For all the ease of life, the abundance of creature comforts, the importation of personal and household luxuries and necessities by every ship that entered the capes and the general prosperity made possible by a kindly soil and climate in conjunction with favourable economic conditions, the measure of affluence, even among the wealthiest, was not sufficient during the first fifty or seventy-five years of Virginia’s existence to justify reckless or lavish expenditure upon the fabric of the dwelling house. The homes of the planters, therefore, though comfortably and even luxuriously appointed, according to the standards of the period, were modest in size and unpretentious in character. When Nicholas Hayward determined to establish one of his children on a plantation in Virginia and wrote to William Fitzhugh, one of the wealthiest and most influential planters, desiring information and advice, the latter replied, pointing out the course pursued by many of the other planters, that the wisest plan would be to import indentured bricklayers and carpenters from England who, in the course of the four or five years for which they were bound, could erect a substantial house, and, at the same time, by the performance of other labour for which they might be hired out, earn enough to pay for the cost of building materials and their keep as well. Fitzhugh also counselled Hayward not to build a large dwelling and even questioned the advisability of putting up “an English framed house of the ordinary size” as the charges for skilled artisans were excessive. He added that his own dwelling had cost thrice the sum a house of like size would have cost in London and that it usually took three times as long to complete the same amount of work as it did in England.