"ASSOCIATED HOMES."

Evening Star, Issue 3855, 2 July 1875, Page 3

"ASSOCIATED HOMES."

Mr A. J. Harvey, F.S. A, of South Bank, Regent’s Park, has promulgated a plan of living in association, at a much less cost and with a great deal more comfort than the present mode is attended with. The plan shows much thought, as well as an earnest desire for general improvement; but there seems to us an insurmountable difficulty in the retiring habits of the English people. We subjoin the leading features ot Mr Harvey’s plan, as it is well worthy of consideration :—“ An Associated Horae and Associated Home life is the fusion of club, hotel, and home life under one roof, and its' entire and complete substitution in the place of the life of lodgings and chambers and the individual homes or dwellings of the working and middle classes. Combining—l. All the privacy, independence, and sanctity of the individual home. 2. The selectness, luxuries, and refinements—say of a Club. 3. The order, domestic arrangements, and committee of management of our great London or continental - hotel; and like them erected by companies. . 4. Lastly, economy. All the advantages of club, hotel, and home life (without the imperfections, deficiencies, expense, and unsociability of each, separately), are blended and combined in the most perfect manner, in addition to the cooperative principle; .and without any fusion of classes. Superseding lodging life and chambers from reasons of defective and expensive accommodation, dear food, indifferent cooking and attendance, oftentimes incivility and extortion, and always loneliness and strangeness of life the source of all ruin to young persons from its general isolation, desolation, and unaccountability of life. Equally superseding boarding house life from defective and expensive accommodation, the periodical gathering to meals, and that inevitable . and

unavoidable forcing of congenial natures to consort with uncongenial ones (not the case in an Associated Home which from its gigantic size expressly avoids this evil), thus showing no practical analogies to this new and perfect type of social dwelling—wherein all our inventions, discoveries, and art conspire together, hand in hand with the co-operative principle to surround the inmates Avith comforts, luxuries, and refinements which even princes would envy. Superseding, likewise, both club and hotel life, inasmuch as the occupants do not live therein ; neither are they necessarily neighbors, friends, nor even acquaintances, and co-operative pi ices have no existence. Lastly, superseding home life itself. By entirely avoiding separate housekeeping the ruinous expenditure. Separate kitchen and servants’ apartments, whether sleeping or otherwise, and all the never-ending expenses, and the daily drudgery, the irritating, timewasting, and groveling details of separate house-keeping. Avoiding separate servants —their (increasingly) expensive keep and wages, and that daily conflict or collision too frequently with ignorance and incompetence, disobedience, incivility, cunning, and untmthfulness; and, above all (what has never before been noticed), fighting against class-feeling, class-envy, discontentedness, and malice an un surmountable and ineradicable social antagonism of itself, rendering ‘The Servants’ Question’ an nnsolvable social problem. Bonn of Institution or Building : like the interior of the CrysWl Palace at Sydenham, having distinct individual homes i 1 or houses, side by side, in rows running completely round the building in one,

two, or three tiers. Each individual home or house having a distinct front and back entrance door. The former on to a garden, the latter in direct communication with the interior of the Associated Home, properly so called, the whole being under one roof. Size : from that of our great London or Continental hotels (and not less), even to that of the Crystal Palace. Capable of accommodating any number of persons, whether married or single, in their own class of life; and especially designed, constructed, and erected with these special ends in view. Interior of Individual Homes : precisely the same as an ordinary home (furnished or not), but without the cooking, and kitchen, and servants’ apartments, and basement, which are relegated to the Associated Home. In lighting, heating, and water supply, &c., incomparably superior. Interior of the Associated Home : very spacious and lofty general reception or drawing room and dining rooms. Gentlemen’s and ladies’ private reading-rooms, visitors’-rooms, committee, billiard, and smoking rooms, library, ball, and lecture rooms, nursery, play-room, and school-room, &c., far superior and unknown to clubs and hotels—all under one roof. Attendance to both homes to be just the same as in clubs and hotels—namely, male and female servants, and so many of each to so many individual homes. Meals to be taken either in the individual home or in the associated one, whichever preferred, and at whatever time, and for or not at the time, and at actual cost prices. Wholesale prices and retail quantities for, in fact, everything ; the co-operative principle ruling all transactions.and every purchase, no matter what. The capital to be provided by the residents themselves, if they can each subscribe together the requisite amount under the co operative agencies, otherwise by a joint stock company. An Associated Homes’ building capable of and fitted say to receive 100 residents (or Individual Homes), would cover much less ground and cost much less to build (about L6O each and every room) than 100 separate homes or houses with their outhouses and yards. This double saving would go in reduction of rent, rates, and taxes of each resident, and still further reduced when shared between 100 persons. The saving of 100 separate washings, superseded by one laundry and washing by steam; the saving of 100 medical attendants, medical bills superseded by one medical attendant, at a salary (say) of L3OO a-year, and endless other economies and blessings.”