The Honeywood Files
Page 18
THE AFFAIR OF THE COTTAGES
(CONFIDENTIAL) GRIGBLAY TO SPINLOVE
Sir,30.10.25.
I think I ought to let you know at once that a fortnight ago Sir Leslie Brash sent me drawings and specification for block of four cottages he wants erected down at bottom by lower road, and asked me for a price. The name on the drawings is Mr. Cohen Snitch, but a young man in our prime costing says they are copied from published plans by Mr. Sutcliffe Regenstook, a.r.i.b.a., and we have turned them up in our file of the “Builders’ Record” of May 7th, 1923. The specification is a ready-made affair with just a tender-form without any conditions, and the bricks, chimneys, windows, and all sorts are to be “same as at Honeywood.”
Now, apart from the work being only half described and position on site, drains, roads, and water supply, etc., left out, we don’t do speculative work and don’t care to tender without proper particulars and quantities. At the same time we should be quite willing to do the work under our present contract schedule and leave it to Mr. Tinge to measure and settle the account, but we do not think this would suit the old gentleman as what he is after is a cut price and cut fees, without doubt. Not in any case should we agree to a proposal of the kind without consulting with you, and this was the reply we made and were then asked to return plans etc.
Since then Bloggs tells me Nibnose & Rasper’s manager sneaked in down at bottom looking for mushrooms Bloggs thought, but young Rasper turned up after, and had the face to ask questions about water. Bloggs told him we were managing without any and saw him off, so it’s pretty clear what is going on; but I’m not going to have Nibnose & Rasper learning how to build from me, and if Sir Leslie Brash brings them on to the ground he will have to pay me for a night watchman and a new lock-up or I shan’t be able to keep a plank or a ladder or a drain pipe or a bag of plaster or anything else on the job without a man sits on it. That young Rasper would strip the tiles off the roof, if you so much as turned your head to cough. I don’t forget the trick he played me with that old six hundred gallon cast iron tank I loaned them and then they told me they hadn’t had it. I happened to go along by, and there was my brave tank set up ten feet in the air on a staging and daubed over so it won’t be recognized. Ho says Master Johnny Rasper, all of a surprise; Is that yours? Forgot where they had stole it.
Sir Leslie Brash sent me a plan and a picture of a gimcrack garage affair with pink asbestos slates and blue doors and a bit of bargeboard painted yellow and a flag at the gable. He had torn it out of Hutt and Gambols’ reach-me-down bungalow catalogue, but had cut off the firm’s name and the price for fear I should know too much, and he wanted me to give a price for two of them joined together for his cars to go in at the North West end by trades entrance. It would be a pity to put a thing like that up against his house, as I think you will agree; besides we can’t build the stuff H. & G. spew about all over the country nor at their price if we did, and I think the old gentleman should be told so.
With apologies for troubling you but thought you ought to know it.
Yours faithfully,
A very pleasant chatty letter—the letter of a friend! It has apparently occupied Grigblay’s evening hours. Brash’s intention, no doubt, is to save his pocket by cutting out architects’ fees—for no doubt he made a bargain with Mr. Snitch; and he may feel, also, that Grigblay’s work is unduly expensive and that this is due to Spinlove’s complicated methods and exacting demands. He may also wish to “be his own architect,” and believes that by uttering the words “two three- and two five-room cottages” and getting someone to “draw out the plan” and by agreeing a price with the builder, he is being it. Whatever the results are he will be slow to see defects in “my own work,” and if the plans do not give him what he wants he will enjoy “making improvements” and take great credit to himself for the ingenious botching and makeshifts by which the shortcomings are made good. He will helplessly protest against the builder’s account for extras, whether it is fair or not, and will always believe that he was “swindled.”
As for Mr. Cohen Snitch, his kind is common. He has a knowledge of building sufficient to enable him to hold himself out as an architect in those wide fields that public ignorance puts at his disposal; and his many diverse activities bring him commissions which his reputation as an architect would deny him. The obligations of a profession of which he is not a member do not weigh with him; and he enjoys the same advantage over the accredited architect as the man who ignores the rules of a game has over one who observes them.
It is difficult to believe that Brash is not aware that he is treating his architect shabbily; but we have already seen that Brash can outface such consciousness. He perhaps regards the whole affair as a matter of fees. He is paying Spinlove for the house, but sees no reason why he should pay him when he can manage without his services; his instincts, in fact—or let us say his antecedents—do not allow him to distinguish between obligations due to a professional man and the consideration expected by a commercial agent. If Brash is conscious that Spinlove is giving Honeywood a devotion for which he can never be paid except in thanks, he probably merely regards his architect’s services as remarkably good value for the money, and is too unaware of any reciprocal obligations to take any pleasure in acknowledging them.
What is the unlucky Spinlove going to do about it all? He first flies for rescue to his friend Wychete, it seems.
SPINLOVE TO WYCHETE
Dear Mr. Wychete,1.11.25.
I am sorry to bother you again but a most awkward thing has happened. I enclose copy of the builder’s letter which gives the facts. I found it on my return from a four weeks’ holiday abroad. Mr. Snitch is a house and land agent. I met him once, as he was appointed by the adjoining owner to agree a water course. The cottages will probably be three hundred yards or more from the house, but associated with it as is evidently the owner’s intention—note the similar brickwork, chimneys, etc. I should be most grateful for any hints what to do.
With kind regards,
Yours sincerely,
P.S.—Could you possibly send me a line at once? I shall have to meet the owner in a few days, at latest.
SPINLOVE TO BRASH
Dear Sir Leslie Brash,1.11.25.
I returned to the office yesterday. Mr. Grigblay has sent me a list of variations and extras ordered during my absence, and there is a question you have raised about the terrace steps. I can come on to the site on Friday or Saturday, if you will let me know when I can meet you, so that these and any other matters may be settled on the spot.
I had a delightful time abroad.
With kind regards,
Yours sincerely,
Spinlove has apparently put off meeting Brash until he may hope to have had Wychete’s reply.
WYCHETE TO SPINLOVE
My Dear Spinlove,2.11.25.
Your luck seems out. The position is certainly awkward, as you say, but the probability is that your client does not realize the unfairness to you—though one would imagine he intends a snub. Much depends on your personal relations and upon the kind of man he is. You alone can judge how far expostulation or protest may be made to weigh with him. Mr. Snitch’s action seems most unprofessional, but he does not belong to our camp and in any case we do not know what happened; there is nothing to prevent your client employing him if he wishes, and it is no good taking any steps to get Mr. S. to withdraw. Even if you were able to do so it might not persuade your client to entrust the work to you.
Adopting Regenstook’s design is, of course, a breach of copyright, and would give him grounds for an action for damages. Copying your details also comes very near to the same thing. Your client’s intention is clear, and the wrong is of the same kind though so different in degree that you would scarcely be in a position to claim damages.
I should be interested to know the end of the story. You must not lose time or your client may accept the other builder’s tender.
Ever yours,
SPINLOVE TO
BRASH
Dear Sir Leslie Brash,3.11.25.
I confirm telephone message fixing Friday at 10 a.m. for our meeting on site.
Mr. Grigblay has mentioned to me that you asked him to tender for a block of cottages which, for certain reasons, he felt unable to do without first conferring with me. I am, naturally, so much interested in Honeywood that I should be indeed grieved not to be allowed to design the accessory buildings, particularly as you mentioned these cottages to me as matters in which you would want my advice.
However, we can speak of this on Friday, but I write to warn you, before you commit yourself in any way, that the plans you sent Mr. Grigblay are not an original design at all, but have been copied from plans by another architect which were published a short time ago in one of the building papers. The designer holds the copyright in his plans and you will be liable to action for damages if you proceed. In the same way my detail drawings of Honeywood are my copyright and cannot be used for the proposed cottages without my consent.
Yours sincerely,
Spinlove is quite right in his statement of the fact of the copyright ownership, but he manages to suggest a masterfulness in architects which exceeds the life.
SPINLOVE TO WYCHETE
Dear Mr. Wychete,6.11.25.
I am most grateful to you for your letter. Directly I got it I wrote to my client and warned him of the breach of copyright, but when I saw him two days later he told me he had “provisionally accepted” (as he termed it) tender for the cottages from a local firm, Nibnose & Rasper. He had, however, accepted the tender in fact; by “provisionally” he meant that he was at liberty to accept, or not, a supplementary estimate for outbuildings.
Well, there was a great to do. He was most indignant with Snitch for fobbing him off with someone else’s design and charging thirty-five guineas for it as an “inclusive fee,” and he means to make him disgorge, for he has already paid the fellow.
He was quite nice to me—in fact particularly so, for he is a self-important man and rather obstinate in favouring his own ideas [ahem!], and I really do not think it occurred to him that he was injuring me. He thought he would save fees and get a cheaper building, and that it was entirely his own affair.
The tender he has accepted is for £1,350 for the block of four cottages—an impossible price. A great deal of the work is left out of the specification, to say nothing of drains, paths and water supply, and though the specification calls for the building to be completed in all details etc., Nibnose & Rasper attach to their tender a letter which, rather slyly, excludes work not described. There are no conditions of contract.
I had to point all this out to Brash and insist that the cottages will cost at least £1,700 before he has finished, and perhaps nearly £2,000, and that there was nothing in the contract to prevent the builder putting in the cheapest and most shoddy work, and that he would have a huge bill for extras and be at the builders’ mercy—in fact Brash began at last to understand what an architect is for.
The next difficulty was how to get Nibnose & Rasper to withdraw with merely nominal compensation or none at all. Owing to a previous muddle they have a quite unfounded grievance against me; however, Brash wrote and told them he had discharged Snitch and appointed me his architect, and I got Nibnose to my office and, after cross-examining him on what he had included for and what not, he was obliged to agree that, as a basis for a contract, his tender was a farce. He was quite reasonable; said he had done his best with the particulars supplied, that there were big risks—and so on. Finally it was agreed that he and Grigblay should tender to a new design and that the lowest tender should be accepted. So that’s that, and I am enormously obliged for your hints, without which I do not know what would have happened; and Brash, if he only knew it, is still more deeply indebted to you.
I am putting up a temporary shed of larch slabs as garage, which will look quite inoffensive pushed back among the trees.
With many thanks and best wishes,
Yours very sincerely,
Spinlove seems in fine fettle. His recent holiday has done him good. He has evidently carried Brash quite off the ground upon which he had taken so formidable a position and won his surrender.
LADY BRASH CAUSES A DIVERSION
SPINLOVE TO GRIGBLAY
Dear Sir,10.11.25.
I had to call your foreman’s attention to boarding on flats over bays, which is specified to run with the fall, but has been laid across it to suit the joists which run the wrong way. I must ask you to nail S boarding over present boarding with feather-edged border so as to get neat finish of lead on to brick cornice. [Boards are apt to curl up at edges under lead, and prevent free drainage of water if laid across the fall.]
The trefoil piercings in skirtings of panelled rooms have been omitted. This makes the broken battening and openings in top of capping useless. Please put stout cop-bronze wire mesh behind piercings. [The purpose of this arrangement is to give free ventilation behind the panelling, for if air is bottled up between panelling and damp walls the warmth of the house will favour dry-rot. The wire gauge is against mice.]
The eaves gutter at N. of kitchen wing stops short of the gable verge. I am aware that the verge is tilted but the finish is unworkmanlike. The stopped end should be 1” in front of line of verge. [The tilting of the tiles at gable verge throws the water back so that the eaves gutter probably is effective in catching all of it. It is the rigid exactness of modern building that makes this immaterial deviation an offence.]
Now that the heating service is working will you please see that the windows are kept open. I have called your foreman’s attention to this before. [The heating is put on to dry out the house, but if the windows are kept shut the steam-laden air, which can take up no more moisture, cannot escape, condensation takes place and the object of having the heat on is in great part defeated. The windows are kept shut because of the blinking draught, and in pursuit of snug comfort. Even at the best of times the luxury of shutting oneself up for a day with a mate and a radiator in an unventilated bathroom with a few cans of paint, a plumber’s furnace, two clay pipes, a quart of boiling tea and a pound of putty, is rarely enjoyed.]
The lead tacks of soil pipes, as well as of waste pipes, are to be wiped on the front angle. This has not been done. The service pipes carrying taps are to be vertical. The double tacks above and below taps are as specified, but in the pantry the pipes are horizontal. They must be carried along under sink and then taken up vertically to match scullery taps.
[The nozzle of a tap fixed on a horizontal pipe tends to sag down after a time. A vertical pipe, properly fixed, resists the leverage of the hand screwing down the tap.]
Please give these matters your attention.
Yours faithfully,
Spinlove has been away from the works for some weeks and, if these are the only matters he has to complain of, Grigblay is doing well.
SPINLOVE TO GRIGBLAY
Dear Sir,15.11.25.
Sir Leslie Brash rang me up to-day to tell me Lady Brash is complaining of a smell in the house. Will you find out what is the matter? I could get no description of it except that it is an unpleasant smell.
Yours faithfully,
Most of them are so or they would not be smells; and it is difficult to describe a smell even when it will bear description, which is rare. Lady Brash’s famous “olfactory sensitiveness” has claimed tribute.
BRASH TO SPINLOVE
Dear Mr. Spinlove,17.11.25.
Would it be practicably feasible to insert french windows in the drawing-room, and what would be the amount of the probable anticipated estimate? A friend has pointed out that it will not be practicably possible for a person seated in the middle of the drawing room to get a view of the gardens owing to the excessive height of the bottoms of the windows. This is disturbing. Alternatively, and as a different proposition, could not the windows be lowered a foot or two? What would be the probably approximate estimate for doing so, including, of course, the bay
windows? I comprehend the necessary desirability of disposing the windows of the bedroom chambers in a lofty situation in view of the danger of a fall, but this desirability scarcely obtains in the downstair apartments.
Lady Brash informs me the smell is much worse. It is desired that the necessary steps towards eradication may be at once put in active operation, as Lady Brash spends several hours of each day in the house.
Yours sincerely,
SPINLOVE TO GRIGBLAY
Dear Sir,19.11.25.
Have you done anything about the smell? Sir Leslie Brash referred to it again in a letter I received on Saturday and he has rung up to-day to say that Lady Brash was in the house on Sunday and that the smell was “dreadful.” Please take steps to have the nuisance ended at once, as it is causing great annoyance. I wish you had not allowed the plumbers to use the den as a shop. They have made the place in a disgusting state—litter of all kinds, bacon rind, banana peel thrown about, crusts and bones and tea leaves—your foreman ought to be told to look after things better.
Yours faithfully,
Spinlove is evidently getting rattled; but until Lady Brash is appeased there will be no peace for anyone.
LADY BRASH TO SPINLOVE
Dear Mr. Spinlove,19.11.25.
I really think I ought to write to you about the smell! It was quite dreadful on Sunday they all noticed it and Mrs. Bingham said it made her eyes water she is so subject to hay fever like my dear mother was and I take after them both!!! I could never consent to live in a house with a smell like that which goes on and on even after I get home like the monkey house in the Zoo especially the drawing-room. Whatever Sir Leslie may say something will have to be done or none of our friends will ever come to see us!!!