A me rican Es s e nc e
American Essence
JUNE 2022
FO R E V E RYO N E W H O LOV E S T H I S CO U N T RY
Superwoman! A traumatic brain injury upended Amanda Burrill’s life for years. On her healing journey, she’s become an advocate for fellow vets
JUNE 2022
SHINING THROUGH THE DARKNESS
A survivor of the Pol Pot regime tells her story of finding solace and hope in America
A TALE TOLD LOVINGLY IN TILE
Fonthill Castle in Doylestown, Pa., is a masterpiece by early 20th century ceramicist Henry Mercer VOLUME 2 | ISSUE 6
Contents Features 8 | A Vet’s Victory
With unbridled determination to accept life’s challenges, Navy veteran Amanda Burrill exudes positivity despite living with a debilitating brain injury.
16 | By Western Hands
From fine Native American beadwork to furniture fitted with stylish antler pulls, this Wyoming gallery is dedicated to preserving Wild West culture.
20 | Whimsical Photography
Known for his vivacious style, photographer Nick Mele shares entertaining tales from his shoots with the country’s posh and affluent.
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58 26 | Man Enough
Three friends create a book and podcast for young boys to learn what it means to be real men.
30 | Not Seeing Is Believing
A successful music producer who is visually impaired wants to encourage young people with disabilities to dream big.
32 | Red Beans and Rice
The staple New Orleans dish is often associated with a multigenerational family business devoted to sourcing the best-quality beans.
38 | The Ultimate Picnic Guide
Our packing list has all the practical tips you’ll need to ensure that everything is perfect for your next summer outing.
40 | Making the World a More
John Patston reflects on America’s innate goodness—acting as an anchor in this turbulent world.
History 50 | Dark Horse President
A firm believer in manifest destiny, President Polk’s iron-willed persistence enabled the largest territorial expansion in American history.
54 | Delivered Rain or Shine
Learn how Benjamin Franklin’s postal system played a key role in securing the Americans’ victory over the British.
58 | Fathers of Flight
The Wright brothers persevered through trial and error to achieve the impossible.
Understanding Place Moved by their son’s autism diagnosis, the Maha family founded KultureCity to help improve the lives of others battling invisible disabilities.
62 | Mount Rushmore
42 | Fleeing Genocide
66 | George Westinghouse
After surviving the Killing Fields of Cambodia, Amanda Prak found solace and hope in America.
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46 | Why I Love America
A symbol of everlasting freedom and hope, Gutzon Borglum’s colossal monument is a tribute to the great presidents that shaped America. This 19th-century engineer is fondly remembered as a generous man deeply committed to improving the lives of others. AMERI CAN ESSE NCE
70 | Designing D.C.
In true American spirit—and perhaps with a bit of fate—the blueprint of Washington D.C. was jointly inspired by a Frenchman, a Quaker, and an African American surveyor.
74 | Safety in the Workplace
Alice Hamilton was a pioneer in the way she ardently advocated for the health and safety of blue-collar workers.
76 | Inalienable Rights
In 1761, Boston lawyer James Otis argued passionately for the God-given rights of humanity—a pivotal concept that inspired our founding principles.
80 | America’s Industrial Power
Philadelphia’s 1876 Centennial Exhibition ushered in a new era of industrial and innovative brilliance in America.
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84 | The Greatest Generation
98 | Flags at a Glance
A Love of Learning
Arts & Letters
88 | Treasuring the Arts
100 | Book Recommender
American soldiers in World War II overcame seemingly insurmountable odds to achieve victory against Imperial Japan.
Incorporating the arts into traditional brick-and-mortar curricula can improve student confidence while fostering teamwork.
90 | Teaching Patriotism
An Aussie by birth, and American by choice, Nick Adams explains why nurturing patriotism is crucial to protecting this “land of the free.”
94 | A Treasure Hunt
Modern technology combined with old-fashioned treasure hunting: geocaching is a new way of experiencing outdoor adventure.
96 | Flag Day
Early literacy assessment combined with a creative approach to teaching phonics can better ensure that no child gets left behind.
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How many of these American flags do you recognize? Let us take you on a tour through the evolution of our Stars and Stripes.
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“Old Abe: A Novel” is a deeply moving tale about Lincoln. “Benjamin Franklin Butler: A Noisy, Fearless Life” is a lively narrative about the controversial Civil War general.
102 | City of Dreams
Constructed for the 1915 Panama– California Exposition, Balboa Park in San Diego is a beautiful homage to Spanish Colonial architecture.
110 | Fonthill Castle
In Doylestown, Pennsylvania, lies a castle that epitomizes the American ethos of dreaming big.
The Great Outdoors 118 | Buffalo National River
Free-flowing for 135 miles, this stunning river offers a full array of outdoor activities for you to enjoy solo or with the family. 5
Editor’s Note
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veryone has heard the refrain that heroes come in all shapes and sizes. Through the stories in this issue, I hope you’ll discover that really is the case. Our cover story features Navy veteran Amanda Burrill (page 8), who, among many things—including being a compatriot of mine when we trained together at the Columbia Journalism School—is a former fitness model, a former sports and travel journalist, and an avid mountain climber. Exuding unrelenting positivity is her superpower: taking on new challenges with fervor despite a traumatic brain injury that led to debilitating symptoms. There’s also the family behind Camellia Brand beans (page 32), nurturing a legacy for nearly the past 100 years and becoming a pillar of New Orleans food culture by believing in providing the best quality possible. And we have the privilege of telling the story of another Amanda, Amanda Prak (page 42). As a young girl, she survived unspeakable horrors when the Pol Pot regime controlled Cambodia. Today, she not only educates fellow Americans about the history she witnessed, she also gives back to her native country through a nonprofit that builds schools in impoverished villages. These pages resonate with a spirit of courage, strength, and ingenuity amid trying circumstances. I hope we can all learn from them. Managing Editor Annie Wu Editor@AmericanEssence.net
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JUNE 2022 | VOLUME 2 | ISSUE 6
American Essence FO R E V E RYO N E W H O LOV E S T H I S CO U N T RY
PU B L I SH E R
Dana Cheng E D I TOR I AL
Editor-In-Chief Managing Editor Arts Editors History & Literature Editor Education Editor Contributing Editor Editors-At-Large Production Assistant
Channaly Philipp Annie Wu Sharon Kilarski Jennifer Schneider Robert Mackey Steve Gigliotti Ben Zgodny Tynan Beatty Maria Han Jennifer Tseng
C R EAT I V E
Lead Designer Designers Photo Editor Photographers
Jasmina Zhang Dariya Akdeniz Michael Kurov Tatsiana Moon Daniel Ulrich Jennifer Schneider
CO N T R I BU TORS
Tara dos Santos, Jill Dutton, Alice Giordano, Deena C. Bouknight, Karim Shamsi-Basha, Neil Cotiaux, John Patston, Andrew Benson Brown, Allen Shoff, Debi DeSilver, Rachel Pfeiffer, Bob Kirchman, Sydney Slack, Deborah Hommer, W. Kesler Jackson, Jeff Minick, Gina Prosch, Krista Thomas, Janice Abernethy, Dawn Duran, Mark Lardas, Jeff Perkin, Matthew John, Kelly Frey
American Essence (USPS 24810) is published monthly by Bright Magazine Group at 5 Penn Plz. Fl.8, New York, NY 10001. Periodicals postage is paid at New York, NY. Postmaster: Send address changes to American Essence, 5 Penn Plz. Fl.8, New York, NY 10001. General Inquiries: AmericanEssence.net/help Submissions: Editor@AmericanEssence.net
www.AmericanEssence.com
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Features | Hope
A Vet’s
Victory Behind great achievements, Amanda Burrill hid her decade-long struggle with brain injury. On her healing journey, she has become an advocate for veterans and others with traumatic brain injury WRITTEN BY
Tara dos Santos
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manda Burrill has practically lived several lifetimes in one. She has worked as a rescue swimmer in the Navy, as a model and actress, as a Cordon Bleu-trained chef, as a sports copy editor for the New York Post, as an on-air host for the Travel Channel, and as a sponsored triathlete and marathon runner. She is a mountaineer, now more than halfway toward her goal of climbing all the Seven Summits by spring 2023. “I get all this credit for being this adventurous Renaissance woman,” Burrill, 42, said. “But I know the real story.” Through most of her endeavors, “there was a lack of intent,” she said. “It was surviving. But it was surviving in style.” For many years, she skipped from one occupation to another to hide the symptoms of a traumatic brain injury. Just as she was about to lose her footing with one, she would gracefully pivot to another rather than stumble. She didn’t know she had a brain injury. She only knew that important cognitive functions were slipping away from her. She started finding it hard to read and process information. Her hand-eye coordination was off. Her feelings toward her husband suddenly changed.
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PHOTOGRAPHED BY
Nick Mele
“It would be bad enough to say, ‘I don’t love my husband anymore,’” said Burrill. “But to feel that and not understand why—but have a very clear reason why—I felt horrible, and a lot of shame.” When she returned home from a deployment in July 2003, she divorced him, although she says that he was the one person who would have been “able to observe me and say something serious has changed.” She didn’t connect her symptoms with her fall down the hatch of a prison ship in 2003. It was during her tour to Iraq, and no one was around to witness the fall; she was found lying unconscious on the deck afterward. Her doctors didn’t make the connection, either. The Veterans Affairs (VA) system eventually chalked up her symptoms to various conditions, including post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and fibromyalgia. “Post-traumatic stress disorder was a convenient catch-all diagnosis to explain away all my symptoms,” Burrill said. Yet she didn’t feel deeply traumatized by her wartime experiences. And the medications they gave her didn’t improve her condition. So many of her symptoms couldn’t be explained by PTSD alone. “A lot of things were off here and there, mystery issues, and I couldn’t connect the AMERI CAN ESSE NCE
Hope | Features
Before her traumatic brain injury diagnosis, Amanda Burrill continuously pivoted careers to hide her debilitating symptoms.
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Features | Hope
dots,” she said. Thirteen years passed before she discovered that traumatic brain injury was the root cause behind her ailments. Throughout those years, she hid her symptoms out of shame while she fought through the medical system to find doctors who would look for the physical cause and stop telling her she just had psychiatric problems. “A big part of my brain injury story was people not listening to or believing me,” said Burrill, who feels more traumatized by her experiences in doctors’ offices than from the war. Since 2016, when she was finally diagnosed, she has striven forward with healing, seeking cutting-edge treatments and putting great effort into her rehabilitation. During her outstanding recovery, “they were calling me ‘star pupil,’ an ‘amazing case,’” Burrill said. She has come far, but said “that vvv doesn’t mean I feel all better.” As she continues her “I don’t like to do healing journey, she has become an advocate for things small.” veterans and others with traumatic brain injury. —AMAN DA BURRILL, NAV Y VET ERA N
A ND
SU RVI VOR O F T RAUMAT IC BRA IN INJ URY
In Hiding, Even From Herself Between her brain injury in 2003 and the end of her military service in 2007, she didn’t talk about her symptoms much, even
to doctors. “I’d report things like bike crashes and digestion issues, but not the emotional duress. This was before you could have mental issues and stay in the military,” Burrill explained. “People were getting discharged—other than honorable—for having mental health issues.” It’s gotten better now, she says, but at the time, “I had to stay really mum about the emotional duress. “I think I was even denying myself the ability to really process, like, ‘Hey, I’m struggling here.’ That wasn’t really allowed because of the way I was raised and then the military culture,” Burrill said. Her father, who was in the Navy, trained her to be strong and to be a star athlete. He guided her away from piano lessons and other pursuits of a softer nature. To admit she was ailing felt like weakness. When Burrill found that she could no longer effectively complete nightly briefings as an intelligence officer, she tried to hide it by changing roles. Banking on what was left of her athleticism, she asked if she could undergo the notoriously grueling training for Navy rescue swimmers. Her command eventually agreed to it, and she passed. Burrill had planned to go to law school when she finished her military service. She knew that was no longer possible due to the mysterious change that had come over her. Burrill identified her next career move using what she calls “the Venn dia10
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Burrill tries hyperbaric oxygen therapy to alleviate her symptoms, in October 2020. LEFT Burrill runs in the New York City Marathon, 2013.
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Hope | Features
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Features | Food Traditions
ABOVE
The Hayward family shares a meal together at a home in Covington, La.
No Small Beans New Orleanians know that for making the classic dish red beans and rice, only one brand will do: Camellia. 4 generations of the family business have protected its impeccable quality for 99 years and counting WRITTEN BY
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ew Orleans is a city steeped in ritual. There are different versions of the popular myth explaining how “red beans and rice”—a creamy stew of red kidney beans, herbs, and (traditionally) ham ladled over rice—became a staple Monday dish. One claims that after serving big Sunday meals with ham, New Orleanians would use the leftovers the following day to cook up hearty stews. Another supposes that because families did their laundry on Mondays, red beans would be left simmering on the stove, ready to eat by the end of a grueling day of chores. In bygone days, large wood fires were needed to do laundry, and it would have been efficient to cook a big pot of red beans and rice at the same time.
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Annie Wu
PHOTOGRAPHED BY
Tatsiana Moon
One thing that isn’t disputed, though, is that the red beans most commonly used for making the dish are Camellia Brand’s. For 99 years, it’s been owned by the same family—the Haywards. From its humble beginning as a purveyor of dried and fresh goods at the city’s French Market, to its ubiquitous presence in grocery stores throughout the South today, the company has steadily earned a reputation for consistently offering high-quality beans to restaurants and family cooks alike. Beloved eateries across New Orleans use Camellia Brand beans to create their versions of classic Southern dishes like red beans and rice. Camellia is so ingrained in the food culture of the city that the Southern Food and Beverage Museum’s exhibit on Louisiana AMERI CAN ESSE NCE
Food Traditions | Features
CLOCKWISE FROM LEFT
CEO Vince Hayward is the fourth-generation owner of Camellia Brand; the company’s logo; packaged beans ready for shipment at the New Orleans factory.
includes a section on the brand’s history. “We have a big commitment to our customers and the folks in the city, and it’s a big responsibility—it’s a huge responsibility. And so we always take that very seriously,” said Vince Hayward, the fourth-generation owner and current CEO of the company. “We’re very blessed to have a very vibrant, well-regarded brand and company—but it’s taken 100 years to get there. … It wasn’t an overnight success.” History New Orleans’s cuisine is an expression of the cultures and peoples that have come through the city: French and Spanish settlers, enslaved Africans, Native Americans. According to Liz Williams, founder of the Southern ISSU E 6 | J U N E 2 022
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History | Monuments
The Spirit of Patriotism
Portrayed in Granite An artist’s vision led to carving 4 presidents’ faces into Mount Rushmore, combining art and history WRITTEN BY
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plane buzzed over the Black Hills of South Dakota in the summer of 1927. It swooped and dove through the air, entertaining President Calvin Coolidge and his family below. The pilot dropped a wreath of flowers to this little crowd and sped away. The Coolidges had chosen the large Game Lodge in Custer State Park as their summer retreat, where they tried to keep a quiet schedule. However, an ambitious sculptor nearby had other ideas.
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Rachel Pfeiffer
Gutzon Borglum needed to promote his planned colossal historic art sculpture on Mount Rushmore. A visiting president seemed too great an opportunity to pass up. Borglum had hired the pilot to fly by the president’s Summer White House in an attempt to convince Coolidge to make a speech at Rushmore, and he was rewarded for this effort. On a bright, sunny August day, Coolidge faced a large crowd gathered at Mount Rushmore to announce the start of Borglum’s project. “The union of these four Presidents carved on the face of the everlasting hills of South Dakota will constitute a distinctly national monument. … Here in the heart of the continent, … the people of the future will see history and art combined to portray the spirit of patriotism,” Coolidge proclaimed. “If coming generations are to maintain a like spirit, it will be because they continue to study the lives and times of the great men who have been leaders in our history and continue to support the principles which those men represented. It is for that purpose that we erect memorials.” Coolidge’s grand purpose for the memorial matched perfectly with Borglum’s vision for what his giant sculpture should be. The Men on the Mountain Doane Robinson is known as the “Father of Mount Rushmore.” He loved history and he loved South Dakota. While serving as the state’s historian, Robinson decided that South Dakota’s granite would provide an excellent place for a historical sculpture that could attract people to his state and generate revenue. The eminent sculptor Lorado Taft declined the job because of poor health, so Robinson
LEFT A signed photograph of Gutzon Borglum, 1919. RIGHT The construction of George Washington’s sculpture, circa 1932.
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vvv Four presidents grace the mountain today: George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln.
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A bird’s-eye view of Washington, D.C.
Designing D.C. Pierre Charles L’Enfant, Andrew Ellicott, Benjamin Banneker, and the surprising inspiration for the design of Washington, D.C. WRITTEN BY
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hen the United States of America was young, the established cities of New York and then Philadelphia served as seats for the country’s government. While Alexander Hamilton and many northerners were content with this, Thomas Jefferson and a lot of southerners were not—so a seat for the federal government was established in a more central location. James Madison, in The Federalist No. 43, explained why the country needed a separate “federal district” which would be under the authority of only Congress and not part of the territory of any state. This was not merely a theoretical concern. In June 1783, unpaid conti70
Bob Kirchman
nental soldiers descended en masse on the Congress as it met in Philadelphia. Pennsylvania refused all requests for aid, and the legislators fled to New Jersey. Only the intervention of George Washington prevented the situation from escalating out of hand. AntiFederalists were equally concerned, fearing an established federal city might become “a sink of corruption and a potential nursery for tyrants,” recounts historian Lee Casey. Article 1, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution provided for the federal government “to exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten Miles square) as may, by Cession of particular
States, and the acceptance of Congress, become the Seat of the Government of the United States.” Congress specified only that the capital be located on the Potomac. In 1790, George Washington picked the exact location. In keeping with the original description, a 10-mile square district was laid down over the Potomac River to be carved out of Virginia and Maryland. Thomas Jefferson envisioned a fairly simple layout for the seat of government, with a “limited public walk, a President’s House, and a Congress House.” These would be constructed in close proximity to one another. The surrounding area, as laid out in the 10-mile square, would remain perpetually as AMERI CAN ESSE NCE
vvv In 1790, George Washington picked the exact location.
LEFT An engraving of Andrew Ellicott’s initial plan for Washington by Thackara & Vallance, 1792.
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open countryside. Hence the capital, as envisioned by Jefferson, would be perpetually surrounded by fields, forests, and farmland. L’Enfant and Versailles Perhaps George Washington would have been content with that as well, but he received a letter, dated September 11, 1789, from a man who had served as one of his engineers during the war for independence. Pierre Charles L’Enfant was a French-trained architect and artist, and he wrote to Washington this request:
The late determination of Congress to lay the foundation of a city which is to become the Capital of this vast Empire, offer so great an occasion of acquiring reputation, to whoever may be appointed to conduct the execution of the business, that your Excellency will not be surprised that my ambition and the desire I have of becoming a useful Citizen should lead me to wish a share in the Undertaking. No Nation perhaps had Ever before the opportunity offered them of deliberately deciding on the spot where 71
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Manifesting a City of Dreams Behind the creation of San Diego’s Balboa Park for the 1915 Panama–California Exposition WRITTEN BY
“The magic garden has taken the place of the desert. He who saw the land three years ago and sees it again today, would think that some modern Aladdin had come this way and rubbed his lamp, or that Merlin had waved his magic wand and caused the Dream City to spring up.” —NATIONAL MAGAZINE, 1915
Jeff Perkin
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eginning with London’s Great Exhibition of 1851, international expositions showcased the power and cultural sophistication of the world’s leading cities. Immensely ambitious civic and landscape designs almost inexplicably transformed cities like Chicago around the end of the 19th century. Cities temporarily played host to these grandi-
Balboa Park is the result of excellence in horticulture, architecture, and landscape design, all under the cohesive umbrella of California’s Spanish Colonial architectural heritage.
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Arts & Letters | Architecture
ose amusement parks and museum complexes with the might and prowess of classical antiquity. Strangely, these vast undertakings were by and large impermanent creations—strenuous efforts to be marveled at, then destroyed. In the early 1910s, California incredibly built two expositions that were underway at the same time only hundreds of miles apart. By far the larger of the two events, San Francisco was chosen as California’s official “international” exposition of 1915. To the south, San Diego created an exposition that was much more modest, yet was widely recognized as more original—authentic and cohesive in its vision, meaning, and execution. Celebrating the opening of the Panama Canal, San Diego held its exposition in honor of being America’s first port of call on new shipping routes that cut through Panama before heading north along the Pacific coast. In keeping with the Panama theme, the name Balboa Park was chosen in honor of Vasco Nuñez de Balboa, the first European to see the Pacific while exploring Panama. Departing from the bulky, old-world designs of
vvv San Diego held its exposition in honor of being America’s first port of call on new shipping routes that cut through Panama.
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FAR LEFT The San Diego Civic Youth Ballet building. LEFT Palms expand into the 60-foot dome of Balboa Park’s famous Botanical Building. They flourish in the partial shade environment. ABOVE El Prado, an avenue leading to the restored 1915–1916 exposition complex with museums and gardens.
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other expositions, San Diego opted for an innovative Spanish Colonial design that fit California’s rich history and scenery. The result was a beautiful “garden fair” that delighted visitors with its relevantly romantic theme, horticultural abundance, and ornamentally eccentric architecture. Paired with its impressive harbor and growing metropolis, the 1915 exposition paved the way for San Diego to become a powerful economic, cultural, and military center in the 20th century. Design and Architecture of the Exposition Bertram Goodhue, chief architect of the exposition, chose Spanish Colonial Revival architecture as the design theme for the first time in American exposition history. It is a delightfully ornate style that can still be seen on some of the permanent structures in Balboa Park. Goodhue intuitively felt that Greek architectural styles would not have correlated with the San Diego region, for it was the Spanish Empire that had a history of colonizing missions up and down California’s Pacific coast. Furthermore, San Diego was the first of these missions in 1769. Unlike San Francisco’s International Exposition, San Diego planned on using a smaller area, about which Goodhue wrote, “Within these
confines was built a city-in-miniature wherein everything that met the eye and ear of the visitor were meant to recall to mind the glamour and mystery and poetry of the old Spanish days.” The architecture of San Diego’s exposition was based more on the Baroque Period in Europe than the modest designs of the California missions. The 1915 issue of “The Architectural Record” detailed the architectural designs of the exposition as “the spirit of the Renaissance gone mad. It is a riot of motives, all related but apparently in a sort of architecturally crazy quilt. Columns and pilasters are diverted in a hundred different ways between base and capital, yet retain their character. Broken pediments, curves, twists, flutes, scallops; theoretically a sort of architectural buffoonery, yet actually a style of strange delight.” Goodhue had experience with Spanish Colonial architecture after having studied it extensively in Mexico. His architecture employed a combination of styles known as Churrigueresque and Plateresque: elaborate sculptural and architectural ornamentation that contrasts against a plain surface. The buildings are dressed up with the artistic sculptural details of vines, fruit, figures, and heraldry. The permanent structures 105
Arts & Letters | Historic Homes
FO N TH I L L CASTLE IN PENNSY LVA NIA:
A Tale of Tradition Told Lovingly in Tile In 1908, ceramicist and self-taught archaeologist Henry Mercer created a castle like no other to display treasures from his adventures WRITTEN BY
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Matthew John
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Historic Homes | Arts & Letters
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The façade of Fonthill Castle in Doylestown, Pa.
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hile from a distance Fonthill Castle does much to evoke its European counterparts—with its imposing, bulky countenance, its heavenward towers and spires, its parapets and chimneys—inside, and at its heart, it’s an altogether different creature. If the castles of yore across the Atlantic were meant to protect and deter, this is every bit the opposite: a castle meant to nurture, inspire, and preserve. This massive, medieval-like structure, even though cast in cold concrete, is pulsing with warmth, color, and vitality on its inside. Each of its utterly unique 44 rooms was meant to be both a home for its creator as well as a living museum of sorts. On display is its owner’s staggering collection of tileware and prints gathered over a lifetime of expeditions and research. Fonthill was the brainchild—and life’s dream—of Henry Chapman Mercer, a Doylsetown, Pennsylvania, native who began planning its construction in 1908 at the age of 51. Part Renaissance man, part Indiana Jones, Mercer had by then transformed a childhood love of collecting into a career as an archaeologist (self-taught, it should be noted) that culminated with a distinguished post as 111
The Great Outdoors | Overline
Fonthill Saloon is the largest room in the house, where Henry Mercer held occasional parties.
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Historic Homes | Arts & Letters
curator at the University of Pennsylvania Museum. Mercer fell in love with the human past and its physical legacy over the course of multiple trips and expeditions, beginning first with a “Grand Tour” (as they were then called) following his graduation from Harvard in 1879. Mercer’s travels included much of Europe, the Yucatan, and even the Middle East—when not excavating prehistoric sites along the Atlantic seaboard from Maine to Tennessee. One encounter played a formative role in Fonthill’s conception. This was Mercer’s discovery of the nearly lost craft of pottery making among Pennsylvanian Germans. The colorful, playful nature of their ceramic ware struck a chord with the budding scholar. His determination to learn the elusive craft would eventually take him all the way to Germany’s
Black Forest. And it is Mercer’s passion for the potters’ legacy that shines through so overwhelmingly at Fonthill. Whatever room you enter, nearly every swathe of wall, nook of floor, and vault of ceiling is adorned with custom tilework—the vast majority of it Mercer’s own creation. He was so enamored with the old world craft that after his travels, he established his own pottery kiln, adjacent to Fonthill, where he fashioned many a design of his own. Some were reproductions of exquisite European designs he had seen in cloisters or fabled estates. Others were purely the product of his own imagination. Mercer’s tile creations bespeak his own colorful personality— reflecting a vast range of themes and interests, if not moods, from the playful to the sublime. Some installments depict
An example of Brocade-style tiles. Fonthill Castle features Mercer’s handcrafted tiles, designed during the height of the Arts and Crafts movement in America. ABOVE
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American Essence FO R E V E RYO N E W H O LOV E S T H I S CO U N T RY
Celebrating America’s contribution to humanity. American Essence magazine focuses on traditional American values and great American stories. www.AmericanEssence.com PUBLISHED BY
BRIGHT Magazine Group