The Architecture of Mott B. Schmidt

Scmidt's third commission for the Dillon family was built in New Jersey "horse country" at Far Hills, near great estates with houses by John Russell Pope, Cross & Cross, and Peabody, Wilson & Brown. A variation on the block-with-dependencies type developed in his 1920s houses, the so-called "Dunwalke Farm" house is perhaps Schmidt's best residential work of the 1930s. The plan began as a variation on that of the Peyton house and was subsequently expanded to a 5-part type. Once the massing was established, Schmidt relied on his basic formula of a grid of equal-sized, double-hung windows to articulate the facades. The only ornamentation are the two classical doorways. In this respect the Dillon house echoes contemporaneous Georgian minimalist houses such as Milburne (1934) by William Lawrence Bottoinley in Richmond and William Adams Delano's Oak Spring (1940) in Virginia. Similar works by Schmidt include Hudson Pines (1938), the Abby Rockefeller Milton house at Pocantico, the William Clay Ford house (1959) at Grosse Pointe Shores and Wynfield (1960), the residence of Mr. & Mrs. Winton M. Blount in Montgomery County, Alabama. Clients wanting a Mott Schmidt house could count on a refinement of a basic, predictable type, and clearly valued this standard. This house remains in the family, basically unaltered.