Colonial Americans, if they could afford it, liked to emulate the fashions of London and the style and manners of English country society while at the same time thinking of themselves as distinctly American. The houses they built reflected this ongoing cultural tension. By the mid-eighteenth century, Americans had developed their own version of the bourgeois English countryseat, a class of estate equally distinct in social function and form from townhouses, rural plantations, and farms. The metropolis of Philadelphia was surrounded by a particularly extraordinary collection of country houses and landscapes. Taken together, these estates make up one of the most significant groups of homes in colonial America.In this masterly volume, Mark E. Reinberger, a senior architectural historian, and Elizabeth McLean, an accomplished scholar of landscape history, examine the country houses that the urban gentry built on the outskirts of Philadelphia in response to both local and international economic forces, social imperatives, and fashion. What do these structures and their gardens say about the taste of the people who conceived and executed them? How did their evolving forms demonstrate the persistence of European templates while embodying the spirit of American adaptation? The Philadelphia Country House explores the myriad ways in which these estates which were located in the country but responded to the ideas and manners of the city straddled the cultural divide between urban and rural. Moving from general trends and building principles to architectural interiors and landscape design, Reinberger and McLean take readers on an intimate tour of the fine, fashionable elements found in upstairs parlors and formal gardens. They also reveal the intricate working world of servants, cellars, and kitchen gardens. Highlighting an important aspect of American historic architecture, this handsome volume is illustrated with nearly 150 photographs, more than 60 line drawings, and two color galleries.
Acknowledgments Note to Reader Introduction Part I 1. The Bourgeois Country House in England The Changing Nature of the English Gentry The Rearrangement of the House Country House and Town House The Compact House in the Seventeenth Century Seventeenth-Century English Landscape and Gardens The ""Reform"" of Eighteenth-Century English Architecture and Lands 2. The Bourgeois Country House in the Colonies Colonial Architecture at Pennsylvania's Founding The Later Colonial Bourgeois Country House The Colonial Landscape 3. The Rise of the Philadelphia Country House William Penn and the Country Life The Lure of the Country in the First Generation, 16821722 Hiatus in the 1730s 4. Fulfillment in the Middle and Late Colonial Periods A New Generation of Country Seats The Proliferation of Country Seats in the 1740s and 1750s The General Character and Use of Country Seats at Midcentury The Flowering of the 1760s and Denouement in the 1770s Part II 5. The Process of Design and Building Design and Drawing The Process of Building Labor Chapter Elements of Landscape and Architecture Landscape Architectural Exteriors Interiors Framing Urban and Rural 7. Organizing the Fabric Proportion Hierarchy Room Use and Parade 8. The Logic of Service Spaces Service Spaces The Working Landscape and Agriculture Part III 9. Diversity in the First Generation of Country Houses William Penn's Pennsbury Manor Fairhill Belair Fountain Low (Later Graeme Park) 10. Establishing an Architectural Norm Stenton The Progeny of Stenton, Especially Hope Lodge 11. The New Ideal of the Villa Springettsbury Bush Hill Belmont The New Ideal of Retirement 12. An Explosion and Variety of Country Houses at Midcentury Woodford The Jacob Marks House and Whitby Hall Cedar Grove, The Cliffs, Grumblethorpe, Mount Airy, Bartram's House and Garden Fountain Low to Graeme Park 13. The Flowering of the 1760s Mount Pleasant Port Royal Cliveden 14. Denouement Laurel Hill Waln Grove Summerseat The Deshler-Morris House The Thomas Mifflin House (with an Aside on Smith's Octagon) Chalkley Hall The Hills Lansdowne Conclusion Appendix Notes Essay on Sources Index
""For the importance of its subject, the intelligence of its argument, and its visual quality, this is the best book on the architectural history of British colonial America.""
