom closets, china closets, dressing rooms with wardrobes, wing mirror dressing tables and door beds.
At Dr. Paterno’s instigation the Western Electric Company produced four super-heterodyne radio receiving sets larger than ever before attempted, with over 1,500 outlets, four in each apartment. A laundry machinery company received an order for the largest private plant installed in any apartment operation. A new type of push button elevator with dual control is being installed.
Dr. Paterno is a great believer in co-operation. He says that 354 co-operating families can live in luxury and yet save money.
The Wood, Dolson Company, the selling and managing agents, report that, although but few of the apartments are near enough completion to show concretely how the finished colony will appear, there is a constant stream of inquirers at their field office each day.