The Architecture of Colonial America

by Harold Donaldson Eberlein

The process of evolution in the several Georgian types of the Philadelphia neighbourhood was slow in its working, perhaps, but unmistakable as a comparison of examples will show. Indeed, a glance at the illustrations accompanying this chapter will discover easily distinguished differences of contour and detail corresponding to the evolutionary stages. Fortunately, history comes to aid us, removing all element of conjecture and giving us, instead, a comfortable certainty of the ground we are treading on. It is, of course, impossible to set any exact and unalterable dates for our three Georgian types; our purpose will be best subserved by giving approximate dates between which certain characteristics may be looked for and certain changes expected to take place. We may, roughly speaking, say that the first type flourished between 1720 and 1740, the second type from 1740 to 1770 and the third type from 1770 to 1805. Several parts of these three type divisions were marked by times of great building activity and others again by times of comparative idleness. From 1720 to 1730 there was a great deal going on. Then again, about 1760, we find a regular epidemic of house construction breaking out. Just before, during and after the Revolutionary War, as one would naturally assume, public stress, peril and uncertainty discouraged the prosecution of new plans, although the builders, even then, were not wholly idle. What has just been said applies particularly to country seats, as we have fuller data concerning them than we have about most of the town houses. What were once country seats have been selected, too, because they are, for the most part, intact, while comparatively few of the town houses remain in their original interior state, being, as they chiefly are, in a part of the city now given over to business or to the housing of the foreign population.

Philadelphia affords especially favourable opportunity for a careful examination and study of the several types of Georgian expression. Indeed, for purposes of comparison, the advantages it offers are unsurpassed, owing to the available wealth of varied material of the best sorts, and that, too, in a state of excellent preservation. At times one is really troubled with an embarrassment of riches in this respect and selection becomes difficult. From the early years of the eighteenth century, Philadelphia advanced rapidly in commercial prosperity. Ship building, textile industry and various sorts of manufactures soon brought a bulk of trade second to none among the seaports of the Colonies. Traffic with the East and West Indies, as well as with Europe, poured gold into the coffers of her merchants and brought affluence and culture at an early stage of her career. The chief wealth of her most considerable citizens was almost invariably derived from profitable shipping ventures. By 1750 Penn’s “greene country towne” had become the greatest and most important city in the country, the metropolis of the American colonies. “No other could boast of so many streets, so many houses, so many people, so much renown. No other city was so rich, so extravagant, so fashionable.” Among the features that impressed visitors from distant lands was the fineness of the houses. Men of such social distinction and substance as were many of Philadelphia’s principal citizens would not be meanly housed, and it is not surprising, therefore, that much of the best domestic Georgian architecture in America is to be found in the city or in its immediate neighbourhood, where town houses or country seats mirrored the estate and consequence of their owners. As one instance—and there were many—of a delightful and favourite suburb, now included in Fairmount Park, but then well beyond the city boundaries, we may cite that portion of the Schuylkill, of charm and loveliness unexcelled, where the river winds among rolling highlands on whose summits spacious homes of comely dignity sheltered some of the most distinguished citizens of the metropolis whose society was gayer, more polished and wealthier than anywhere else this side of the Atlantic. Here, too, the country seats bespoke the urbanity and degree of their occupants, and here, today, they still bear mute witness to an elegance long passed.

Notwithstanding all this architectural wealth and its perfect accessibility, Philadelphia has hitherto received but scant justice at the hands of many architectural writers. In an highly esteemed and well known work, properly regarded as a valuable source of information anent architecture in Colonial and Post-Colonial America, the writer of one portion has greatly erred in his estimate and analysis of Philadelphia’s Georgian remains, probably through insufficient acquaintance with that part of his subject. After referring to Philadelphia as architecturally “the embodiment of Philistinism,” he goes on to speak of the buildings of Colonial days and says of them, “The details generally are hard and crude and often inappropriate.” As a representative example of the eighteenth century country place he instances the Bartram house and writes, “The home of the Colonial botanist, John Bartram, at Philadelphia, built in 1731, has two-storey semi-detached columns with huge Ionic scrolls. The German rococo mouldings in the window frames, too, are out of all scale with the humble dwelling.” Bartram’s house ought not to be regarded as in any way representative of Philadelphia domestic architecture, and, least of all, as representative of Georgian buildings. It is in a class all by itself and represents nothing but John Bartram’s home-made efforts in both plan—if it can be said to have any plan—and execution of detail. Whatever its inconsistencies and defects, there is undeniably the charm of beauty and interest about the place, but it has no architectural affinities. The same writer goes on glibly to assure his readers that “In Pennsylvania there were rarely any verandas, porches or gardens,”—a mischievous and misleading statement.

The verandas and porches may take care of themselves for the nonce, but the gardens need a passing word of vindication. In no place were there more notable gardens than in Philadelphia. Leaving Bartram’s garden out of the horticultural tale—the writer might cavil at it as a kind of nursery—there was “The Woodlands” near by, whose gardens, from the middle of the eighteenth century onward were as extensive and famous as any in the land, and exquisitely planned and maintained. There was the Grange, well known from early Colonial days, whose garden, even in its decay, is wonderful and beautiful.... There was Ury House whose box garden has been the pride of its owners and has delighted their guests for more than a hundred and fifty years and is today maintained in all its pristine trimness. There were the gardens at Grumblethorpe, Netherfield, Cedar Grove, the Highlands, Belmont, Fair Hill, to name only a few, while in the heart of the city the Bingham, Powel, Blackwell, Willing, Morris, and Cadwalader houses, along with many others, all had spacious gardens, well planted and tastefully arranged. A writer who could ignore all this material, could scarcely be expected to do justice to the houses. The examples now to be adduced will set the matter in a fairer light.

It ought to be stated that most of the eighteenth century houses in Philadelphia and its neighbourhood were not designed by professional architects, but were planned by their owners and executed by skillful carpenters and builders. Some architectural knowledge was held to be a part of a gentleman’s education, and such men as Andrew Hamilton and John Kearsley, though amateurs, displayed no contemptible ability. The master carpenters of the city, in 1724, composed a guild large and prosperous enough to be patterned after “The Worshipful Company of Carpenters of London,” and, in 1736, became possessed of a choice collection of architectural works devised to his fellow members by James Portius whom William Penn had induced to come to his new city to “design and execute his Proprietary buildings.” In the Ridgway branch of the Philadelphia Library there is also a collection of seventeenth and eighteenth century books, treating of architecture, carpentry, joinery and various subjects connected with building, an examination of which will show that the artisans of the Georgian period were well supplied with guides devised to make the mysteries of their craft plain to the “meanest understanding.”

The two houses chosen to exemplify the first Georgian type are Graeme Park, Horsham, begun in 1721 and finished the following year by Sir William Keith, sometime Lieutenant-Governour of the Province, and Hope Lodge, in the Whitemarsh Valley, built in 1723. Graeme Park was then in the heart of the wilderness and a special road had to be cut, still called the Governour’s Road, to enable His Excellency to reach the Old York Road whenever he chose to trundle to the city in his great begilt and blazoned coach, drawn by four stout horses and attended with all the panoply of state as befitted a person of his rank.

The house suited the manorial style of life maintained by the baronet. To the rear of the main building were detached wings containing quarters for the servants, the kitchens and the various domestic offices, thus leaving the whole of the hall for the use of its occupants. The small buildings disappeared years ago, and the whole place, long unoccupied, is gradually falling into decay, a plight from which, however, it could be easily rescued. The house is over 60 feet long, 25 feet in depth and three storeys in height. The walls are of rich brown field stone, carefully laid and fitted, and are more than 2 feet thick, while over the doors and windows, whose dimensions are thoroughly characteristic of the date of erection, selected stones are laid in flattened arches.

At the north end of the building is a great hall or parlour, 21 feet square, with walls wainscotted and panelled from floor to ceiling, a height of fourteen feet. The fireplace in the parlour is faced with dark marble, brought from abroad, while in the other rooms Dutch tiles were used for the same purpose. On each floor are three rooms. Stairs and banisters are of heavy white oak, and all the other woodwork, of yellow pine, is of unusual beauty, executed in simple and vigorous design. The woodwork is worthy of special attention, for therein we may see embodied some of the chief characteristics of the first Georgian type. The detail of ornamentation is heavy and bold, though by no means ungraceful. Mouldings and cornices are more pronounced in profile than we find them at a later date and stand out with peculiarly insistent relief, while certain forms quite vanished in subsequent types. The close affinity with the moulding details of the distinctively Queen Anne type is strongly noticeable. One feature worth mentioning is the mantel shelf in the parlour. Such shelves were rarely found till a later date.

Hope Lodge, hard by St. Thomas’s Hill, in the Whitemarsh Valley, was built in 1723, as previously stated. It is a great square brick structure of two storeys in height with a hipped roof. As at Stenton (built in 1728), the bricks are laid in Flemish bond and occasional black headers appear. The doors and windows, like those of Graeme Park, Stenton and other contemporary houses, belonging to the first Georgian type, are higher and narrower in proportion than those of a later date. Over the front windows are wedge-shaped lintels, flush with the wall surface, formed of bricks set vertically in the centre and gradually spreading fanwise toward the sides in diagonals convergent to the base. Some of the windows at the sides and back show the flattened arches, to be seen at Graeme Park and Stenton, over slightly countersunk tympana above the frame tops. Over some of the doors are transoms of six or seven square lights in a single row, while over the tall and very narrow side door, just as at Stenton and as over the two narrow rear doors at Graeme Park, there is a transom of eight square lights in two rows of four each. A cornice at the eaves has a deep sweeping cove of plaster on a lath backing, while the heavy moulding courses are of wood. Viewed from the front, the roof is hipped, but from the side it presents a curious combination of hip and gambrel.

Within, a hall of unusual width, far larger than most rooms nowadays, traverses the full depth of the house and opens into spacious chambers on each side. The chief rooms have round arched doorways and narrow double doors, heavily panelled. All the panelling, in fact, is heavy. The single doors of the first floor are surmounted by handsome pediments. There are deep panelled window seats in the ground floor rooms and the windows have exceptionally broad and heavy muntins. The breadth of the fireplaces, faced with dark Scotch marble, and the massiveness of the wainscotting correspond with the other features. Throughout the house all the woodwork, which is said to have been fetched from England, though handsomely wrought, is heavy and most substantial. Midway back in the hall a flattened arch springs from fluted pilasters with capitals of a peculiar design. The stairway, which is remarkably good, and strongly suggests an old English arrangement, ascends laterally from the rear hall. Back of the house a wide, brick-paved porch connects with another building where were the servants’ quarters and kitchens—an arrangement characteristic of the period.