Houses of Philadelphia: Chestnut Hill and The Wissahickon Valley

HOUSES

OF

PHILADELPHIA

CHESTNUT HILL AND THE WISSAHICKON VALLEY 1880–1930 J AMES B. G ARRISON ACAN TH US P RESS

FRONT END

DSHEET 2-3

Seminole Avenue, mid-1880s, Charles Newhall residence, Wisteria, in the distance

SUBURBAN DOMESTIC ARCHITECTURE S E R I E S

HOUSES

OF

PHILADELPHIA:

CHESTNUT HILL AND THE

WISSAHICKON VALLEY 1880–1930

J AMES B. G ARRISON FOREWORD BY JOHN ANDREW GALLERY EDITED BY WILLIAM MORRISON

ACA N T H U S P R E S S N E W YO R K : 2 0 0 8

Published by Acanthus Press

LLC

54 West 21st Street New York, New York 10010 800.827.7614 www.acanthuspress.com

Copyright © 2008, James B. Garrison Every reasonable attempt has been made to identify the owners of copyright.

Errors of omission will be corrected in subsequent printings of this work.

All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced in whole or in any part (except by reviewers for the public press) without written permission from the publisher.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Garrison, James B., 1957Houses of Philadelphia : Chestnut Hill and the Wissahickon Valley, 1880-1930 / by James Garrison ; foreword by John Andrew Gallery ; edited by William Morrison. p. cm. — (Suburban domestic architecture series) Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-0-926494-53-4 (alk. paper) 1. Architecture, Domestic—Pennsylvania—Philadelphia. 2. Architecture— Pennsylvania—Philadelphia—19th century. 3.

Architecture—Pennsylvania—Philadelphia—20th century. 4. Philadelphia (Pa.)— Buildings, structures, etc. 5. Chestnut Hill (Philadelphia, Pa.)—Buildings, structures, etc.

I. Gallery, John Andrew. II. Morrison, William (William Alan) III. Title.

NA7238.P5G37 2008 728.09748'11—dc22 2008015383

Frontispiece: St. Martin’s from the air, looking northeast, 1920s Frontispiece: Seminole Avenue, mid-1880s, Charles Newhall residence, Wisteria, in the distance

Printed in China

SUBURBAN DOMESTIC ARCHITECTURE S E R I E S

F

Americans have sought to fulfill the promise of a better life that a rich wilderness held out to the first settlers as they stepped onto the shores of the North Atlantic.

The American engagement with a vast continent has been defined by the necessary development and expansion of cities and the simultaneous preservation and enjoyment of a bucolic countryside.

The Acanthus Press series, Suburban Domestic Architecture, presents landmark domestic buildings of the last two centuries that display the innovative housing solutions of Americans and their architects as they addressed their desires for the ideal domestic life.

O R T H R E E H U N D R E D Y E A R S,

CONTENTS

Acknowledgments • [ 9 ] Foreword • [ 1 1 ] Introduction • [ 1 3 ]

1880 –1930 CA M P H I L L , Fort Washington • [24] T H E A N G L E C OT, Chestnut Hill • [30] D RU I M M O I R , St. Martin’s • [ 35] L O U I S C. S AU V E U R R E S I D E N C E , St. Martin’s • [40] C O M P TO N, Chestnut Hill • [45] R AV E N H I L L , East Mount Airy • [51] F A I RWO L D, Fort Washington • [56] K E E WAY D I N, St. Martin’s • [61] L I N D E N WO L D, Ambler • [66] A B E N D RU H , Penllyn • [72] H O M E WO O D / E A S T E N E , St. Martin’s • [77] K AT E ’ S H A L L , St. Martin’s • [83] B I N D E RTO N, Chestnut Hill • [89] C O G S L E A , West Mount Airy • [94] L I T T L E O R C H A R D F A R M / H AW S K W E L L , Fort Washington • [100] W I L L OW B RO O K , Gwynedd • [106] H A R S TO N, Wyndmoor • [112] K R I S H E I M , St. Martin’s • [118] A N D O R R A , Wyndmoor • [126]

[6]

F R I E N D S H I P L O D G E , Wyndmoor • [130] H I G H H O L L OW, Chestnut Hill • [136] AW B U RY, Germantown • [146] RO P S L E Y, Wyndmoor • [152] W H I T E M A R S H H A L L , Wyndmoor • [160] BA L LY G A RT H , Chestnut Hill • [171] P E R S I F E R F R A Z E R I I I R E S I D E N C E , Wyndmoor • [177] R H O D O R A , Chestnut Hill • [183] L A P R I M AV E R A , Chestnut Hill • [188] OX M O O R , Penllyn • [195] F R E N C H V I L L AG E , West Mount Airy • [202] L AV E RO C K F A R M , Laverock • [208] S TA N D E N, West Mount Airy • [218] W I L D G O O S E H O U S E , Wyndmoor • [224] B E L C RO F T, Laverock • [230] L A N E ’ S E N D, Wyndmoor • [234] P H E A S A N T RU N, Penllyn • [246] S A M U E L B E L L I I I R E S I D E N C E , Wyndmoor • [252] H O M E WO O D, Chestnut Hill • [258] I N D I A N RO C K , Chestnut Hill • [267] S Q UA R E S H A D OW S, Whitemarsh • [275]

APPENDICES Portfolio • [ 285] Architects’ Biographies • [ 293] Bibliography • [ 299] Index • [ 304] Photography Credits • [ 311]

[7]

F O R E WO R D

A

LT H O U G H

I

H A D

L I V E D

in Philadelphia for many years, I was not familiar with the

Chestnut Hill neighborhood until I returned to Philadelphia after four years in Texas. My previous

apartments had been in Center City, but with a growing family I needed a real house, and real estate brokers suggested that I could find more for my money in Chestnut Hill.

I knew that Chestnut Hill was a community of large homes on large pieces of land. The first house I saw lived up to my expectations. I remember it vividly. It was a long, narrow brick house in a Jacobean style with terra-cotta details and handsome terraced grounds. Although I loved it as an architect, I knew its upkeep was beyond my ability. The second house I saw was much more to my liking. It was a modest house built for a newly married couple in 1923, designed in the English Cotswold style. Built of local stone, it was beautifully sited halfway down a sloping hill with French doors opening onto terraces overlooking the landscape. At the closing the previous owner gave me the original linen architect’s drawings, and this was how I first learned of the architectural firm Willing, Sims & Talbutt.

In moving to Chestnut Hill I discovered not only a new section of the city but also a totally new chapter in the history of architecture of which I had been unaware. My education in architectural history had moved quickly from the Victorian era to the modern movement, with a brief nod to Art Deco. In Philadelphia I perceived architectural history as leaping from Frank Furness straight to Louis Kahn and Robert Venturi, with only a passing glance at the George Howe of Philadelphia Savings Fund Society fame.

I soon discovered that there was much more. The Hewitt brothers, Mellor, Meigs & Howe, Robert McGoodwin, Edmund Gilchrist—I discovered them all as I wandered around my new neighborhood admiring one architectural marvel after another.

Although the northwest section of Philadelphia had been a place of retreat from the city since Colonial times, Chestnut Hill and the Wissahickon Valley were not well developed until the advent of the railroad and the vision of Henry Houston. In the late 19th century, Houston acquired over 3,000 acres of land, facilitated the creation of a rail line, and built several hundred houses, thereby encouraging other wealthy individuals to do the same. His son-in-law, George Woodward, added 200 more houses in the early 20th century. Houston and Woodward’s legacy defines the character of the area to this day.

Jim Garrison has selected an outstanding group of houses to illustrate the scope of development in the Wissahickon Valley and the talented architects who worked here. They range from Houston’s much altered home, Druim Moir, to Edward Stotesbury’s extraordinary Whitemarsh Hall, now the site of

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O R E WO R D

suburban tract houses. The list of architects whose work is represented is impressive: Willis Hale, Wilson Eyre, Horace Trumbauer, Peabody & Stearns—and more.

Included in Jim’s selection are many of my favorite houses in Chestnut Hill. The Louis Sauveur House by the Hewitt brothers is an exceptional example of the Queen Anne residences that Houston built to attract residents. Binderton by Cope & Stewardson, the house my realtor showed me first, remains as exceptional today as in my memory. Also included are three houses by my friends Willing, Sims & Talbutt, each showing the firm’s exceptional skill at integrating architecture and landscape. Indeed, this is a theme that Garrison stresses over and over in his descriptions of these properties—the relationship between land and historical style that gives each of these houses its enduring quality.

The country houses of Chestnut Hill and the Wissahickon Valley are underappreciated in architectural histories of Philadelphia. Jim Garrison has rectified this situation by documenting these exceptional houses with outstanding photographs and perceptive descriptions of their character and history. In doing so he has reminded us of an important period in the development of Philadelphia and of an architectural heritage of lasting significance.

John Andrew Gallery Executive Director, Preservation Alliance for Greater Philadelphia and General Editor, Philadelphia Architecture: A Guide to the City

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I N T RO D U C T I O N

O

N I T S B A R E LY

20-mile course, the Wissahickon Creek flows through some of the most picturesque

and historic territory of the original 13 colonies. Over its three centuries of continued settlement,

the valley of the Wissahickon served as a Colonial center of agriculture and water-powered paper and grain milling, a turbulent Revolutionary War battlefield, the site of 19th-century market towns and industrial development, and, most notably for our purposes, as home to some of the most distinguished and distinctive residential architecture to be found in the American nation. Nature and history were major factors in shaping the region’s early patterns of settlement and transportation, and they would play an equally profound role in the country houses and suburban development that blossomed here between the Civil War and World War II. American Colonial precedents and the architectural heritage of the different cultures of

Wissahickon Creek, mid-19th-century Currier & Ives print

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St. Martin’s from the air, looking northeast, 1920s

the valley’s settlers combined with the many native varieties of building stone and the rugged natural topography of the Wissahickon Gorge. The result was a continuous thread of romantic, site-specific structures at one with their rustic surroundings. Wissahickon Creek provides a thread to tie the agricultural uplands with their early mills and villages to the rustic vistas of the gorge. This thread also relates to ancient paths of trade that have been updated from wagon travel through the railroads to interstate highways.

GEOGRAPHY From a series of small springs in central Montgomery County in southeastern Pennsylvania, the Wissahickon becomes one of the principal watercourses in the region. Although it has never been a navigable body of water, its swift flow and rapid drop from the high plateau made it a natural for supplying water power and a rich environment for flora and fauna, wild and domesticated. Its upper course is dominated by broad, rolling valleys and scattered woodlands bounded by topographical rises springing from the floor of the plateau. Barren Hill, Militia Hill, Camp Hill, and Chestnut Hill each has its distinctive character—Camp Hill in particular, as a well-defined mound that was both easily defended and provided distant views in all directions.

The densely wooded landscape around the meandering upper reaches of the creek quickly gave way to farm fields as trees were cut for lumber and fuel. In many areas the woods have now grown back, restoring a primeval appearance to the landscape. Flowing out into the Whitemarsh Valley, the limestone

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Wissahickon Inn, c. 1890

underlayment to the thin soil discouraged farming but provided, and continues to provide, material for construction purposes. Historic lime kilns still dot the area, their place names referencing this onceimportant industry. Many wetlands remain along this stretch of the creek, some in conservation areas such as the arboretum established by John and Lydia Morris (see “Compton,” page 45) in the early 20th century, others in remaining private estates or public parklands.

When the creek crosses Northwestern Avenue into Philadelphia County and Chestnut Hill, it enters the 8-mile-long Wissahickon Gorge, a rocky and wild area now part of Fairmount Park, but originally the site of many mills and other industries that formed the basis of wealth for some of Philadelphia’s first families. The rugged geography of the gorge limited residential development close to the cliffs, but the establishment of the park just after the Civil War to protect the city’s water supply finally provided the armature for preservation of the natural landscape and controlled development along the park edges.

T OW N S

AND

V I L L AG E S

As originally established by Pennsylvania founder William Penn, the county of Philadelphia included the entirety of the Wissahickon watershed and all the small settlements that would grow along its banks. In 1784 the Pennsylvania legislature established the present boundaries of Philadelphia County as well as the new county of Montgomery to its northwest. Seventy years later in 1854, the city and county of Philadelphia were consolidated into a single governmental entity that made those towns and villages along the lower Wissahickon part of the city.

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G E R M A N TOW N In 1683 William Penn sold 5,700 acres of land to the Frankfurt Company and the Crefeld interests, which established four settlements along a path leading from the Delaware River to Berks County, northwest of the nascent city. This path became Germantown Pike, one of two major roads to the west on the north side of the Schuylkill River. Moving out from the town, the villages were Germantown, Kreisheim, Sommerhausen, and Crefeld. The German-born Quaker Daniel Pastorius served as land agent for these developments, subdividing them into long, narrow lots fronting the road, with separate woodlots provided nearer to Wissahickon Creek. Many of the initial settlers were Dutch and German, and most were craftsmen or tradespeople. French Huguenots soon joined in the migration, ensuring that the region, though thoroughly Protestant, would be rich in different cultural traditions. As the 18th century progressed, Quaker and Anglican families moved into Penn’s “German Township” to take advantage of the higher altitude, fresher air, and ample open ground not found in the sweltering, often fever-infested Colonial city on the swampy shores of the Delaware. On Germantown Avenue, the Wistars built Grumblethorpe, Wyck became the ancestral home of the Haines family, and the Chews built the great Georgian mansion Cliveden—just a few of the large residences that lined this major highway.

As a major thoroughfare, Germantown Avenue was the locus for most traffic in and out of the city to the prosperous farms and the early lime, iron, and coal industries to the northwest. Its strategic importance was reinforced in the fall of 1777, when George Washington attempted to challenge the British army under General Howe and was defeated, partly because he could not dislodge the British soldiers who had fortified Cliveden. Germantown suffered during the war and British occupation, but returned to prosperity in its aftermath, supported by both the industries located directly to the south along the Wissahickon and continued migration from the central city. By the time of the consolidation in 1854, Germantown was well on its way to being a commuter suburb of Philadelphia, served by horse-drawn trolleys and its own short-line railroad.

Sommerhausen and Crefeld, the two most outlying settlements on the Germantown Road within Philadelphia County, began to be known as Chestnut Hill at the beginning of the 18th century, after the place where the turnpike to Bethlehem branched off from Germantown Pike. Chestnut Hill was nearly 400 feet higher than the land between the rivers where Penn’s town was laid. By 1800 the population had reached about six hundred, but it would grow to only a thousand by 1850. This edge settlement, like others in the colonies and early republic, served as a gateway to the city where goods and produce from the countryside could be stored and consolidated for shipping into town. Here as well, local merchants provided supplies and manufactured goods to the farmers, saving them the additional 10-mile trip to the city. Into Chestnut Hill flowed meat, produce, and wheat, the latter ground into many tons of flour by numerous mills along the Wissahickon Gorge. Like neighboring Germantown, the area began to be seen as an ideal site for a country house, removed from the bustle and filth of the city in the high, clean air of the country.

S P R I N G F I E L D T OW N S H I P William Penn’s plan for Pennsylvania included a system of local governments called townships to oversee the local villages within a county. To his first wife, Gulielma Maria Springett, in 1681 Penn granted the

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Manor of Springfield, a rectangle of slightly more than 6 square miles just west of the German settlements, with a narrow panhandle reaching down toward the Schuylkill River. It was possessed by the Penn family for some 50 years, and small settlements grew up around Flourtown, Oreland, Erdenheim, and later Wyndmoor. The first two betray their origins in their names. Otherwise, the gently rolling high ground provided excellent farmland that was later assembled into some of the largest suburban estates, such as Harston and Whitemarsh Hall. Bethlehem Pike is one of the most important thoroughfares through the western side of the township, with Limekiln Pike, Willow Grove, and Cheltenham Avenues being the other main roads. The name “Springfield Manor” was bestowed in 1681 by Penn’s surveyors, whereas “Wyndmoor” came over two hundred years later at the behest of the Reading Railroad, which found the Indian name “Tedyuscung” too ponderous for its suburban station.

WHITEMARSH

AND

U P P E R D U B L I N T OW N S H I P S

On its way to Chestnut Hill, the Wissahickon flows through the Springfield Township panhandle from the neighboring township of Whitemarsh, a beautiful landscape of gently rolling pastureland with dramatic, elevated outcroppings that were of military importance during the Revolutionary War and later the sites for some of the more distinctive residences in the Wissahickon Valley. The marshes around the creek abutted fertile open land that was quickly turned over for agricultural use. An exceptionally pure band of limestone close to the surface supported quarrying operations that have been productive for over two hundred years. Fort Washington, Camp Hill, Lafayette Hill, and Militia Hill all attest to the intensity of military activity between Washington’s Continental Army and the British forces occupying Philadelphia.

The easily defended hills foiled Lord Howe’s attempts to destroy the retreating Continentals, ultimately allowing Washington to set up winter quarters in Valley Forge.

Following the Civil War, farming gave way to thoroughbred-horse breeding and such related activities as fox hunting and racing. Whitemarsh’s hunt and country clubs provided sporting venues for the owners of the large estates developed at the end of the 19th century as the region became more accessible by railroad and later, the automobile. The vernacular architecture of the original German and English settlers would have a major impact on the Colonial Revival movement in architecture, both in Pennsylvania and nationally. In some cases, the core of a new country house might be a Colonial-era dwelling, and surviving mills and utilitarian structures sometimes became romantic ruins or outbuildings for the new gentlemen farmers. Once the epitome of expansive Wissahickon country-house living, Whitemarsh Township underwent dramatic suburban development following World War II.

AMBLER

AND

GWYNEDD

North of Whitemarsh, the Wissahickon flows past the Borough of Ambler. Though named for for Quaker innkeeper and humanitarian Mary Ambler, Ambler was largely created in the 1880s as an industrial fiefdom by chemical manufacturer Richard V. Mattison. Not only did Mattison locate his large chemical works at the tiny crossroads village, here he built his own castellated feudal mansion, Lindenwold; row upon row of large single homes for his many managers; and hundreds of attached

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Philadelphia Cricket Club, present-day view

dwellings for his plant workers, along with Ambler’s hotels, stores, and opera house. Mattison’s business endured a mere 40 years, but Ambler remained the largest town in the Wissahickon Valley outside of Philadelphia until the 1950s.

At the headwaters of the Wissahickon in the Gwynedd Valley, original settlement patterns followed those of the downstream villages and farmsteads. Its name derived from the large number of Welsh Quakers who settled in this district, Gwynedd, like Whitemarsh Township, remained a largely open countryside of generously sized estates well into the mid-20th century, a serene pastoral enclave of equestrian pursuits and extended family compounds. Largely bereft of the Tudor or formal Georgian manors of the Lower Wissahickon, the ample-size country homes of Gwynedd are generally Pennsylvania Colonial in style, oftentimes generous expansions of a simple 18th-century original.

T H E R A I L ROA D S U B U R B S The railroad came to Germantown in 1832, its first locomotive, “Old Ironsides,” hauling two or three small open cars up the hill from Philadelphia several times a day. By 1854 a short line extended farther west to Chestnut Hill. Horse-drawn cars along Germantown Avenue provided a less expensive, although much slower means of traveling to and from the city. The fares on both remained rather high, however, certainly out of reach of the common laborer. Thus, the initial speculative residential development that accompanied the coming of the railroad favored the well-to-do and the emerging management class created by the large-scale industrialization required to supply the army during the Civil War. The great Italianate stone houses erected as part of these first suburban developments were likewise generally adjuncts to city homes nearer the workplace, the new country places used as weekend retreats or summer havens for wives and children while husbands labored in the city.

Throughout the 1870s railroad transport rapidly improved its speed, frequency of service, and ability to carry increasingly large quantities of passengers and freight. Waterways and canals, principal transportation routes during the early 19th century, were entirely superseded by trains for the movement of raw materials

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St. Martin-in-the-Fields Episcopal Church, present-day view

and goods to and from newly built industrial zones far removed from any riverbank or dockside. It is therefore no coincidence that the general freight agent for the Pennsylvania Railroad, one Henry H. Houston, was among the first to recognize and appreciate the equally immense residential development opportunities the Philadelphia countryside offered, if only it could be provided with greater access to the city. From his Germantown residence, Houston could look beyond the wilds of the Wissahickon Gorge to the rolling hillsides of the northwest, stretching from Mount Airy just beyond his home out past the city’s boundaries into Montgomery County. In 1879, he commenced purchasing portions of this vast landscape, ultimately accumulating in excess of 3,000 acres. Over the next five decades, Houston and his son-in-law, Dr. George Woodward, would oversee their transformation from rural pasture and woodland into one of the nation’s most remarkable and enduring suburban enclaves.

Before Houston could begin, he required a more convenient rail access to his development than that operated by the Reading Railroad on the far north side of Chestnut Hill. This was accomplished in 1884

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with completion of the Chestnut Hill Line, constructed and operated by the Pennsylvania Railroad on land donated by Houston. Running through Mount Airy, crossing over the Cresheim Creek Valley and terminating just south of Germantown Pike, the new line passed through Houston’s newly named Wissahickon Heights within sight of the spanking-new Wissahickon Inn, verdant St. Martin’s Green, and artificial Lake Surprise—all created by Houston—and the new clubhouse and grounds of the Philadelphia Cricket Club, built on land he donated. Over the next five years, these would be joined by the Houston-financed Church of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, his own house, the Scottish Baronial–style Druim Moir, and scores of large and smaller residences in the English Queen Anne style along Chestnut Hill Avenue and its tributary lanes.

Initially, Houston entrusted all design work in Chestnut Hill to prominent Philadelphia architects George W. and William D. Hewitt. Their work had a strong Anglophilic quality, probably related to George’s previous experience with religious architecture but also representing the enduring ties to and veneration for all things Britannic held in common by Philadelphia’s upper-class gentry. Houston’s own predilection toward English country life is further evidenced in his establishment of the Philadelphia Horse Show, which drew tens of thousands of spectators to Chestnut Hill annually from 1892 to 1908.

Over a 10-year period Houston would personally commission several hundred houses, while also enticing his friends and business associates to build their own houses on larger parcels he set aside. Houston built a substantial number of the single and attached residences as rental properties, which allowed him and his successors to maintain aesthetic and social controls. Rents were relatively low by the standards of the day, allowing for a population of different income levels, but tenants were always carefully screened to promote homogeneity within the community.

Following Henry Houston’s death in 1895, his daughter Gertrude and her husband, Dr. George Woodward, directed the next phase of development that saw almost two hundred additional houses join those of Houston’s original development. From the turn of the century to the Depression, Woodward commissioned several innovative housing designs from a new generation of Philadelphia architects including Robert Rodes McGoodwin, Edmund Gilchrist, and Duhring, Okie & Ziegler. In addition to a large number of single-family residences, the progressive designs included double, triple, and quadruple houses arranged about a common courtyard. Themed complexes were also constructed amid the single homes; the English Village, Cotswold Village, and Crescent Houses were multifamily residences, whereas the French Village on the edge of the park offered larger single-family homes along a gated lane. Just as the development work of the 1880s introduced new architecture and architects to the local and national scene, so too did the Woodward projects a generation later. Further development by Houston’s heirs included renaming the numbered city streets for various Indian tribes (Seminole, Navaho, etc.), and other picturesque English-sounding names (St. George’s Road, etc.). Wissahickon Heights was also renamed St. Martin’s after the church.

HOUSES

FOR

T OW N

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C O U N T RY

The Houston-Woodward development of St. Martin’s and Chestnut Hill is a foil for the larger movement occurring in and around Philadelphia between 1850 and World War II. Combining high-quality design, imaginative craftsmanship, and vaunting social ambitions within a beauteous natural landscape of great

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character, this movement derives its inspiration from the local vernacular building tradition, which itself reflected old-world styles and different cultural heritages brought from Western Europe to take root and influence each other in the gentle confines of William Penn’s “Holy Experiment.” The professions of law, medicine, and letters provided the foundations of the tight-knit society of Philadelphia’s “founding families,” but the distinctive residences of Chestnut Hill and the Wissahickon Valley, like those of its trans-Schuylkill cousin, the Philadelphia Main Line, were largely the product of self-made men and recently acquired fortunes. Invention, mass manufacturing, transportation, financial innovations, even the rougher game of politics, were the basis of the great personal wealth of the late 19th century. The railroad brought the wild landscape of the Wissahickon within easy reach of the city’s captain of industry or master of the trading floor. His house could be within walking distance of a bustling train station and an untamed wilderness. The best houses of the Wissahickon Valley revel in this dichotomy. They have a front and a back; one facade has a door to the street, and the other a door to a garden that mediates between the domesticated and wild landscapes. These houses also make use of local natural materials to become part of the land. The stone can be rough or carved. There is a dialogue between the academic and rustic styles.

Historical allusions abound as well. The ancient road network has many of the houses and inns of the Colonial period. Sections of the mills, farmsteads, and historic churches also dot the countryside. The buildings were touchstones to the past and a link to the traditional values celebrated by the new residents. Whether designed in the American Colonial Revival or an historical traditional style, the best houses form part of a continuum of the place. As much as some of the owners wanted to be different, the architecture had some distinctive regional attributes that made it special. Architects such as Robert McGoodwin or Edmund Gilchrist made their own homes within this polyglot of past and present, the manufactured and the wild. They were all united by the inspiration of the land and history to produce a unique set of buildings.

Family dynasties are very rare in this country, and grand houses in particular usually do not outlive their builders as private homes for more than a generation. The largest house in this survey, Edward Stotesbury’s Whitemarsh Hall, lasted only 10 years as a private residence. Under the continuous pressure of suburban development, other large houses of the Wissahickon Valley have not had an exceptional record of preservation, while the houses of Mount Airy, St. Martin’s, and Chestnut Hill have had a remarkable survival rate and are even now experiencing a resurgence of restoration efforts. The result of a delicate balance between accessibility and exclusivity, this extraordinary group of houses was designed by architects who truly understood how to reinforce the natural and historical qualities of the location with an architecture that is durable, livable, and timeless.

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HOUSES

OF

PHILADELPHIA:

CHESTNUT HILL AND THE

WISSAHICKON VALLEY 1880–1930

T H E A N G L E C OT C H A R L E S A . P OT T E R H O U S E

Chestnut Hill (1883)

T

HE

A N G L E C O T is one of the most significant late 19th-century residences in the Philadelphia area.

It marked the emergence of Wilson Eyre as an architect in his own right and the introduction of the

English Queen Anne style to the region. The house occupies a prominent corner setting at Prospect and Evergreen avenues in the northwest corner of Chestnut Hill. It derives its name from its angled setting in relation to the intersection. In 1883 vertically oriented Italianate and other Victorian mansions clustered on the hilltop dominated the neighborhood, taking advantage of the views over the Whitemarsh Valley.

The successful oilcloth and floor-covering manufacturer Thomas Potter subdivided some lots from his estate on the hilltop known as “The Evergreens� for several of his four sons and two daughters.

View from the corner of Prospect Street and Evergreen Avenue, early 20th century

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View from the corner of Prospect Street and Evergreen Avenue, as built

Rear facade, present-day view

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L O U I S C. S AU V E U R R E S I D E N C E

S t . M a r t i n ’s ( 1 8 8 5 )

W

HEN

L O U I S S AU V E U R

M OV E D

into his large house at the corner of Hartwell and Seminole

streets in St Martin’s, he must have felt a great sense of accomplishment. Henry Houston had only

recently established the neighborhood as one of the most fashionable suburban addresses in Philadelphia, and his favored architects, the Hewitt brothers, had just completed his own house, Druim Moir, the Wissahickon Inn, and the St. Martin-in-the-Fields church. Sauveur, an officer of the Provident Tradesman Bank & Trust, was part of the post–Civil War professional class that was just beginning to abandon Central

View from the street

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View from the southeast, present-day view

Philadelphia town houses for the planned communities along the new commuter rail lines of the Pennsylvania and Reading railroads.

George and William Hewitt designed a large number of speculative residences for Henry Houston, and the one at 8205 Seminole Street was among their most elaborate. Drawing from the Hewitts’ English heritage, their works generally followed an Eastlake Victorian style with additional fanciful flourishes reflecting the design experimentation occurring for what was a new building type—the suburban speculative dwelling house. Such undertakings necessarily had to attract buyers by standing out among their neighbors and satisfying the upward aspirations of potential buyers. Sauveur’s house embodies these aims,

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Staircase, present-day view

development, as it contains all the features usually found applied in a simpler fashion to other midblock houses by the Hewitts.

The interior is typical for pattern-book houses of the period, with a large living hall, separate dining room and study in front, and kitchen and pantry in a wing to the rear. The turned-and-scrolled woodwork continues on the inside, celebrating the geometrical possibilities enabled by the latest machinery.

Tiled fireplace surrounds and hearths brought the same variety of color and texture found on the outside to the interior.

Louis Sauveur did not have a long time to enjoy his new home, as he died just a few years after its completion. His wife, Ellen (1867–1961), however, raised their four children in the house and remained there until her death. The present owners, only the fourth since the house was built, have restored and beautifully maintained the residence.

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K E E WAY D I N E DWA R D W. C L A R K J R . H O U S E

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of Edward W. Clark Jr. occupies the entire block front on

Cherokee Street between Mermaid Lane and Moreland Avenue, and its vast rooms almost rival

those of the Wissahickon Inn a few blocks away. An early essay in the Colonial Revival style by architect George Pearson, Keewaydin serves as one of the anchors of the St. Martin’s neighborhood, which was the core of the new Chestnut Hill envisioned by Henry Houston.

Edward Clark Jr. (1857–1946) was from a distinguished family that made its fortune in investment banking, beginning in Providence, Rhode Island, then moving to Philadelphia, where the family founder, Enoch W. Clark, became a major financier of President James K. Polk’s war with Mexico. Edward W. Clark Sr. married into old Philadelphia bloodlines, and his children did the same, establishing the family in the social hierarchy of the city. Edward Jr.’s generation of the family was successful in business, politics, and academia. Keewaydin and Kate’s Hall, the Joseph S. Clark residence, were two of several notable houses commissioned by members of this generation, both in Chestnut Hill and across the Schuylkill in the Main Line communities of Bala and Strafford.

Early 20th-century view from the corner of Cherokee Street and Moreland Avenue

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Entrance detail, present-day view

Edward was the eldest son, and he went on to become the senior partner in the family banking firm following his graduation from the University of Pennsylvania in 1877. His love of sport, especially cricket, probably drew him to the new neighborhood of St. Martin’s, where the Philadelphia Cricket Club was building its new clubhouse and spacious playing fields alongside the Inn. Clark’s house can be seen as an embodiment of the ethos of this planned community, as it emphasized spaces for entertaining, broad lawns for outdoor activities, and an architecture that echoed America’s pastoral colonial past.

By the late 1890s, the Colonial Revival had matured as an architectural style and included specific regional references layered over traditional classical motifs. Earlier manifestations of the style tended to overlay selected stylistic quotations from colonial buildings on houses that were still very Victorian in

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Living room, present-day view

overall character. The local gray stone of Keewaydin was combined with wide gambrel roofs from New England and a three-part plan reminiscent of the southern Tidewater region. One of the other attributes of the Colonial Revival style was a free attitude toward the scale of the various pieces. At Keewaydin, overscaled windows and cornices play off against miniaturized entrance porches in the front and back.

In each case, the ornamental features were rendered with a high degree of detail, an approach that carried into the gracious interiors in a number of different forms.

The seven-bay center block consists of three major rooms, a wide hall, the dining room, and a spacious living room. The comparatively low ceilings with their elaborate panel moldings only serve to emphasize the expanse of the living room. The pictorial wall coverings play off against built-in leadedglass cabinets in the wainscot and an explosion of ornament at the fireplace and chimney breast. The only break in the early American decorative scheme occurs in the ballroom located in one of the dependencies. In this room, the Tudor linenfold paneling and decorative features show discreetly on the

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Stair hall, present-day view

exterior in the leaded-glass windows not visible from the street, where they would be at odds with the colonial American motifs of the rest of the house.

Edward Clark lived and lavishly entertained in the house until 1934. Over the course of Clark’s ownership, Pearson returned on numerous occasions to update the residence, but it never lost the exuberance of its Colonial Revival heritage. An unusual feature of its design may have contributed to its survival during a time when such large houses were not as highly valued. The two wings (ballroom and service) are connected at the basement level only and have open passages at the first floor, effectively creating three separate buildings, which has facilitated its present division into three separate residences on a subdivided property.

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Dining room fireplace and built-in cabinet, present-day view

First floor plan

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H O M E WO O D / E A S T D E N E J. L E V E R I N G J O N E S H O U S E

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stretch of Moreland Avenue where Homewood is located is lined with some of the

largest homes in Henry Houston’s St. Martin’s neighborhood. The residences on this street also offer

some of the greatest architectural variety of any neighborhood, thanks to the number of different design firms employed and the aspirations of the initial property buyers. This was a “country club” development, where the Wissahickon Inn, Philadelphia Cricket Club, and St. Martin-in-the-Fields Episcopal church were all within close walking distance. George Pearson had secured the commissions for two of the larger residences in the neighborhood: Keewaydin, for Edward Clark, and Homewood, for J. Levering Jones.

After graduating from the University of Pennsylvania Law School in 1875, J. Levering Jones (1851–1920) became a prominent and highly successful corporate attorney. With his wife, Elizabeth, he commissioned this large residence for his family on a double lot in what was becoming the city’s most fashionable neighborhood, within easy reach of downtown via Houston’s newly inaugurated Chestnut Hill passenger rail service.

For the Jones house, architect George Pearson adapted the Colonial Revival architecture of Keewaydin to a stately, brick design dominated by a massive, four-column portico. This monumental classical flourish on the large corner lot lent additional prestige to a well-detailed essay in an eclectic style. The very finely

House, lawn, and stables, as built

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Oblique view from the east, present-day view

Oblique view from the west, early 20th century

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Main hall, present-day view

The large lot offered the opportunity to locate the secondary buildings at some distance from the main residence. Stables and carriage houses offered architects the opportunity to take the style of the main residence and be even more inventive. At Homewood, Pearson designed a rectangular building with many of the same details as the house, but with proportions adjusted to suit its utilitarian use. In 1905 Pearson returned to modernize this building to accommodate the motorcar, adding a wing to the rear and an elegant, multistory Palladian window on the side facing the house. Two more copper-domed cupolas adorned the roof-scape. At the same time, he designed a clubhouse for the Jones children located between the house and stable on the rear lot line. This little retreat restates many of the design themes of the main residence, such as the portico, on a smaller, simpler scale. This elegant little building also shows the growing refinement of the Colonial Revival style and its more academic turn.

When T. Charlton Henry bought the property in 1916, renaming it Eastdene, he engaged Charles Barton Keen to enlarge the service wing and make other alterations. It is interesting to note that these alterations, at a cost of $24,000, almost equaled the $30,000 spent for the whole house 20 years earlier. Eastdene remained in the Henry family for over 60 years, until Mrs. Julia Henry, described as “one of Philadelphia’s most vivid personalities,� died in 1979. The property was then donated to the University of Pennsylvania, which quickly sold it. With only its fourth owner in 105 years, the property still remains essentially intact and offers a glimpse into the halcyon era of the Chestnut Hill of the Houstons and Woodwards.

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Hall fireplace, present-day view

Stable plan

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L ITTLE O RCHARD F ARM / H AWKSWELL H OWA R D H O U S T O N H E N RY H O U S E

Fo r t Wa s h i n g t o n ( 1 9 0 4 )

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DREXEL FELL

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R E N S S E L A E R would invite children from the inner city to her 220-acre

estate in Fort Washington, where they would picnic in the little orchard at the base of Camp Hill

across the road from her large manor house. When her second daughter, Mae, married H. H. Henry in 1904, Sally and her husband, Alexander van Rensselaer, commissioned Wilson Eyre to design a quaint farmhouse for the newlyweds. Eyre had designed Fairwold 16 years earlier, just up the road, and his Shingle-style architecture had now become even more British, drawing inspiration from the Arts and Crafts movement in England.

The Henry family were well-known lumber merchants in Philadelphia. One member had been mayor, and another, Charles Wolcott Henry, married Sallie Houston, daughter of Henry Houston. H. H. Henry was from another branch of the family, but was close enough to have been named for the Houston patriarch. He served in World War I with several other members of the family and did not live past the Armistice, dying from a heart condition in 1918. In 1921 Mae married Gouveneur Cadwalader, brother of Richard Jr., the second owner of Fairwold. They commissioned Mellor, Meigs & Howe to design a series of alterations and additions to the house.

Architect’s rendering

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Living hall

Some charming renderings by Wilson Eyre depict the original design for Little Orchard Farm as a long, low, two-story gabled structure facing the meadow beyond the orchard. The entrance drive leads into a small court cut into the hillside, a one-story kitchen wing terminating the view. A walled formal garden appears adjacent to the entrance drive at one end of the house, some small farm buildings making up the other side of the enclosure. A projecting garden gate attached to the house is a relic related to the garden. Renamed Hawkswell for the ancestral home of the Fell family in Cumbria, near the Lake District in England, the house as built had a strong resemblance to the traditional architecture of this region. Eyre’s firm returned to enlarge the service wing and add more bedrooms to the second floor, but Mellor, Meigs & Howe created even larger additions following Mae’s second marriage. Although their brick and half-timber additions were clearly different from Eyre’s work, there is no clash of styles, the hipped-roof living room wing extending out into the meadow with its large doors and windows using similar stonework to blend with the existing house.

The major interiors are a fascinating blend of English and American precedents, and Eyre’s original designs are substantially intact. The living hall combines Colonial Revival features in the stair, paneling, and fireplace with a pegged-timber beamed ceiling. The drawing room has a vaulted ornamental plaster ceiling

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KRISHEIM D R . G E O R G E W O O DWA R D H O U S E

S t . M a r t i n ’s ( 1 9 1 0 )

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is a celebration of the moral and aesthetic values of its owners, Gertrude and George

Woodward. The youngest child of Henry Howard Houston, Gertrude Houston (1868–1961) met

her future husband while he was a student at the University of Pennsylvania Medical School. As a physician, Dr. Woodward practiced for only a few years, living in Chestnut Hill as stipulated by his father-in-law. His training in medicine, along with an interest in public health, would lead him into a public and political career that complemented his interests in real estate and community development.

Both he and Gertrude had been brought up in households where Christian moral virtues were stressed, along with a mission to improve the living conditions of mankind, whether in the same neighborhood or overseas.

Concurrent with these values was an interest in the role art and design could play in improving living standards. Some of Dr. Woodward’s earliest real estate projects involved the development of economical multifamily residences on the small streets near Germantown Avenue—projects that provided work for such emerging Philadelphia architects as Louis Duhring, Charles Ziegler, Edmund Gilchrist, and Robert Rodes McGoodwin. Further examples of Woodward’s interest in the role art and

View from the south, present-day view

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Entrance court, present-day view

Entrance doors, present-day view

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Garden facade detail, present-day view

artists play within the larger community include the house and studio he built for muralist Violet Oakley at Cogslea, a cottage for the poet and writer Mary Wickham Bond, and the facilities of the Willet Stained Glass Studios.

Much of this generosity was made possible by Gertrude’s share of her father’s estate, which generated over $200,000 in annual income by 1910 as well as a grant of $75,000 for their residence on a 40-acre parcel between Druim Moir and her sister Sallie’s home at Stonehurst. The Woodwards spent over 10 years developing the landscape and contemplating the kind of residence they would finally build. Initially, architect Wilson Eyre was involved with the plans for the residence, envisioning a large, half-timbered Tudor design quite similar to the one ultimately built by the Boston firm Peabody & Stearns with landscape design by the Olmsted brothers. This same architectural and landscape design team was responsible for many large estates in New England and other locations, including the Main Line just outside of Philadelphia.

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Stair hall with Mercer tile floor, present-day view

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Steps to main hall, present-day view

The site for Krisheim includes broad, gently rolling meadows along McCallum Street just west of the Cresheim Valley, and steeply sloping hillsides down to the Wissahickon and Valley Green to the south.

Within an English landscape park, Peabody & Stearns sited the stone and half-timber Tudor-style residence across the brow of the ridge above the Wissahickon Gorge. From the circular entrance drive, one can look through the wide, arched doorway, through the spacious living hall, to distant views of Fairmount Park.

The first floor includes many open and enclosed porches that take advantage of the variety of vistas into both formal gardens and the wilds of the park. Similarly, the second floor featured many outdoor sleeping porches, a popular feature in turn-of-the-century residences.

The residence incorporates artistry from many local sources, including stained glass from the Willet Stained Glass Studios, tile from Henry Mercer’s Moravian Tile Works, murals by Violet Oakley, and the incomparable metalwork of Samuel Yellin. The input of these artists added vitality to the overall work, as

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Dining room, present-day view

Library, present-day view

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Garden pool and fountain, present-day view

well as symbolic references to the family and the location. The name of the house itself came from the early German place name for the settlement seven miles northwest of William Penn’s “Greene Countrie Towne.” The painted decoration included verses from The Book of Common Prayer and a mosaic created

by Violet Oakley featuring Saint George slaying a dragon. The Mercer-tile floors included inscriptions with quotations from early accounts of Wissahickon Valley history. Other tile panels contained historical scenes reminiscent of the great tile floor of the Pennsylvania State Capitol, which was installed in 1906.

Continuing up the main stair to an organ console on the landing are a series of carved banister posts representing the early residents of the colony: the Lenni-Lenape, the Swedes, Dutch, Germans, English, Welsh, and Scots.

Family life at Krisheim included morning prayers with hymns played at the organ. Afterward, Dr. Woodward drove one of his electric cars to his downtown office, and the children went to school, though they returned home for lunch. Gertrude supervised a household and garden staff numbering almost 40.

With their five children, the Woodwards regularly attended the Episcopal Church of St. Martin-in-theFields, built with land and funds provided by Gertrude’s father. World War I brought tragedy to the family

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Garden plan

as their eldest son, Henry, an aviator, was killed in March of 1918. Their youngest daughter, Gertrude, died shortly after leaving Bryn Mawr College, in an eerie echo of the death of Henry Houston’s son just after he graduated from the University of Pennsylvania a generation earlier.

Dr. Woodward died in 1952 following a long career that included a term as a state senator, many civic positions, and the development of the family’s real estate holdings in and around Chestnut Hill. After Gertrude died in 1961, the family donated the house to the Presbyterian Church for use as a conference center. Few changes were made to the residence, and when the church decided the property was too expensive to maintain, George Woodward’s son Charles bought the house and 12 acres in 1983. The service wing and upper floors have been subdivided into separate condominium residences, but many of the ground-floor rooms, exterior facades, and garden features have recently been restored.

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RO P S L E Y F R A N C I S S. M C I L H E N N Y H O U S E

Wy n d m o o r ( 1 9 1 6 )

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M E I G S wrote that there were two principal decisions related to the design of Ropsley. First

was the site orientation and its effect on the plan, and second, where to set the elevation of the main

floor. Both concerns arose from the downward sloping land and panoramic views to the north. Meigs had to reconcile his desire to get light from the south and east with a site set up for the opposite. The compact, L-shaped plan, and careful organization of the vertical levels of the house and immediate grounds provided a creative planning solution that was matched by the creativity of the architectural expression of the residence and garden elements.

Francis McIlhenny (1873–1927) was a prominent attorney in Philadelphia, but he was also interested in public and business affairs, serving as a state senator and member of many boards. His public service also extended to his involvement with the YMCA, both in Philadelphia and England. He desired a modest residence, which Meigs delivered in the form of a two-story house set into the hillside, protected from views from the street but offering the family a variety of views from inside.

The arched front door is visible from the street at the end of an allĂŠe of trees, but it is not the door into the house; rather, it leads to a stair leading to a sunken garden that serves as the front yard. The dining room,

Rendering of the preliminary scheme

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Aerial view

pantry, and kitchen share views into this garden, but also have expansive views to the north. The dining room features a large bay window to take advantage of this view.

An additional range of rooms—the living room, hall, and writing room—open to another significant outdoor space, the parterre on the east side of the house, a flat lawn created on an artificial terrace carved into the gently sloping hillside. The parterre is a playful space with an undulating retaining wall on the uphill side and two fanciful fountains. The Elephant Fountain occupies a half-domed niche at the center of the retaining wall, whereas the Lion Fountain is set into a wall on the side opposite the house. The two corners on this side are marked by an open belvedere and toolroom. These carefully designed outdoor spaces are as important to the overall effect of the property as the structures, and complement the plan arrangements of the buildings.

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Entrance court

Parterre

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View across parterre

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View into living room

The exterior and interiors do not adhere to any one style, but in concert with the landscape form a harmonious whole. The exterior design features themes from rustic architecture from England and the Continent, combining stone, brick, clay tile, and stucco. Natural materials are also important in the interior design. The austere beamed front hall with its Arts and Crafts tile floor opens to a light-colored Adamesque parlor and a paneled writing room. The dining room, with its antique furniture, is also classically inspired.

The flow between the rooms and their close relationship to the variety of outdoor spaces make this residence one of the most original and complete works by the Mellor, Meigs & Howe partnership. George

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Stair hall

Howe can be credited with the success of this house’s plan. Ropsley indicates what Mellor, Meigs & Howe were capable of when they worked in harmony with each other. Subsequent alterations, most notably the 1990s subdivision of the house and garage into three separate residences, have weakened the original conception, but the designers’ intentions are still apparent.

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Garden steps from parterre

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Plans

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L A P R I M AV E R A M R S . N O RT O N D OW N S H O U S E

Chestnut Hill (1925)

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April 16, 1916, the shocking news of Dr. Norton Downs’ suicide appeared in the local and

national newspapers. The New York Times obituary characterized him as a “millionaire society man

and international cricketer.” He was 50 years old and had been in ill health. The suicide occurred while he was at home with his wife in Ambler in their mansion designed by Horace Trumbauer. Phoebe McKean Downs was a member of one of Philadelphia’s most distinguished families, with long ties to state and local government and industry. The Downses had one child, Norton Jr. The name “La Primavera” evokes a light and happy aura—spring, a time of rebirth for Mrs. Downs.

The residence represented a major shift from the formality of the previous Downs residence. Robert McGoodwin’s design for the idyllic site on the edge of the park reminds a viewer of an Italian hillside villa, but only when viewed from behind. From the street, a protected court shows only a discreet arched

View from the street

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Plan and elevations

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OX M O O R O RV I L L E H . B U L L I T T H O U S E

Pe n l l y n ( 1 9 2 4 )

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in America descends from Alexander Bullitt of Dumfries, Virginia. With his

acquired wealth, he moved his family to the frontier in Kentucky just after the Revolutionary War, fur-

ther enhancing his holdings with a large property he received upon his marriage to Priscilla Christian in 1786. On this new property outside present-day Louisville, Bullitt established the plantation of Oxmoor. The name of this ancestral property would be used for the estates of several descendants, including Orville H. Bullitt, who commissioned the project on Skippack Pike in the early 1920s. Alexander’s youngest son, William Christian Bullitt, inherited the original Oxmoor property in 1816 and lived there until his death in 1877. Alexander and several of his descendants had distinguished public careers in Kentucky, a tradition continued by the branch of the family that moved back east to Philadelphia.

Arriving in Philadelphia shortly before the Civil War, William’s son, John Christian Bullitt, found the city’s heady mixture of financial and legal legerdemain exactly suited to his talents and temperament, and he embarked on a career that saw him become one of Philadelphia’s most influential lawyers and a political

Entry drive

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Rear elevation

Garden terrace

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Living room wing

power in both the city and the nation. A Reform Democrat, he joined forces with Republican power broker Boies Penrose to replace the city’s decrepit 1701 charter and was one of the primary drafters of the Bullitt Bill, which established the new city charter, presented to the state legislature by his son William in 1887. His grandsons, William Jr. and Orville, would each take different paths in civic and political affairs.

William Christian Bullitt Jr. was one of the most interesting political figures to emerge from Philadelphia in the 20th century. Although he was in the diplomatic corps, he was not a traditional diplomat. As a journalist in Moscow in 1914, he had firsthand experience in the fall of Czarist Russia and the formation of the Soviet Union. President Wilson enlisted him to negotiate with Lenin, Trotsky, and Chicherin during the Armistice negotiations following World War I. Returning to Philadelphia after the disappointing outcome of the meetings and the eventual Treaty of Versailles, he wrote several controversial novels. After divorcing his

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Flower garden

wife, he married Louise Bryant, the widow of fellow journalist and Soviet sympathizer John Reed. Following his divorce from Bryant in 1930, he returned to diplomacy under Franklin D. Roosevelt, becoming the first American ambassador to the Soviet Union and later ambassador to France until its fall in 1940.

By all accounts, Orville Bullitt was not as flamboyant as his author/diplomat brother, restricting himself to affairs closer to home: a career in the law, governing the board of the Philadelphia Orchestra with an iron hand during the Stokowski and Ormandy eras, and serving on the local War Production Board that maintained the crucial flow of supplies during World War II. He also became the custodian and later editor of his brother’s papers, publishing a massive volume, in 1966. Orville’s tastes, like William’s, turned more of them toward the French than the English, and he was likely among those who admired the rural French aesthetic of Arthur Newbold’s Laverock, designed by Mellor, Meigs & Howe. Arthur Meigs was Mrs. Bullitt’s cousin, but apparently when they commissioned their own house from the firm in 1924, the Bullitts elected to work with the sedate George Howe rather than the volatile Meigs. Nevertheless, the relationship between client and architect was not without turbulence. Arguments arose over stairways that lacked adequate head clearance and Howe’s increasing disengagement from the idealized architectural fantasies his firm had turned out since the end of the war. In a letter to Howe’s daughter, Helen, Susan Bullitt related that Howe “had turned modern, and wanted us to make the dining room walls all glass. Fortunately, we refused and bought a paneled room in Paris.”

As completed, Oxmoor is a curious amalgam of Howe’s formalism and sensitivity to materials with some of the more theatrically picturesque elements of Arthur Meigs’ work. Much of the design ethos that informs the house displays ideas Howe had begun developing at his own High Hollow 10 years earlier.

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Flower garden pavilion

Barn and outbuildings

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Playhouse, present-day view

The rectangular central block is topped by a truncated pyramidal roof with a minimal cornice and practically no articulation of dormers or window openings beyond the crisp red-brick surrounds, which contrast to the rough irregularity of the golden-brown stone walls. The elevations are all a dialogue between geometric solids and the simple shapes of masonry openings for the windows and doors, arrayed in a regular pattern across the facades. With their monumental arched windows in the center of gabled blocks, the two flanking wings reaffirm this strong geometry, as was the case with similar attached blocks to the Newbold and McCracken residences. Beyond the main house, the prismatic geometrical shapes appear again in a cubic playhouse pavilion with a steep pyramidal roof and a cylindrical brick garden pavilion with a conical roof reminiscent of the dovecotes at Laverock Farm.

In contrast to the regularity of the elevations, the interior plan has no symmetries and is basically a linear progression of rooms along the house’s rear, oriented to distant views and a series of adjacent terraced gardens. A variation of the arrangement from Ropsley, the 1916 Francis McIlhenny residence, Oxmoor creates a series of indoor/outdoor rooms related to common, shared vistas. Howe’s original drawings indicate that the interior fit-out of the house was intended to be as austere as the exterior, but it is likely that the Bullitts, with their penchant for imported paneling and French elegance, made significant changes inside.

This was one of the last residences completed by Mellor, Meigs & Howe before George Howe terminated the partnership and began to practice in a more modern idiom with William Lescaze, culminating six years later in Square Shadows for William Stix Wasserman just a few miles away. Oxmoor remains in private ownership with recent alterations.

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Plan

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L AV E RO C K F A R M A RT H U R E . N E W B O L D H O U S E

Laverock (1925)

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M E I G S made sure Laverock Farm would be one of the most well-known residences in the

country when he authored a monograph on the design and construction of the estate in 1925. An

American Country House is more than a simple description of the design and construction process. It is an ode to a way of life that never really existed, just as the house is a highly improbable hameau Français for an investment banker only a mile outside the city limits of Philadelphia. Nevertheless, the Newbold family savored to the full their goose pond, pigeoniere, and Gothic-arcaded swimming pool for more than two decades. Sometime after Arthur Newbold’s death in 1946, the house was demolished, the property subdivided, and all traces of this arcadian fantasy lost except for some street names in the new subdivision.

The Newbold residence in 1914

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View from the southeast

View from the pasture

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Stair tower from across the Goose Pond

Soon after graduating from the University of Pennsylvania Law School in 1912, Newbold joined the venerable banking house of Drexel & Company, then under the leadership of Edward Stotesbury, who was beginning to assemble property in Springfield Township for Whitemarsh Hall. Newbold purchased 90 acres nearby with an old farmhouse he had remodeled and modernized in 1914. His property was on the next ridge, just north of Stotesbury’s. The linear, whitewashed dwelling looked like many Colonial neighbors, but that was soon to change. In 1919, Meigs added some landscaping walls and small pavilions parallel to the house. Describing the result as looking like an unstable train rolling down the tracks on a ridge, Meigs asserted that a strong architectural element was needed perpendicular to the main house.

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Southwest terrace

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Library wing

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Stair from bedroom

At this point the full transformation into a rural Norman farmstead began with the construction of the Sheep Fold and Pigeon Tower. Both of these buildings were designed in the northern French vernacular, with the curved walls and low, swayback roof of the Sheep Fold terminating at a conical brick tower.

The “gentleman’s farm” has a long tradition in Western civilization, but not since Palladio’s villas has the owner been in such close proximity to his livestock. Meigs did admit that he provided at least some separation between the geese, ducks, and sheep and the main entrance, but he stated that in contrast to “farms for money,” the traditional farm had all its livestock on display as part of the ornament of the

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Library

Mrs. Newbold’s bedroom

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Cottage

Goose Pond

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H O M E WO O D SCHOFIELD ANDREWS HOUSE

Chestnut Hill (1930)

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the Chestnut Hill residence of the prominent Philadelphia attorney Schofield

Andrews and, later, the socialite Eleanor Widener Dixon, granddaughter of traction mogul P.A.B.

Widener, is a notable reflection of the disparate tastes of its two owners. A partner in the eminent firm of Ballard Spahr Andrews & Ingersoll, Andrews, a recent widower, commissioned the large residence shortly after his second marriage, to Marie Disston Grant. She was the daughter of Jacob Disston, of the prominent Philadelphia family of tool and hardware manufacturers, and her first husband, Patrick Grant II, had leapt to his death following the stock market crash. A 1910 graduate of Harvard, Andrews interrupted his legal career to enlist in the Army at the outbreak of World War I, becoming assistant chief of staff to the commander of the 90th Division and rising to the rank of lieutenant colonel. He and his first

View into court

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Rear lawn, present-day view

Living room wing, present-day view

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Rear terrace and facade, as built

wife, the former Lillian Brown of Philadelphia, had three children and at the time of her death had just moved into a house on Mermaid Lane designed by Edmund Gilchrist.

Homewood is organized around a large, square courtyard whose front wall borders the street. A long, low service wing extends back to the main block parallel to the street; a large, conical stair tower is located where it joined the short forward-facing wing; and a third wing angled to the rear contains the living room and two bedrooms. The coloration of this house is distinctly different from the gray tones of many of the neighboring homes, even though the architectural features have a similar rustic French feeling. Its rubble-stone walls have a facing of warm, brown-colored stone in a random pattern

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Stair tower, as built

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Main stair, present-day view

capped with a corbeled brick cornice and brick dormers, the brownish red continuing into the Ludowici clay-tile roof.

The original interiors had some Art Deco flourishes and materials from local artistic tile works. The Flower Room, a family breakfast room, had a colorful tile wall fountain with Art Deco animal figures, while the dining room included a fireplace surround with abstract floral motifs. An original finish schedule lists materials that suggest other Deco features. Many of these were lost when Mrs. Dixon inserted more traditional French fireplaces and other decorative items.

Only by looking at old photographs and drawings would a visitor realize the extent of the transformation Homewood has undergone. Eleanor Widener Dixon purchased the house in 1949 following her divorce from Fitz Dixon Sr. She had the office of Horace Trumbauer (he had died in 1938) undertake a major interior redecoration that also affected the exterior. The living room fireplace and paneling from Roneale Manor, her 1925 Trumbauer estate in Elkins Park, were installed in the living room of Homewood, and a French baroque stair went into the existing two-story entrance hall with an enlarged window. The austere original main spiral stair was removed from the tower at the knuckle in the plan, and replaced with a small service stair. The simplicity of the early 1930s gave way to Mrs. Dixon’s more lavish tastes.

Mrs. Dixon lived in the house for many years with her son, Fitz Jr., and his wife, Edith. She later donated it to Temple University, which used it as a conference center while making modest changes to the interior. It has now reverted to private ownership, and several of the Dixon interiors have been restored.

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Living room after renovations, present-day view

Dining room, as built

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Service wing

Drive-through to garage

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Original enclosed garden, present-day view

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S Q UA R E S H A D OW S W I L L I A M S T I X WA S S E R M A N H O U S E

Whitemarsh (1932)

A

S ITS NAME SUGGESTS,

Square Shadows conjures an image of a different kind of house from the

Colonial Revival dwellings so common to Philadelphia’s affluent suburbs. This modernist design by

famed architect George Howe is a very distinctive fusion of traditional materials with the design concepts of the International Style. Howe had begun the design of the house in the late 1920s with his then partner William Lescaze. With the completion of their most important joint project, the PSFS (Philadelphia Savings Fund Society) Bank Tower in 1932, Howe and Lescaze dissolved their partnership, Howe keeping the Philadelphia projects and Lescaze retaining the New York commissions.

A successful stockbroker and financier who enjoyed a long career in Philadelphia, Washington, and New York, William Stix Wasserman made a small fortune speculating in wheat futures based on trading ties to the Soviet Union in the early 1930s. His interest in the global economy and high-risk speculative deals with the Soviet Union’s Stalinist regime earned him the nickname “Wild Bill.” The son of a successful carpet manufacturer, he also had a keen design sensitivity to go with his own visionary business sense.

South side

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South terrace

View from entry drive

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Stair from first floor

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Stair from second floor

Howe’s early 1926 designs for the Wassermans and their four children, made while he was still loosely associated with the firm of Mellor, Meigs & Howe, called for a conservative Georgian-style residence. His subsequent partnership with Lescaze brought the latter’s modernist tendencies to the forefront and produced a design that proved to be too adventurous for the clients in the wake of the 1929 stock-market crash. Howe did not return to the Wasserman project until 1932, when he produced a smaller scheme incorporating some of the open plan and minimalist features of the earlier scheme while playing up the qualities of the building materials in a more traditional manner. Several of the early designs incorporated a mix of local fieldstone, brick, and concrete, but they were employed for color and texture effects rather

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Living room

Library

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Dining room

Dining room detail

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Kitchen

Bathroom

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Bedroom

than to make a strong statement about their different tectonic qualities. The client was quick to point these shortcomings in the design, but was still interested in having a modern house.

The exterior of the house as built has several features that link it to the local traditional domestic architecture: load-bearing walls faced with the local stone; distinct window openings that relate to the spaces behind; and a roofline punctuated by well-placed and strongly expressed chimneys. Howe added exposed concrete and steel to this mix, along with steel factory window sash units and non-load-bearing brick laid in ornamental patterns to emphasize its function as a screen.

The interiors show some features in common with the PSFS Bank and European modernism. Color and texture are employed with strong, geometrical shapes to provide richness in the absence of applied moldings and other traditional interior-design devices. Howe worked with French interior designer Jeanne de Lanux in selecting a palette of different types of wood, stone, and textiles to achieve the desired aesthetic effects. As in the PSFS building, highly contrasting colors emphasize different planes and room shapes. The living room fireplace in travertine set against ebonized wood in a field of softer colors is a great example of this approach. Architectural Forum noted that Wasserman’s wife, Marian, was also intimately involved with the selection of interior colors and materials. The dominant interior architectural feature is the flying stair in the entrance hall, its smooth teak railings and carpeted steps emphasizing the pure geometry of the composition while masking the steel-and-wood structure that makes it possible.

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Although the plan allows for a smooth flow between spaces, there is still the traditional layout of rooms and a clear hierarchy of spaces. In this way, the house does not reach as far as some other contemporary modernist homes. It did, however, incorporate some other advanced features, such as central air conditioning. In addition to showing the key interior spaces, Architectural Forum showed the kitchen, a bathroom, and the basement furnace room. Fortune magazine also ran a well-illustrated article on the house and owner, perhaps suggesting that the sweeping changes in business would also affect residential design.

Square Shadows represented a particular time in both Howe’s career and American architecture.

Clearly showing his decisive crossing from traditional design to a more avant-garde mode, at the same time it conveys that neither the architect nor American country-house design in general was yet ready to make so revolutionary a transition. With its emphases on abstraction and the minimalist aesthetic of the machine, the modern movement was never fully embraced by the clientele who commissioned large country residences. This building type has much deeper roots that call out for an architecture embracing tradition but not completely denying the present and future or the technology of the Machine Age. Neither completely modernist nor traditional, Square Shadows represents a brilliant fusion of those aspirations as well as the embodiment of conflicting design approaches that continue to this day.

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GARTH, 1919, Mount Airy Residence of attorney Robert McCracken Mellor Meigs & Howe, Architects Private residence

RESIDENCE OF ATTORNEY SCHOFIELD ANDREWS, 1923, Chestnut Hill Edmund Gilchrist, Architect Private residence

RESIDENCE OF ARTIST CHARLES S. CHESTON, 1923, Penllyn Tilden, Register & Pepper, Architects Private residence

HENRY STIKEMAN RESIDENCE, 1924, Chestnut Hill Mellor, Meigs & Howe, Architects Private residence

I. WISTER MORRIS RESIDENCE, 1924, Chestnut Hill R. Brognard Okie, Architect Private residence

STAUNTON PECK RESIDENCE, 1924, Chestnut Hill Robert Rodes McGoodwin, Architect Private residence

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A RCHITECTS ’ B IOGRAPHIES

B RO C K I E & H A S T I N G S The firm of Brockie & Hastings was best known for its suburban residences in Germantown, Chestnut Hill, and the Main Line . Working mostly in the Colonial Reviv al and Tudor styles , they often exhibited their work locally and published nationally. Arthur Brockie (1875–1946) and T. Mitchell Hastings (1876–1950) established their pr actice in 1903. Brockie was born and r aised in Germantown and received an architectur al degree in 1895 from the newly established program at the University of P ennsylvania. An excellent designer and renderer , he w as hired by Cope & Stewardson. Except for time spent in military service during the Spanish-American War, he worked there until 1899, when he won the Stewardson Traveling Fellowship. T. Mitchell Hastings grew up in Center City , Philadelphia, before attending boarding school at St. Paul’s in New Hampshire, then Harvard and the Ecole de Beaux Arts.

When he returned to Philadelphia in 1901, he worked in the office of T. P. Chandler for two years before joining Brockie to start their firm. Their society connections led to commercial and institutional commissions beyond their residential work, including several hospitals. The firm dissolved in 1919 following Hastings’ service in World War I and his move to California.

T H E O P H I L U S P. C H A N D L E R J R .

Theophilus P. Chandler Jr. (1845–1928) descended from an old Boston family, but his entire architectural career was centered in Philadelphia, beginning with small suburban houses in Ridley Park and quickly progressing to huge country estates on the Main Line and Chestnut Hill.His greatest lasting legacy is his centr al role in founding the department of architecture at the University of Pennsylvania in 1890. Some of his early students who also worked in his office included

Walter Cope and J ohn Stewardson, who would found their own firm shortly after and go on to design some of the most significant buildings at the university. At the time, he was also the president of the local chapter of the American Institute of Architects (AIA) and had devoted himself to r aising the stature of the profession. By all accounts , he was ambitious and highly motivated, spending just a year at Harvard before going to P aris to study at the Ecole des Beaux Arts. After a few years in several offices in Boston, he came to Philadelphia in 1872 to work with the landscape architect Robert Copeland on the development of Ridley P ark south of Philadelphia near the Delaware River. Family business ties had brought him in contact with the duPont family, and after he married Sophie duPont, his entrée to society was assured.

In addition to many large houses in the city and suburbs , he designed a number of churches for sever al denominations in Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and Washington. Many of his residences ha ve an affinity to F rench Gothic and Renaissance precedents, but his work is also very original, combining muscular massing with delicate detailing . Like many of his peers, he could design convincing buildings ranging from the American Colonial Revival to the Scottish Baronial.

C O P E & S T E WA R D S O N During the very brief professional lives of its founders,Walter Cope (1860–1902) and J ohn Stewardson (1858–1896), the firm achieved national significance through their development and propagation of the Collegiate Gothic style for educational buildings. The partners followed different paths to the office of Theophilus Chandler, where they were both employed before starting their own firm in 1885.Cope graduated from the Germantown F riends School, then immediately went to work for Addison Hutton, a fellow Quaker. After a few years , he toured Europe, sketching and painting, for just over a year . Stewardson attended priv ate

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B IBLIOGRAPHY

Architectural Alumni Society. The Book of the School — Department of Architecture, University of Pennsylvania 1874–1934. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, 1934.

Burns, Deborah, and Richard Webster.

Pennsylvania Architecture: The HABS Catalogue 1933–90. Harrisburg: Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, 2000.

Aslet, Clive. The American Country House. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990.

Burt, Nathaniel. The Perennial Philadelphians. New York: Little, Brown, 1963.

Axelrod, Alan, ed.. The Colonial Revival in America. New York: W. W. Norton, 1985.

Bush-Brown, Louise, and James Bush-Brown.

Portraits of Philadelphia Gardens. Philadelphia: Dorrance, 1929.

Baker, J. Cordis. American Country Homes and Their Gardens. Philadelphia: John C. Winston, 1906.

Chandler, Joseph. The Colonial House. New York: Robert McBride, 1924.

Baltzell, E. Digby. Philadelphia Gentlemen.

Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, 1979.

Cohen, Charles J. Rittenhouse Square, Past and Present. Philadelphia: Private, 1922.

———. Puritan Boston and Quaker Philadelphia.

New York: The Free Press, 1979.

Collins, James S. Introduction to A Monograph of the Works of Mellor, Meigs & Howe (1923).

New York: Architectural Book Publishing Company, 2000.

Binzen, Peter, ed. Nearly Everyone Read It: The Philadelphia Bulletin. Philadelphia: Camino, 1997.

Contosta, David. A Philadelphia Family: The Houstons and Woodwards of Chestnut Hill.

Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, 1988.

Bond, Mary Wickham. 90 Years “At Home” in Philadelphia: Philadelphia: Dorrance, 1988.

Brandt, Francis, and Henry Gummere. Byways and Boulevards In and Out of Historic Philadelphia.

Philadelphia: The Corn Exchange Bank, 1926.

———. Suburb in the City: Chestnut Hill, Philadelphia, 1850–1990. Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1992.

Contosta, David, and Gail Momjian. Plymouth and Whitemarsh Townships. Charleston, South Carolina, Arcadia Publishing, 2003.

Brown, Jane. Beatrix Ferrand 1872–1959. New York: Viking, 1995.

Brownlee, David. Building the City Beautiful.

Philadelphia: Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1989.

———. Making a Modern Classic: The Philadelphia Museum of Art. Philadelphia: Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1997.

Cram, Ralph Adams. American Country Houses of Today. New York: Architectural Book Publishing Company, 1913.

Cutler, William W. III, and Howard Gillette Jr., eds. The Divided Metropolis. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood, 1980.

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I NDEX

Abele, Julian, 297 Abendruh, 72–76 Academy of the Assumption, 54 African Americans, 297 Alavoine, L., 169 Albright, Harrison, 72 Allen’s Lane, 204 Allom, Charles, 169 Ambler, 19 (c. 1890), 66–71 Ambler, Mary, 19 An American Country House, 208, 217 American Pulley Company, 224 Andorra, 126–129 Andrews, Schofield, residence, 258–266, 291 The Anglecot, 30–34 arboretum, 45, 50, 150 Architectural Forum, 282, 283 Architectural Record, 172–173, 295 The Architectural Review, 295 art collectors, 183, 185–186 role of, 118, 120 Art Deco, 262, 298 Artistic Country Seats, 33 artists, 94–99, 120, 122, 124, 290, 291 Arts and Crafts style, 50, 85, 257 asbestos, 67 Assembly Ball, 116 Atofina, 170 attorneys, 152, 195, 197, 198, 234, 258, 289, 290, 291 Avery, Kate, 83 Awbury, 146–151 Awbury Arboretum, 150 Ballard, Ernesta, 174 Ballard Spahr Andrews & Ingersoll, 258 Ballygarth, 171–176 bankers, 56, 61, 62, 89, 106, 160, 180, 208, 210, 267, 287, 289, 292

Barnes, Albert, 185 Bean, Milton, 70 Belcroft, 230–233 Bell, Isabel, 177 Bell, Samuel III, 177 residence, 252–257 Bell’s Mill, 138, 252 Belvedere, 285 Benson, Edwin H., residence, 287 Bergner, C. William, residence, 72–76 Bergner & Engel, 72 Bethlehem Pike, 17, 67 Biddle, Alexander, 90 Biddle, Clement, 89 Biddle, James Wilmer, residence, 89–93 Biddle, Julia Rush, 90 Biddle, Nicholas, 89 Biddle, Sarah Kempe, 89 Biddle, William, 89 Binderton, 89–93 Bolingbroke, Lord, 244 Bond, Francis E., residence, 106–111 Bond, James, 106 Bond, Mary Wickham, 120 Borie, Charles L., 83, 85, 298 Bottomley, William Lawrence, 172–173 Boxly, 83, 86, 288 brewery, 72 The Brickbuilder, 92 Brightwood, 292 Brinley, Charles E., residence, 224–229 Brinley, Helen Frazier, 224 Brockie, Arthur, 293 Brockie & Hastings, 172, 289, 293, 298, 290 Brown, Clarence M., residence, 230–233 Brown, Lillian, 260 Brumbaugh, Edwin, 292 Bryant, Louise, 198 Bullitt, Alexander, 195

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Bullitt, John Christian, 195, 197 Bullitt, Orville H., residence, 195–201 Bullitt, Susan, 198 Bullitt, William Christian, 195 Bullitt, William Christian Jr., 197, 198 Cadwalader, Gouveneur, 100 Cadwalader, Richard M. Jr., 56, 59, 100 Camp Hill, 24–29 Carpenter, William, 289 Catholic Sisters of the Holy F amily of Nazareth, 70 Cedar Grove, 49 Chandler, Theophilus P. Jr., 286, 287, 293, 26, 49, 50 chemical industry, 19, 51, 53, 66, 267 Cherokee Street, 61 Chestnut Hill, 17, 35, 202, 237, 240 (1880), 286 (1881), 286 (1883), 30–34 (1884), 287 (1887), 45–50, 287 (1893), 287 (1895), 288 (1900), 288 (1902), 288 (1903), 89–93, 288 (1906), 289 (1909), 289 (1910), 289 (1912), 290 (1913), 290 (1914), 136–145 (1919), 171–176 (1923), 183–187, 291 (1924), 291, 292 (1925), 188–194 (1929), 267–274 (1930), 258–266 Chestnut Hill Line, 21 Cheston, Charles S., residence, 291 Cheston, J. Hamilton, residence, 292 Chew family, 16 Childs, George, 297 Christian, Priscilla, 195 Christian Brothers, 232 Church Hill Hall, 287 churches, 19, 21, 36, 125 cigar manfacturers, 144 Civil War, 18, 20, 40, 179, 295 Clark, Edward W. Jr., 61–65, 83, 86 Clark, Edward W. Sr., 61 Clark, Joseph S. Jr., 83 residence, 61, 83–88

Clark, Kate Avery, 83, 86 Cliveden, 16, 17 coal, 287 Cogshill, 290 Cogslea, 94–99, 120 Collegiate Gothic style, 90 Colonial Revival style, 61, 62, 63, 72, 77, 80, 18, 99, 103, 105, 126, 127, 172, 183, 224, 227, 231, 232, 298 Compton, 45–50 consolidation, 15, 17 Cooke, Jay III, residence, 289 Cooke, Jay IV, 292 Cope, Walter, 92, 293–294 Cope & Stewardson, 27, 90, 112, 114, 115, 288, 293–294 Cope family, 146, 148, 150 Copernicus Society, 105 Corinthian Yacht Club, 26 Cotswold style, 148, 180 Cozens, Henrietta, 96 Crefeld, 16, 17 Cresheim Valley, 122, 204, 218 Cromwell, Lucretia Roberts “Eva,” 163, 170 Cromwell, Oliver, 163 Cummer, William, 234 The Daily Princetonian, 246 Day, Charles, residence, 218–223 Day, Frank Miles, 27, 72, 96, 294 Day, Henry, 294 Day, Margaret, 222 Day & Klauder, 114 Day & Zimmerman, 222 DeArmond, Ashmead & Bickley, 59, 290 Depression, 28, 258, 278 developers, 286 diplomacy, 197–198 Disston, Jacob, 258 Disston’s Castle, 268 Dixon, Edith, 262 Dixon, Eleanor Widener, 257, 258, 262 Dixon, Fitz Jr., 262 Dixon, Fitz Sr., 262 Dodge & Day, 222 Douglas, Edward, residence, 288 Downs, Norton, 188 Downs, Phoebe McKean, residence, 188–194 Drexel, Anthony J., 24, 160, 297 Drexel & Company, 160 Druim Moir, 21, 35–39, 120 Duhring, H. Louis, 127, 298 Duhring, Okie & Ziegler, 21, 290

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Duke University, 297 Duveen, Joseph, 169

Furness, Frank, 130, 295 Furness & Evans, 171, 286

Eastdene, 77–82 East Falls (1887), 51–55 Eastlake Victorian style, 41 Edgecumbe, 286 Elbow Lane, 204, 206 Elkins, George, 234 Elkins, Louise, 234, 245 Emerson, Edith, 99 engineering, 222 Evans, Allen, 138, 296 The Evergreens, 30 Eyre, Wilson Jr., 30, 32, 33, 50, 56, 59–60, 100, 103, 120, 236–237, 255, 287, 289, 294, 295

Gallatin, Helen, 130 garbage collectors, 76 Garth, 291 Gates (Thomas S.) Hall, 50 Gay, George, 59 General Mills, 252 geography, Wissahickon Valley, 14–15, 17 Georgian style, 106, 278, 298 Germantown, 16–17, 20, 36 (1914), 146–151 Germantown Avenue, 16, 20, 118 Germantown Pike, 16, 18, 204 Germantown Road, 36 Gibbons, Grinling, 244 Gibson, Henry, 295 Gilchrist Edmund B., 21, 22, 148, 183, 185, 202, 206, 260, 290, 291, 295 Glendinning, Ellen, 180 Goodman, Samuel, residence, 288 Gordon, Elizabeth Southall, 90 Gowen, Francis, 130 graft, 76 Grant, Marie Disston, 258 Grant, Patrick II, 258 Greber, Jacques, 166, 168 Green, Elizabeth Shippen, 94, 99 Greene Countrie Towne, 124 Greenfield, Albert M., Company, 76 Grey Towers, 297 Greylok, 289 Grumblethorpe, 16 Guilford, 245 Gwynedd, 20 (1905), 106–111 (1927), 292 Gwynedd Mercy College, 109 Gypsy Run, 292

Fairmount Parkway, 163, 166, 168, 174 Fairwold, 56–60, 100 Falcondale, 267 Farr, John, 53 Farrand, Beatrix, 114 Federalist style, 183 Fell, Frances, 27–28 Fell, John R., 24, 56 Fell, Mae, 27–28, 100 Felling Hall, 244 Fielding, Mantle, 288 financiers, 275, 286, 287 First City Troop, 56 Fisher, Adelbert, residence, 289 flour milling, 252 Fort Washington (1882), 24–29 (1888), 56–60 (1891), 287 (1904), 100–105 Fortune, 283 Frankfurt Company, 16 Fraser, John, 295 Frazer, Isabel, 252 Frazer, John, 177, 179 Frazer, Persifor I, 179 Frazer, Persifor II, 179 Frazer, Persifor III, 252, 255 residence, 177–182 Frazier, William W. III, residence, 292 Frazer family, 177, 179–180 Free Library of Philadelphia, 297 French Village, 202–207 Friendship Lodge, 130–135, 237 Fuller, George, 169 Furness, Evans & Co., 138, 297, 298, 296

Haines family, 16, 146, 148 Hale, Willis, 51, 295 Harper, Elizabeth, 126 Harper, William Warner, 126–129 Harris, Henry Frazer, residence, 112–117 Harris, John Campbell, 112 Harrison, William W., 297 Harston, 112–117 Harston Cup, 116 Hastings, T. Mitchell, 293 Hawkswell, 100–105 Hawley, Samuel D., 126

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Hazelhurst & Huckel, 183 Heberton, Craig, residence, 56–60 Henry, Charles Wolcott, 100 residence, 287 Henry, Howard Houston, 100 residence, 100–105 Henry, Julia, 80 Henry, T. Charlton, 80 Hewitt, George W., 21, 295 Hewitt, William D., 21, 295 Hewitt Brothers, 36, 37, 41, 42, 295, 297 High Hollow, 136–145, 172 Hillbrow, 130, 286 “Holy Experiment,” 22 Homewood, 77–82, 258–266 House & Garden, 294 Houston, Gertrude, 21, 118, 296 Houston, Henry, 20–21, 40, 41, 100, 126, 202, 295 residence, 35–39 Houston, Sallie, 36, 100, 120 Houston, Samuel, 39 Houston Hall, 37 Howe, George, 127, 171, 172, 198, 200, 217, 250, 275, 278, 282, 283, 296 residence, 136–145 Hoxie, Joseph, 295 Hunt, Richard Morris, 295 Hutton, Addison, 49, 146, 287, 296

Kolk, Charles W., residence, 289 Kreisheim, 16 Krisheim, 118–125, 296 Landscape Architecture, 255 Lane’s End, 234–245 Lanux, Jeanne de, 282 La Primavera, 188–194 La Salle College High School, 232 Laughlin, Henry, residence, 289 Laverock (1925), 208–217 (1927), 230–233 Laverock Farm, 198, 200, 208–217, 230, 246, 249 Leeds, Morris, residence, 285 Lescaze, William, 143, 200, 275, 296 Lindenwold, 19, 66–71 Little Orchard Farm, 100–105 Long Island, 291 Lucas, Harriet, 33 lumber merchants, 100, 287 Lynnewood Hall, 287

Indian Rock, 220, 267–274 industrialists and industrialization, 19, 20, 179, 231, 286, 288 Inglewood, 288 International Style, 275 iron industry, 179 Italianate style, 188–189 Jacobean style, 90, 92 Jamieson, James, 92 Jeffords, Walter, 294 Jenks, John S., residence, 288 Jones, Elizabeth, 77 Jones, J. Levering, residence, 77–82 Kate’s Hall, 61, 83–88, 298 Keasbey & Mattison Company, 66–67, 70 Keen, Charles Barton, 80, 289 Keewaydin, 61–65 Kimball, Fiske, 185 Kimber, William M. C., residence, 146–151 Kitchener, Lord, 244 Klauder, Charles Z., 96, 114, 115 Knowles, A. C., 183

Madeira, Louis, 185 Malmed, A. T., residence, 292 management class, 20 manufacturers, 19, 51, 53, 66, 144, 170, 179, 258, 275 Mattison, Richard V., 19 residence, 66–71 Maybrook, 295 McArthur, John Jr., 295 McCallum Street, 122, 204 McClure, Edna, 130 McCracken, Robert, residence, 291 McGoodwin, Robert Rodes, 21, 22, 39, 126, 127, 180, 181, 188–189, 202, 206, 237, 290, 291, 292, 295–296 residence, 290 McIlhenny, Francis S., 132, 200 residence, 152–159 McIlvaine, John G., 294 McKim, Mead & White, 32, 287 McLean, Robert L., 76 residence, 246–251 Medary, Milton, 289, 298 Meigs, Arthur, 152, 198, 208, 210, 213, 217, 296 Mellor & Meigs, 285, 296 Mellor, Meigs & Howe, 100, 103, 156–157, 198, 200, 246, 278, 291, 292, 296 Mellow, Walter, 296 Mercer, Henry, 122 Mercer tile, 121, 124

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merchants, 287, 288 Merck & Company, 53, 267, 273 Mexican War, 61 modernism, 278, 282, 298 Montgomery Avenue, 224 Moravian Tile Works, 122 Moreland Avenue, 61 Morgan, J. P., 160 Morris, Anthony, 45 Morris, I. Wister, residence, 291 Morris, Isaac Paschall, 45 Morris, Lydia T., residence, 45–50 Morris, John T., residence, 45–50 Morris Arboretum, 45, 50 Mount Airy, 21 (1880), 286 (1885), 287 (1909), 289 (1911), 289 (1914), 290 (1915), 290 (1919), 291 (1928), 292 see also West Mount Airy multifamily residences, 118 Newbold, Arthur E., 230, 246 residence, 208–217 Newhall, Charles, residence, 287 Newman, Woodman & Harris, 288 Newport Casino, 32 Norwood Hall, 268 nursury, 126 Oakley, Violet, 120, 122, 124 residence and studio, 94–99 Okie, R. Brognard, 291, 292, 298 “Old Ironsides,” 20 Olmsted, Frederick Law, 296 Olmsted brothers, 86, 120, 127 Oreland Baptist Church, 59 Overbrook Farms, 297 Overlea, 50, 287 Or Hadash synagogue, 59 Oxmoor, 195–201 Page, George Bispham, 267 Paley, Samuel, 144 Paley, William, 144 Paper Mill Road, 132, 166, 224 Pardee, Calvin, 287 Pastorius, Daniel, 16 Patterson, Marie, 138

N D E X

Paul, Oglesby, 106 paving company, 76 Peabody, Robert Swain, 296 Peabody & Stearns, 120, 122, 288, 296 Pearson, George T., 61, 64, 77, 80, 296–297 Peck, Staunton, residence, 291 Pelham, 297 Penllyn (1891), 72–76 (1923), 291 (1924), 195–201 (1928), 246–251 (1931), 292 Penn, William, 15, 16, 17, 22 Pennsylvania Colonial, 20 Pennsylvania Railroad, 20–21, 35, 36 Pennsylvania Salt Manufacturing Company, 170 Pennsylvania Turnpike, 28 Pennwalt, 170 Penrose, Boies, 197 Pepper, Benjamin Franklin, residence, 289 Pepper, Mrs. Benjamin Franklin, residence, 171–176 Pepper, David, residence, 50, 287 Pepper, George Wharton, 172 Pepper, George Wharton Jr., 297 Pepper, William, 171 pharmaceuticals, 66, 112, 267 Pheasant Run, 76, 246–251 Philadelphia, boundaries, 15, 17 Philadelphia College of Textiles and Science, 54 Philadelphia Cricket Club, 20, 21, 62 Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, 246 Philadelphia Flower Show, 174 Philadelphia Horse Show, 21 Philadelphia Museum of Art, 185, 297, 298 Philadelphia Opera Company, 163 Philadelphia Orchestra, 26, 198, 272 Philadelphia Savings Fund Society (PSFS) Bank Tower, 275, 282, 296 Philadelphia University, 54 Pittsburgh Plate Glass Company, 231 politics, 195, 197, 198 patronage, 74, 76 Polk, James K., 61 Pope, Alexander, 244 Porter, Charles, residence, 288 Potter, Charles A., 30–34 Potter, Thomas, 30 Potter, Wilson, residence, 290 Powers, Mary, 112 Powers & Weightman, 53, 112, 267, 295 Powers-Weightman-Rosengarten, 267 Presbyterian Church, 125

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professional class, 40–41 Provident Trust Company, 298 Pyle, Howard, 94 Quaker City Flour Mills, 252 Quakers, 20, 49, 146, 148, 160, 252 Queen Anne style, 30, 32 “Quinine King,” 53 Rabenold, Charles, 86 railroads, 22, 41, 286 railroad suburbs, 20–22 Randolph, Mrs. Evan, residence, 289 Ravenhill, 51–55 Raven Hill, 295 Ravenhill School for Girls, 54 Reading Railroad, 21, 130 Red Rose Farm, 96, 99 Reed, John, 198 Register, H. Bartol, 297 Revolutionary War, 16–17, 17–18, 26–27, 177, 179 Rhodora, 183–187 Roebling, Emily, 59 Roebling, Helen, 183 Roebling, John A., 59 Roneale Manor, 262 Roosevelt, Franklin D., 137, 198 Ropsley, 132, 152–159, 200 Rosengarten, Frederic, 53, 220 residence, 267–274 Rosengarten, George, 267 Rosengarten, Marion Sims, 267 Ross, Walter, residence, 288 Rotan, Allethaire (Allie) Ludlow Cummer Elkins, 234 Rotan, Samuel P., 130 residence, 234–245 Route 309 Expressway, 28 Rowland, Cora, 90 Roxborough (1929), 292 salt processing, 170 Saunders, William, 146 Sauveur, Ellen, 44 Sauveur, Louis C., residence, 40–44 scientific researchers, 67 Scott, Rufus, residence, 290 Seminole Avenue, 14 settlers, 16 Sheldon, George, 33 Shingle style, 56, 100, 294 Sims, James Peacock, 32, 171, 294 Sims, Joseph P., 297–298 Sinkler, Wharton, 245

Sisters of Mercy, 109 Skippack Pike, 195 Sloan, Samuel, 295 Smith, Edward, residence, 292 Smith, Jessie Willcox, 94, 99 residence, 290 Smith, Mary, 177, 179 Somerhausen, 16, 17 Springbank, 130, 285 Springett, Gulielma Maria, 17 Springfield Manor, 17 Springfield Township, 17, 224 Spring Green, 186 Square Shadows, 200, 275–283 St. Martin-in-the-Fields Episcopal Church, 19, 21, 36 St. Martin’s, 22, 202 (1885), 35–39, 40–44 (1889), 61–65 (1894), 77–82 (1899), 288 (1902), 83–88 (1905), 288 (1910), 118–125 (1914), 290 (1920s), 15 St. Mary’s Villa, 70 Standen, 218–223 Stearns, John G. Jr., 296 steel manufacturers, 289 Stewagon, Louisa, 54 Stewardson, John, 293–294 Stewart, T. M., residence, 286 stockbrokers, 275 Stockhausen, Thomas, residence, 290 stock-market crash, 258, 278 Stonecliffe, 286 Stonehurst, 120 Stotesbury, Edward T., 22, 114, 132, 210, 230, 235–236 residence, 160–170 Stotesbury Cup, 163 Strawbridge, Justus, residence, 287 street names, 22 sugar manufacturer, 292 Sumneytown Pike, 106 Sutro, Paul R., residence, 292 Talbutt, James, 297–298 Taylor, Charles, residence, 286 Taylor, Frederick, 83 residence, 288 Taylor, Roland, 109 Temple University, 262

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Thompson, Virginia, 112 Tilden, Marmaduke Jr., 297 Tilden & Register, 224 Tilden, Register & Pepper, 291, 297 Torworth, 287 Towanda Street, 89, 90 transportation, 17, 20–22 see also railroad Treweryn, 109 Trotter, William H., residence, 290 Trumbauer, Horace, 72, 106, 108, 166, 168, 169, 257, 262, 288, 295, 297, 298 T-Square Club, 294, 295, 298 Tudor style, 72, 114, 116, 122, 132, 135, 267 Tyson, Carroll S. Jr., residence, 183–187 Tyson, Helen, 185 Union Petroleum Company, 179 University of Pennsylvania, 37, 45, 50, 80, 144, 245 landscape architecture program, 255 van Rensselaer, Alexander, 26–28, 100 van Rensselaer, Sarah (Sallie) Drexel Fell, 24–27, 100 Vare, Edwin, 74, 76 Vare, William, 74, 76 Venturi, Robert, 137 Victorian style, 67 Waler, Annie, 54 Warwick Priory, 243 Washington, George, 16–17, 89 Wasserman, Marian, 282 Wasserman, William Stix, 200 residence, 275–283 Wayne, 297 Weightman, William, 295 residence, 51–55 Welsh, Charles N., residence, 130–135 Welsh, Edward, 130, 235 Welsh, Herbert S., residence, 202–207 Welsh, John Lowber, 130, 177, 206, 252, 286 Welsh, Mary Newbold, 177 Wendell & Smith, 297 West Mount Airy, 130 (1905), 94–99 (1925), 218–223 (1927), 202–207 (1929), 285 see also Mount Airy Wheelwright, Robert, 255 White House, 289 Whitemarsh (1932), 275–283

Whitemarsh Hall, 22, 114, 132, 160–170, 210, 224, 230 Whitemarsh Township, 17–18 Widener, Peter A. B., 53, 258, 295 Widener Building, 297 Wild Goose House, 224–229 Willet Stained Glass Studios, 120, 122 Willing, Charles, 171, 218, 220, 297–298 Willing, Rebecca, 171 Willing, Sims & Talbutt, 267, 292, 297–298 Willow Brook, 106–111 Willow Grove Avenue, 166, 168 Wilson, Woodrow, 197 Wilson Eyre McIlvaine, 294 Windrim, John T., 297 Wissahickon Avenue, 130 Wissahickon Gorge, 14, 15, 17, 21, 83, 92, 122, 138, 183, 268 Wissahickon Heights, 21, 22, 37 Wissahickon Inn, 16, 21, 36, 42 Wissahickon Valley, 13–14, 17, 22, 51, 124, 252 geography, 14–15, 17 towns and villages, 15–22 Wissahickon Valley Watershed Association, 76 Wisteria, 14, 287 Wistar family, 16 Woodward, Charles, 125 Woodward, George, 21, 96, 202, 206, 240, 295, 296, 298 residence, 118–125 Woodward, Gertrude, 118, 120, 124, 125 Woodward, Henry, 124–125 Woodward Company, 206 World War I, 197, 258 295 World War II, 198 Worldwide Evangelization for Christ, 28 Wyck, 16, 146 Wyndmoor, 17 (1880), 286 (1909), 112–117 (1912), 126–129, 130–135 (1916), 152–159, 160–170 (1921), 177–182 (1924), 224–229 (1925–27), 234–245 (1926), 252–257 (1929), 292 Yellin, Samuel, 106, 122, 217, 243, 246, 250 Zantzinger, Borie & Medary, 298 Zantzinger, Clarence Clark, 83, 85, 298 Ziegler, Carl, 230, 231, 232, 298

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