18th century AD

To the north and to the west of Philadelphia along the Schuylkill River is an area known in the colonial period as Liberty Lands. In the eighteenth century, as an incentive for prospective settlers, William Penn offered tracts of eighty acres in Liberty Lands to anyone who purchased at least five thousand acres elsewhere in Pennsylvania. The area is not that far from the center of the city, and it was well worth the trip, for, in the words of Samuel Breck, the owner of the country estate Sweetbriar, "The prospect consists of a river, animated by its great trade carried on in boats of about thirty tons, drawn by horses; of a beautiful sloping lawn, terminating at that river ... of side-screen woods; of gardens, greenhouse, etc." The country retreats built there were seen as an escape not only from the heat of the city in summer, but also from exposure to diseases that decimated urban populations.

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This large parcel was incorporated into Philadelphia in 1855, when Fairmount Park was built there to protect the city's water supply from being encroached on. At that time many houses that already stood in the park were converted to other uses. In many cases, this saved them from being radically altered--a fate that often befalls houses with a succession of owners.

Objects associated with eight of these eighteenth-century country houses form the loan exhibition at the Philadelphia Antiques Show on view at the Thirty-third Street Armory from April 8 through 12. The antiques show, which is highly regarded for the consistently high quality of the Americana on offer, is also justifiably esteemed for its thoughtful loan exhibitions, nearly always revolving around the City of Brotherly Love. This year the loan show is entitled The Schuylkill Villas and includes forty-five objects, among them: furniture, paintings, ceramics, and photographs, from the following Fairmount Park houses: Cedar Grove (built c. 1750), Woodford (built c. 1756), Mount Pleasant (built 1762-1765), Laurel Hill (built c. 1767), Solitude (built 1784), Sweetbriar (built 1797), Strawberry Mansion (built 1788-1789), and Lemon Hill (built 1800). Since the late 1860s these houses have been used for a number of different purposes, among them housing the reptiles for the Philadelphia Zoo, a traffic court, a dairy, headquarters for a womens' automobile club, and a restaurant. Today they are under the jurisdiction of the City of Philadelphia's Fairmount Park Commission and are administered by a number of other organizations, including the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Modern Club, and the Colonial Dames of America.

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These elegant structures are built in a number of architectural styles and reflect the seminal role of influential British architects such as Robert Adam. Their furnishings reveal much about the lifestyles of the predominantly upper class eighteenth-century people who built them and their descendants.

A catalogue of the antiques show includes an essay on the loan exhibition by Joan Church Roberts. The curator of the exhibition is Fytie Ludington Drayton. Both of these ladies have been Fairmount Park House guides for forty-five years. The catalogue may be ordered by telephoning 215-387-3500.

COPYRIGHT 2006 Brant Publications, Inc.
COPYRIGHT 2008 Gale, Cengage Learning