A villa, by definition, is “a country estate; the rural or suburban residence of a wealthy person.” In Philadelphia, by the early 18th century, a prosperous merchant class had begun to emerge, gentlemen whose wealth afforded them a lifestyle that emulated their British forebears. This included the villa, commonly referred to as a “country seat,” or sometimes a “plantation.” It was a rural retreat where the owner and his family could enjoy the pleasures of fresh air, relaxation, gardening, sporting activities, visiting and taking tea in the company of others like themselves, away from the stifling heat, noise, and disease of the city.
For most, it was a second home, used in the summer. They had houses in the city where they conducted business. When these owners spoke of plantations, they were not referring to hundreds of acres of cotton or tobacco worked by slaves. This was not an agrarian economy. Some farmed and sold their crops, but their real money came from trade, shipping, law, banking and real estate.
William Penn (who himself had a villa, Pennsbury Manor, on the Delaware) set the stage for the development of an idyllic suburbia when he and his surveyor, Thomas Holme, laid out the City of Philadelphia in 1682. Penn offered some of the best building lots in the city to the “First Purchasers” of land in Pennsylvania with an added incentive: each purchaser of five thousand acres in the surrounding counties was entitled to a bonus of eighty acres in the so-called “Liberty Lands,” areas just north and west of the city proper. Today, the Liberty Lands are part of the City of Philadelphia, and include the approximately four thousand seven hundred contiguous acres that make up East and West Fairmount Park, on both sides of the Schuylkill River and up its feeder creek, the Wissahickon.
During the 18th century, these eighty-acre plots changed hands, and were sub-divided and combined to accommodate people of means wanting a country estate. By the middle 1700s, handsome villas had begun to appear along the banks of the Schuylkill. As the century progressed, the houses reflected a range of architectural styles, from the bold symmetry of Palladian to the smooth lightness of Federal, a neo-classicism that continued into the 19th century.
A series of events unfolded, beginning in the 1790s, that would change the fortunes of these country villas, but would eventually lead to their preservation. Several serious epidemics of yellow fever, the worst in 1793, forced the city fathers to try to find a way to prevent the disease.
Falsely assuming that the cause was contaminated water, they built public waterworks. The first of these, designed by the architect Benjamin Latrobe and completed in 1801, was a steam-powered pumping station at Center Square, presently the site of City Hall. Soon proven inadequate for the growing city, it was replaced by a larger and more efficient one, also steam-powered, designed by Latrobe's pupil, Frederick Graff. This waterworks opened in 1815, at the foot of the hill called Fairmount, now the site of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Later, a dam, completed in 1822, created a cheaper and more efficient system, harnessing the river to power huge waterwheels that pumped the water to the top of Fairmount, to flow by gravity to the city.
The waterworks was praised for its efficiency, and for the beauty of its neo-classical buildings, but the dam caused problems for some of the river villas above it. Swamp conditions and the flooding of meadowlands began to make country living seem less desirable, and some of the residents began to contract "river fever" from mosquitoes breeding in stagnant water. Meanwhile, the city fathers realized that, in order to preserve the quality of the river, development of the land above the waterworks had to be curtailed, and they began buying up the estates along the Schuylkill to create a large public park. Thus, in 1855, Fairmount Park was born.
The villas were no longer privately owned, but were adapted to other uses, primarily for recreation. This proved to be key to their preservation.
Photo credits: Philadelphia Antiques Show, Philadephia Museum of Art:
Cedar Grove 1748-50, c.1799, porch (“piazza”) c.1848. Front (west) façade. Wealthy widow Elizabeth Coates Paschall built Cedar Grove in 1748. Five generations of her family summered here. If only the walls could talk! Unlike most historic houses, all the furniture in Cedar Grove is original to the family and the house. Cedar Grove also holds a unique place in Fairmount Park history because over 75 years ago it was moved stone by stone from the Frankford section of Philadelphia to its current location! Must See: The kitchen.
photo credit Schuylkill River Org:
Woodford 1756, 1772. Front (east) façade. Woodford is a fine example of late Georgian architecture and one of the earliest surviving in the Philadelphia area. It contains all the elements associated with this style such as brick construction using the Flemish bond pattern, a Palladian window, pedimented front, Chippendale roof balustrade and symmetrical facade. Benjamin Franklin was a frequent visitor.
photo credit Schuylkill River Org:
Mount Pleasant 1762-65. Front (east) façade. Master builder, Thomas Nevell (1721-1797). Design inspired by English pattern books, chiefly Abraham Swan’s A Collection of Designs in Architecture (London, 1757), bought by MacPherson from Nevell. Built at the height of the Chippendale fashion in America, this elaborate example of 18th century building and carving occupies an important place in America's architectural history. Palladian windows, a roof balustrade and flanking outbuildings are exterior features contributing to this excellent example of a perfectly symmetrical Georgian country villa. One of Mount Pleasant's owners: Benedict Arnold, who bought the house for his fiancee. Must See: The renowned architectural carving.
Mount Pleasant with flanking pavilions and outbuildings, watercolor
by David J. Kennedy, 1871 (Historical Society of PA).
Laurel Hill, central section 1767; wings 1800s. Must See: The view from the back porch overlooking the Schuylkill River. Rebecca Rawle, a wealthy widow, built this small country house in the Georgian style around 1764. After Rawle's second marriage to Philadelphia mayor Samuel Shoemaker, she lost her house during the American Revolution when the state legislator seized it because she and her husband were British Loyalists. Rawle later successfully regained her property. In 1828 the mansion passed into the ownership of Dr. Philip Syng Physick.
The Solitude 1784, on grounds of Philadelphia Zoo. East facade, with portico. Designed by John Penn (1760-1834). Builder, William Roberts, employing newly immigrated English craftsmen. (Information from Collin Gleason, University of Delaware, Winterthur Fellow.)
The Solitude, east façade, showing separate kitchen building to the rear. Oil painting on wood 1796-1808, by William Russell Birch (1755-1834). Courtesy Winterthur.
Sweetbriar 1797. West façade. The year-round home of Samuel Breck. He also famous for hosting and entertaining the movers and shakers of his time at his elegant villa. He was a patron of artist-naturalist John Audubon and supported many philanthropic community projects. Distinguished French emigrés including Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-igord and Marquis de Lafayette spent time at Sweetbriar. The present furnishings, many of them his own, reflect the fine taste of Samuel Breck who had traveled and studied abroad and returned home with different concepts of gracious living. Must See: The elegant "Etruscan" room.
Strawberry Mansion (Summerville) 1789, 1820s. East façade, original center section and flanking Greek Revival wings with Grecian scrolled pediments. Formerly known as "Summerville," the center section of Strawberry Mansion was built in the Federal style around 1790 by renowned lawyer Judge William Lewis, who drafted the first law in the United States abolishing slavery. The mansion's second owner, Judge Joseph Hemphill, added the Greek Revival wings during the 1820s.
Judge Joseph Hemphill bought 'Summerville' in the 1820's. He added the flamboyant Greek revival wings to the house and entertained John C. Calhoun of South Carolina, the French Marquis de Lafayette and Daniel Webster of Massachusetts. His son Coleman built a race track on the property, raised Dalmatian dogs and grew strawberries from roots he imported from Chile.
Lemon Hill 1800-1801. Entrance (north) façade. In 1798, Henry Pratt, son of a Philadelphia portrait painter, bought the property and developed it into one of the finest garden spots in Philadelphia. Lemon trees in the greenhouses contributed to the estate being known as "Lemon Hill." Pratt built the present house in 1800. Lemon Hill, a graceful masterpiece of late 18th century architecture, is a formal Early Republic/Federal house with features that include a two story symmetrical plan, stone basement, scored stucco walls and chimneys, two wooden side porches and a shingled hip roof. Its distinctive features are the projecting three story oval rooms on the south, facing the Schuylkill River and the entrance hall checkerboard floor made of Valley Forge marble.
Lemon Hill, early 19th century etching, viewed from south side.
Lemon Hill, “Fairmount Waterworks,” c.1860. Fairmount Hill, site of the reservoir, future site of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Colored lithograph, Nathaniel Currier (1813-1888) and James Merritt Ives (1824-1895). Private collection.
Lemon Hill, south façade, showing three-story elliptical bay.
Besides what is specifically noted above, the information in this article is from material available in the office of the Park House Guides at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Much of it was contributed by the late Martha Crary Halpern, Assistant Curator for the Fairmount Park Houses, Department of American Art.
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