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Stables and Landscaping for E. B. Ingram
Purcell, Feick and Elmslie
Minneapolis, Minnesota 1910
Text by William Gray Purcell
Parabiographies entry, Volume for 1910
Job Date (in Parabiographies): August 23, 1910
E. B. INGRAM, Barn and Gardens
Draughting: M.A.P., W.G.P., G.G.E., G.F.,Jr.
This little project shows what can be done with the very simplest building, built of the simplest and plainest materials. This operation was almost the end of the trail for the conventional private horse barns. Now began to appear the garage, which, in this instance, was a shed on the side of the barn. Then, as people gave up their horses, the sharply sloping ramps to the carriage rooms were kept there. Within a few years, the relation was reversed and a stable for the saddle horse, if any, was built as an annex to the garage.
Stuffed Shirt
On this project appeared vividly in our business view for the first time the complete lack of either training or technique which the most distinguished professional firms brought to their work. Mr. Ingram showed me the layout for his garden made by a famous Boston firm whose named was known to everyone. Their business was so extensive that they maintained a superintendent in Minneapolis. All the conventional cliches of landscape architecture were proposed for this small town backyard garden. But what was planned was wholly unrelated to either the practical needs of the owner, the aesthetics of the growing things, or the buildings and boundaries which set the problem.
Discussion with Mr. Ingram of a practical nature, concerning the use of the stable buildings which we were designing, opened Mr. Ingram's mind to the difference between a picture and a plan, and the many questions he asked soon showed him very plainly that he needed first of all an arrangement which brought his house and the stable in relation to the way in which he wished to use and enjoy his property. The more he really studie[d] the Boston plans, the more disgusted he became with the service that had been offered him. I was absolutely certain that there was no thought in my mind of displacing these Boston gentlemen, but thinking organically, as I was, about the relation of this stable to the man's life and needs, it was simply impossible to pass him one idea about the project or answer one question without showing up the fatuous character of all they were offering him.
He fired the Boston landscapists and asked us to make a garden plan. This we did, and the yard was rebuilt and planted accordingly.
Collection: William Gray Purcell Papers, Northwest Architectural Archives, University of Minnesota [AR:B4d1.4]
research courtesy mark hammons