Indoors, an exceptionally wide hall extends entirely through the house from front to back, opening into spacious rooms on both sides through round-topped doorways with narrow double doors heavily paneled. An elliptical arch supported by fluted pilasters spans the hall about midway of its length, and a handsome staircase ascends laterally from the rear part after the common English manner of that day. Throughout the house the woodwork is of good design and execution, the paneled wainscots, molded cornices, door and window casings all being very heavy, and the broad fireplaces and massive chimney pieces in complete accord. Deep paneled window seats, very common in contemporary houses, are a feature of the first-floor rooms. The kitchens and the servants' quarters are located in a separate building to the rear, a brick-paved porch connecting the two. This custom, as in the South, was characteristic of the locality and period.
Hope Lodge was erected in 1723 by Samuel Morris, a Quaker of Welsh descent, who was a justice of the peace in Whitemarsh and an overseer of Plymouth Meeting. Morris built it expecting to marry a [25] young Englishwoman to whom he had become affianced while on a visit to England with his mother, Susanna Heath, who was a prominent minister among the Friends. The wedding did not occur, however, and Samuel Morris died a bachelor in 1772, leaving his estate to his brother Joshua, who sold Hope Lodge in 1776 to William West. In 1784 West's executors conveyed it to the life interest of Colonel James Horatio Watmough with a reversion to his guardian, Henry Hope, a banker. It was Colonel Watmough who named the place Hope Lodge as a compliment to his guardian. One of his daughters married Joseph Reed, son of General Joseph Reed, and another married John Sargent, the famous lawyer. Both the Reeds and Sargents occupied Hope Lodge at various times, and it eventually passed into the Wentz family.
