THE WOES OF HOUSE-BUILDING. N O one who has built a
house, or indeed had anything to do with bricks and mortar, will fail to feel a certain sympathy for Colonel North. He may have been "lordly," as Lord Coleridge suggests, in his ideas, and may have refused. to trouble his head with tiresome details ; but all the same, any one who has had an experience in any way similar will understand his annoyance in finding that a house which he imagined was going to cost him at the very most £60,000, had actually left him £115,000 out of pocket. In one or two particulars, however, Colonel North's experience was dif- ferent from that of mankind in general. As a rule, the man • who sets out to build a house has an elaborate series of estimates prepared, and for weeks and months lives in an atmosphere dazzled with the brilliant reds and blues of ground-plans and elevations, and made odorous by those strange-smelling papers and calicoes in which architects revel. At last, however, the pomp and circumstance of planning ends in a contract under which some enterprising builder undertakes that, in consideration of a certain sum of money, in exact accordance with the plans, a house shall be produced by a certain day. Nothing could possibly seem more businesslike. There appears no sort of loophole for extra expenditure, and the householder in posse congratu- lates himself upon the fact that he knows exactly where he stands as to the outlay on his house. Unfortunately, however, this is not really the case. A year later, the householder in expectancy finds that his liabilities very greatly exceed the amount of the contract. Yet the builder has done nothing illegal, and has made no overcharge. How, then, is the difference between the sum named in the contract and the money actually spent to be accounted for ? As a rule, simply and solely by the fact that the proprietor has taken an interest in and has watched the progress of the building operations. It is not in human nature for a man to watch his own house being built, and not to criticise and demand altera- tions. As a rule, he has not really understood the plans in the very least. His reason may have com- prehended that a sort of very neat octopus represents a staircase, and that gaps with jagged edges mean door- ways ; but for all that, he has entirely failed to realise "how things will look" when they are up. When, then, the proprietor and his women-folk stand for the first time in the drawing-room, the walls of which are some 3 ft. high, it is ten to one that they find a dozen fatal mistakes. The father of the family realises that the place destined for his evening arm-chair will be in an awful draught if "that window is kept where it is begun." Again, his wife declares that it is quite impossible to have the doors cutting up the walls as they do, and emphatically asseverates that "she is sure she could never have agreed to such an absurd idea." At this moment, the ever-obliging builder steps up and points out that the suggested alterations can very easily be made. They will, he is sure, be great improvements, and. the additional expense will be trifling if only the proposed changes are made at once. Can it be wondered that they are adopted ? But when once pater and materfamilias have tasted blood, their appetite for change is not easily checked. Every fresh visit to the house makes a new series of variations to the contract. Doors are opened here, bow-windows thrown out there, passages are turned, roofs sloped differently, and fire- places shifted, entirely regardless of the original plan. But though each new change seems a small matter, the total is a very large ono, and sometimes nekrly doubles the con- tract sum. Happy is the man who escapes with an addition of 20 per cent. to the contract price ; thrice blessed he who gets off for 10 per cent. ! There is, we believe, only one instance of a would-be householder managing to build his house for the amount of the estimate. His plan was as follows. Having signed the contract and informed the contractor that he should insist strictly upon the time clause, he went abroad and refused to hold any com- munication with his builder, except by answering the most tempting suggestions for modifications of the plans by the simple formula :—" Whatever happens, keep strictly to the contract. Do nothing more than you have agreed to do. I will see that you do nothing less." In this way, and in this way only, is it possible to ensure that a house shall be built for the contract price.
Oddly enough, Colonel North went away while his house was building, though with very different results from those we have just mentioned. Unfortunately for him, he made no valid contract as to the maximum sum to be expended on his house, but in effect left the architect carte blanche. As far as we can gather from the evidence, Colonel North, millionaire-like, gave general instructions that a stately palace was to rise at Eltham during his absence in Chili, but would not trouble his head about details. He was determined the house should be begun before he started, but he did not insist upon having a definite estimate. In their original conversations, it appears that Colonel North and his architect sketched out a house which the architect said would cost, he thought roughly, about £30,000. This was apparently the sort of sum which was first meant by Colonel North, though he soon doubled it, and made, as he thought, £60,000 his extreme limit. Yet, as we have noted above, when. Colonel North returned from Chili, he found that this extended sum had been exceeded by some £55,000. At first sight, it may seem as if the architect must have been to blame, and that after such sums as £30,000 and .t60,000 had been mentioned, be ought not to have spent £115,000 without a special reference to his client. Possibly this is the view of the case which we ought in strictness to take. We expect, however, that the circumstances afford Mr. Cutler, the architect, nearly as good a defence in morals as he had in law. Practically, Colonel North's journy to Chili, and his refusal to consider plans and estimates or to hear about de- tails, left Mr. Cutler in the position of the person building the house. He knew generally that Colonel North was a very rich man, and wanted a really magnifi- cent house. It is hardly a subject for wonder, then, that as the house was being built, the expenditure grow and grew. We all know that, while a house is in a condition which renders it still possible to introduce modifications and extensions of the original design, a hundred sugges- tions for improvement crop up. But this being so, would it be wonderful if an architect placed as was Mr. Cutler gradually extended the scope of his plan, and added magnificence after magnificence to the house ? Suppose him confronted with the pestion 'Shall I or shall I not make a particular change ? ' If he makes it, he feels that the house will be immensely improved. He has, too, no cut-and-dried plan by which he can check himself, for his discretion is little less than absolute. Again, his employer is abroad, and hates details. Under these circumstances, there would be nothing strange in an architect con- cluding that it was his duty to do his best by the house, even if he increased the expense. After all, is it not his business to build a palace worthy of a millionaire ? But the architect has only to give in to this feeling a dozen times or so, to double the sum which, though he has forgotten, his client remembers as the outside limit.
There is thus no reason to think that Mr. Cutler in- tended to take any unfair advantage of Colonel North. He was to blame, no doubt, in not insisting upon having a clear understanding as to the limit of expense which he might incur. A man of ultra-scrupulousness would, indeed, have refused to work under any other conditions. Still, under the circumstances, the mistake committed by Mr. Cutler was not a very grave one. On the other hand, we can well understand Colonel North's annoyance. He ought, of course, to have secured himself by a condition as to a maximum placed in the written agreement with his architect. He trusted, however, to Mr. Cutler not to incur exorbitant expenditure, and to protect his (Colonel North's) interests. A situation of this kind arises too often between men who both mean to act honourably, to make it necessary to conclude that the right is wholly on one side. Taking all things together, then, we cannot condemn the verdict of the jury, though at the same time we may feel that a man of sensitive feeling would have refused to claim his commission in regard to the expendi- ture alleged to be excessive. In any case, the action should be a lesson to builders of houses to have everything in black-and-white ; and to architects, not to assume that the better and more magnificent a house is made, the more pleased will be the man who has to pay the bill.
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