Historic Houses and Beautiful Music

Greetings from my historic house, circa 1870, to yours! I took this photo after I got home this evening and turned on our little tree. However, this post is not about my house so read on.

Dale wanted another day to take care of computer troubles and clear off his desk and do some other chores in his "office" so I decided to tour some of the historic houses in Fairmount Park. For two weeks in December they are decorated as they would have been when they were first built and open for special holiday theme tours. I have either walked or driven by all of them before, and I know that they are beautiful and very interesting. However, this was the first time that I toured any of them. I had a perfectly delightful time, and I learned so much in the process. During the 18th and 19th centuries there were as many as 200 holiday homes in what is now Fairmount Park. They were built by the very wealthy of Philadelphia to escape the heat, disease, odors and pollution of the city. Unfortunately only a handful of them survive, but how fortunate we are to have these as living history lessons.

My first stop was Lemon Hill built as a holiday home for merchant Henry Pratt in 1800. It is the closest to Center City, and it has an amazing view of the Art Museum and the city skyline. Its unique interior features three oval rooms with oval windows and oval doors constructed from one piece of wood!

My next stop was the neo-classical beauty Mount Pleasant. John
Adams called this the most elegant home in Pennsylvania. This home was built at great expense between 1762 and 1765 to the exacting specifications of Scottish privateer Captain John MacPherson.


Ormiston was my next stop. This holiday home was built for Prothonotary Edward Burd in 1798.
He named it after his grandfather's estate near Edinburgh, Scotland. It is now maintained by the Royal Heritage Society, and it showcases the most amazing portrait of King George III that I have ever seen.

This central portion of this gorgeous home, Laurel Hill, was built for a wealthy widow, Rebecca Rawle, in 1767. The octagonal wing and the smaller wing on the left were added in the 19th century. The guides here were dressed in period costume and going about various preparations for both a wedding and Christmas festivities.

My last stop on today's tour was Cedar Grove. This country home was owned by five generations of Quaker women beginning with wealthy widow Elizabeth Coates Paschall in 1748-1750 and ending with Lydia Morris, of Morris Arboretum fame, in the early 20th century. The kitchen of this house is particularly special, and it was considered absolutely state of the art when the house was built.

Four more houses were open for holiday tours, but I simply did not have time for those. The Keystone State Boychoir was singing at the parish church in our neighborhood at 3 PM, and I did not want to miss that. I absolutely love the sound of a boychoir, and this 160 voice choir is renowned. They were, simply put, absolutely marvelous! If there are angels and if they sing, then this is what they must sound like.

It was also the first time I had ever been inside St. Francis Xavier, and I was most impressed with the windows, frescos, statuary and acoustics of this huge old church which was started in 1839.

The boys in the choir range in age from 8 - 18, and they have performed on ALL 7 continents. Yes, they really did sing in Antartica during a choir trip in 2010. This year they will be traveling to South Africa, and they shared two wonderful songs that they have prepared for the trip in addition to a repertoire of traditional and non-traditional Christmas songs. After the concert, many of them lined the aisle, the vestibule and the front steps of the church to shake hands and receive greetings from the audience. They were all so mature and poised and very cute, too.
Listening to them sing was the perfect way to end a beautiful Sunday afternoon, the last of my life as just a mother...

for tomorrow I will become a grandmother!
I wish my beautiful daughter, Ashley, an easy, swift delivery of an already much loved and most anticipated healthy baby girl.
She and Jason will make fantastic parents, and we all cannot wait to see them holding their little bundle of joy!