Photo: Historic American Building Survey, accessed Otober, 2025.
Graeme Park features a rare surviving mansion house from early colonial America, originally conceived as a utilitarian structure that later became a Georgian-styled centerpiece of a country retreat. The three-story stone building, measuring approximately sixty feet in length and thirty-five feet wide, was built around 1722 on Lieutenant Governor Sir William Keith's 1,735-acre Pennsylvania plantation, initially envisioned as a malt house for alcohol production.
The property underwent several transformations throughout its history. Governor Keith constructed the building between 1719 and 1722, declaring his intention to build a distillery and brewery. However, the structure remained largely unfinished during his ownership. In 1739, Dr. Thomas Graeme, Keith's son-in-law, purchased the plantation for 760 pounds and undertook extensive renovations between 1755 and 1764, transforming the utilitarian building into a high-style Georgian summer dwelling that eventually became the family's year-round residence.
After Dr. Graeme's death in 1772, his daughter Elizabeth Graeme Fergusson inherited the estate. A well-known Philadelphia poet and intellectual, Fergusson established an influential salon at Graeme Park that became a gathering place for important ideologues of the American Revolution, including Benjamin Rush and Francis Hopkinson. Her salon served as a forum for developing republican thought and refined intellectual discourse, initially meeting at the family's Philadelphia residence before relocating to the Horsham country house.
Fergusson conceived of Graeme Park as an appropriate backdrop for intellectual contemplation, creating a controlled pastoral landscape that she believed embodied nature's virtue. She maintained active control over the estate's farming operations, landscape design, and daily activities, exemplifying the republican ideal of the noble farmer. Her poetry frequently referenced the estate's natural setting, using classical pastoral allusions to transform the Pennsylvania landscape into literary spaces like Parnassus and Tempe.
The mansion house is constructed of red sandstone with a gambrel roof rising thirty-five feet from the ground. The north facade, the most formal of the four exterior walls, features neatly coursed stonework with quoined corners and six bays arranged to provide visual balance. The building contains three floors plus a cellar and attic, organized around a central entry and stairhall on the north side. The interior showcases high-quality Georgian woodwork, particularly in the parlor and chamber above, which feature full wall paneling, elaborate entablatures, decorative mantels, and crosetted door and window frames with pediments.
Following Fergusson's financial difficulties and eventual sale of the property to Dr. William Smith in 1791, the estate passed through several owners including the Penrose family, who constructed a new primary dwelling in 1810 and used the eighteenth-century house for storage and temporary occupation. In 1920, Welsh Strawbridge purchased the property, and in 1958, the Strawbridge family donated the house and forty-two adjacent acres to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Extensive restoration work was undertaken after 1958, including repairs to stonework, replacement of the roof, structural reinforcement, and careful restoration of interior woodwork and finishes.
Graeme Park represents a unique example of architectural adaptation and cultural history. The transformation from utilitarian malt house to Georgian mansion reflects the evolving aspirations of colonial American society. More significantly, the estate served as an intellectual crucible where enlightened discourse on republicanism flourished under Elizabeth Fergusson's leadership. The salon at Graeme Park contributed to the development of revolutionary ideology by providing a space where classical republican theory, Enlightenment philosophy, and Christian virtue could be explored and celebrated. The site remains a valued cultural landscape, offering insight into early American architecture, intellectual life, gender roles, and the development of republican ideals that would shape the American Revolution.
† Adapted from: Graeme Park documentation, Historic American Building Survery (HABS No.PA-579). www.loc.gov, accessed October, 2025.
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