PLASTERED STONE COUNTRY HOUSES
It is quite possible to preserve random shapes and rock faces in stonework that is structurally good, yet still fail in a measure to please the eye and satisfy the artistic sense. A house built of stones which, although irregular and of variable size, are generally cubical in shape and set with obvious painstaking to simulate a casual yet remarkably systematic arrangement, never fails to be clumsy and patchy. A case in point is Waynesborough in Easttown Township, Chester County, erected in 1724 by Captain Isaac Wayne. Greame Park, erected in Horsham Township, Montgomery County, by Sir William Keith five years after he was appointed governor of Penn's Colony in 1717, instances another unsuccessful use of stonework and effectively explodes the pet notion of the indiscriminate that everything which is old is therefore good. The promiscuous use of rough, long, quarried stones, square blocks and narrow strips on end results in an utterly irrational effect, a confusing medley of short lines.[70]
Going to the other extreme, the use of stones so small and irregular as to suggest a "crazy-quilt" mosaic rather than structural stonework is equally displeasing. This scheme unquestionably lends texture to the wall, but it attracts too much attention to itself to the detriment of such architectural features as doors, windows and other wood trim intended to provide suitable embellishment as well as to fulfill the practical requirements of daily use. Inasmuch as rubble used in this manner becomes merely an aggregate in a concrete wall, the consistent thing to do is to consider it as such and give the wall an outside finish or veneer of rough plaster. This fact was recognized and often acted upon by the early Philadelphia builders wherever the stone readily available did not make an attractive wall. A few of the best examples extant serve to indicate that houses of this sort have all the charm of the modern stucco structure built over hollow tile.
Perhaps the most picturesque of the old houses of this type is Wyck at Germantown Avenue and Walnut Lane, Germantown, a long, rambling structure of rubble masonry with an outside veneer of rough white plaster standing end to the street. Although Colonial in detail and partaking to a degree of the general character of its neighbors, the ensemble presents a rare blending of European influences with American construction. Vine-clad trellises on the entrance front, a long arbor on the[71] garden front, box-bordered flower beds and a profusion of shade trees and shrubs all help to compose a picture of rare charm in which leading American architects have often found inspiration for modern work.
Wyck is probably the oldest building in Germantown and certainly quaint of appearance, considering its age, for it has been preserved as nearly as possible in its early condition. The oldest part was built about 1690 by Hans Millan. Later another house was built near by on the opposite side of an old Indian trail, and subsequently the two were joined together, a wide, brick-paved wagon way running beneath the connecting structure. This passage has since been closed in to form a spacious hallway with wide double doors and a long transom above, the outer doors being wood paneled and the inner ones glazed.
Of romantic interest is the use of this great hall of Wyck as a hospital and operating room after the Battle of Germantown, and later, in 1825, as the scene of a reception tendered to La Fayette, following his breakfast at Cliveden, when the townspeople were presented to him by Charles J. Wister. The doorway to the right, with its molded jambs, plain, four-paned transom and paneled door divided in the middle like many of the neighborhood, is of the most modest order, yet its simple lines and good proportions, together with the green of the[72] climbing vines about it, in contrast with the white plaster walls, makes a strong appeal to everybody of artistic appreciation. The position of the knob indicates the size of the great rim lock within, while the graceful design of the brass knocker is justly one of the most popular to-day.
Wyck has never been sold, but has passed from one owner to another by inheritance through the Jansen and Wistar families to the Haines family, in which it has since remained. One of its owners, Caspar Wistar, in 1740 established the first glassworks in America at Salem, New Jersey.
The most notable house of plastered stone masonry, and one of the noblest countryseats in the vicinity of Philadelphia, is Clunie, later and better known as Mount Pleasant, located in the Northern Liberties, Fairmount Park, on the east bank of the Schuylkill River only a little north of the Girard Avenue bridge. To see it is to appreciate more fully the princely mode of country living in which some of the most distinguished citizens of the early metropolis of the colonies indulged.
