Sweetbriar Hall Plaque
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Sweetbriar is a Neoclassical mansion in the
Federal style Federal-style architecture is the name for the classical architecture built in the United States following the American Revolution between 1780 and 1830, and particularly from 1785 to 1815, which was influenced heavily by the works of And ...
built in 1797 in West
Fairmount Park Fairmount Park is the largest municipal park in Philadelphia and the historic name for a group of parks located throughout the city. Fairmount Park consists of two park sections named East Park and West Park, divided by the Schuylkill River, w ...
,
Philadelphia Philadelphia ( ), colloquially referred to as Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania, most populous city in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and the List of United States cities by population, sixth-most populous city in the Unit ...
. The mansion was built by Samuel Breck and named for the roses that grew on the property.Historical Society of Pennsylvania - Who built Sweetbriar Mansion in 1797?
/ref> The interior includes a double parlor and floor-to-ceiling windows with sweeping views of the
Schuylkill River The Schuylkill River ( , ) is a river in eastern Pennsylvania. It flows for U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map(). accessed April 1, 2011. from Pottsville, Pennsylvania, Pottsville ...
. Period pieces include Chinese armorial porcelain,
Hepplewhite George Hepplewhite (1727? – 21 June 1786) was a cabinetmaker. He is regarded as having been one of the "big three" English furniture makers of the 18th century, along with Thomas Sheraton and Thomas Chippendale. There are no pieces of furn ...
and
Sheraton style Sheraton is a late 18th-century Neoclassical English furniture style, in vogue 1785–1820, that was coined by 19th-century collectors and dealers to credit furniture designer Thomas Sheraton, whose books, ''The Cabinet Dictionary'' (1803) of e ...
chairs, and
Adam style The Adam style (also called Adamesque or the Style of the Brothers Adam) is an 18th-century neoclassical style of interior design and architecture, as practised by Scottish architect William Adam and his sons, of whom Robert (1728–1792) and ...
furniture.
Wedgwood Wedgwood is an English China (material), fine china, porcelain and luxury accessories manufacturer that was founded on 1 May 1759 by the potter and entrepreneur Josiah Wedgwood and was first incorporated in 1895 as Josiah Wedgwood and Sons L ...
jasperware Jasperware, or jasper ware, is a type of pottery first developed by Josiah Wedgwood in the 1770s. Usually described as stoneware, it has an unglazed matte "biscuit" finish and is produced in a number of different colours, of which the most com ...
and fireplaces with delicate plaster decorations were influenced by discoveries in the ancient houses of
Pompeii Pompeii ( ; ) was a city in what is now the municipality of Pompei, near Naples, in the Campania region of Italy. Along with Herculaneum, Stabiae, and Villa Boscoreale, many surrounding villas, the city was buried under of volcanic ash and p ...
. Bird prints by
John James Audubon John James Audubon (born Jean-Jacques Rabin, April 26, 1785 – January 27, 1851) was a French-American Autodidacticism, self-trained artist, natural history, naturalist, and ornithology, ornithologist. His combined interests in art and ornitho ...
and paintings by William Birch decorate the walls. The house was operated by the Modern Club of Philadelphia from 1939 to 2014. It has been closed while undergoing renovations as the city looks for a new organization to maintain it.


See also

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List of houses in Fairmount Park __NOTOC__ This list contains all of the extant historic houses located in Fairmount Park in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Most of the houses are referred to as mansions due to their size and use as the summer country estates of Philadelphia's affl ...


References


Bibliography

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External links


Official Fairmount Park website
History of Sweetbriar Mansion *
Historic American Buildings Survey The asterisk ( ), from Late Latin , from Ancient Greek , , "little star", is a Typography, typographical symbol. It is so called because it resembles a conventional image of a star (heraldry), heraldic star. Computer scientists and Mathematici ...
(HABS) documentation: ** **{{HABS , survey=PA-6184 , id=pa3427 , title=Schuylkill River Villas , data=18 , link=no of historical context
Historic Photographs of Sweetbriar
''Philly''History.org Philadelphia Register of Historic Places Houses completed in 1797 Federal architecture in Pennsylvania Houses in Fairmount Park Houses on the National Register of Historic Places in Philadelphia Historic American Buildings Survey in Philadelphia West Fairmount Park