the homemaker magazines, not the professional ones. Of course the
modern architectural establishment did not care for Wills, but he
never suffered because of it, and he often poked fun at his detractors
with cartoons. Wills's sense of humor led him to write an article entitled
"Confessions of a Cape Codder"(1949), and the book
Houses Have Funny Bones (1951).
An astute businessman and an architect who understood his clients, he recognized
what many Americans desired in a house and provided solutions.
14
The house for Rudolph J. Schaeffer at Mamaroneck, New York, built in 1956, exemplifies
Wills's mature handling of the Cape Cod cottage. The low-rising clapboarded
house spreads across the lot through a series of additive wings. Heavy stone
chimneys anchor the house. Wills paid attention to landscaping, maintaining
several large trees on the site; the clustering of low azaleas along the house's
foundation reflects twentieth-century suburban design, not eighteenth-century
A cobblestone driveway added an air of age to the necessary garage, which was
disguised as a carriage shed.
The entrance porch was unorthodox in the sense
that colonial Capes seldom had such a feature, but Wills enhanced it with massive
timbers and braces (sometimes called gunstocks) that might have come from a
barn or outbuilding.
Window sashes with twelve-over-twelve lights were employed on the main block.
The plan owes a debt to eighteenth-century New England houses, but Wills made
it more spacious and reconfigured some of the rooms. A wing off the rear contains
a study and a screened porch. The entry hall has the traditional staircase with
turned balusters —situated to greet the visitor—along with exposed beams and old
square bricks for the floor, which are large to make for easier communication with
the other rooms. The major rooms received appropriate detailing such as old-board
wainscoting, or the more sophisticated dadoes and pilasters as seen in the dining room.
Furnishings throughout were either antique or reproductions, which Wills advised on if asked.
Wills and his firm designed many houses in other Colonial Revival idioms, an example of which is the Walter Barker House (ca. 1940) in Nashua, New Hampshire.
Drawing from early New England two-story farmhouses with extensions that provided covered connections to the barn and stables, the form still had relevance for the harsh winters.
