"Historic Houses of Philadelphia" brings the region's most impressive museum homes to life with maps, touring information, and historical notes on 50 distinctive homes. 160 photos, 150 in color.

Mr. Thompson Westcott, the author, is perfectly at home on this subject, having written "The Guide Book to Philadelphia," and a history of the city. In the present volume, he has given a description of all the interesting historic buildings of the city, e.g. Penn’s Cottage, Swedes’ Church, Bartram’s House, Christ Church, Independence Hall, the Slate Roof House or Mount Pleasant, together with a notice of their owners and occupants.

West of the Schuylkill River, what was once Blockley and Kingsessing Townships is now West Philadelphia. Here is a comprehensive look at the rich architectural history of neighborhoods in and around University City and biographies of the architects who made it possible. In more than 500 images, see this area of the "City of Brotherly Love" transition from humble beginnings as a collection of sprawling farms and dusty hamlets to a streetcar suburb for upwardly mobile types looking to escape the old city and a haven for esteemed educational institutions. Packed with archival images, maps, and color photos, the book covers Cedar Park to Powelton Village, chronicling the charm and elegance found in West Philadelphia's architecture, much of which is still on public display. Examples include Second Empire, Victorian, Queen Anne, Collegiate Gothic, and Italianate styles. This is a global and historic review ideal for architects, urban planners, historians, and of course residents of Blockley and Kingsessing.

Officially known as Washington Square Park, Philadelphia’s Society Hill district contains an impressive number of eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century houses—perhaps as many as any other comparable area in the United States. This book presents, in text and pictures, the stories of its outstanding Colonial and Early American mansions and dwellings and simple row houses; its churches and other exceptional historic buildings. Old Philadelphia Houseson Society Hill contains both notes and illustrations on the design and architectural details of early Philadelphia row houses. There are also enlightening chapters devoted to such famous places as Bell’s Court, the Drinker House and Drinker’s Court, the Head House and Old Market, the Hill-Physick-Keith House and the Latta House, Old Pine Street Church and the Pennsylvania Hospital, the Man Full of Trouble Inn and many others, all complemented by photos. Featured are the uses of brick and the traditional design and decoration of the period’s interiors, showing antique furniture and prevailing modes of interior decoration. The 150 photographs strike a nice balance of exteriors and interiors, showing characteristic basics and details of structure and charming furniture pieces and accessories of old-time daily living. Tidbits of information concerning such personages as George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Dr. Benjamin Rush and other eminent Americans are scattered throughout the book.

Reprint of the original, first published in 1877.

Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We have not used OCR(Optical Character Recognition), as this leads to bad quality books with introduced typos. (2) In books where there are images such as portraits, maps, sketches etc We have endeavoured to keep the quality of these images, so they represent accurately the original artefact. Although occasionally there may be certain imperfections with these old texts, we feel they deserve to be made available for future generations to enjoy.