Wilson Eyre's Graced Places

From the T Square Club Exhibition, and Architectural Annual for the Year 1898

This poem is quoted to express the astonishment with which I greeted the very pretty, but very quaint house of Mr. Charles A. Potter, at the corner of Prospect and Evergreen avenues. The position of the house is a good one for displaying its unique beauty, at the junction of two avenues, and so arranged as to command both. A nice lawn extends itself before the mansion. The tile and shingle work on the exterior, the front gables and the quaint little balcony, and the upper front gable, and the sun dial, has each a peculiar charm of its own. One front gable bursts out from the other. There is a half-door at the front entrance, and a rustic seat in the front balcony. Anyone of the peculiar features of this dwelling would give a character to a house, but in combination they are like the characteristics of a great man who excels his neighbors in many ways. This strikes me as one of the quaintest and most picturesque houses in Chestnut Hill, and it is welcome in the variety which it gives. The material is brick below and tiles and shingles above.The shingles have an ancient look. There is a hipped-roof on a side gable.The front of the second story projects over the lower one. The house stands across the front of both Evergreen and Prospect avenues. One of the front gables is finished in white color. The building is a regular antique. A long,narrow window, one pane wide, cuts the bricks and shingles of the lower side of the front of the house. The windows are square-topped with black sash,though one upper front window is curved. This house reminds us of the new house of the great Dutch artist Alma Tadema, in London. It is described in a newspaper thus: "Its exterior presents in little bits nearly all the styles of all the ages, from the days of classic glory to the present time." Within this house the studio is beautiful and artistic, according to an illustrated volume which describes it.

Sketch of a Fireplace in Billiard Room(unknown) Bryn Mawr, PA 1901

H. Sophie Newcomb Memorial College Institute Chapel was designed by Wilson Eyre in 1894. In 1918 the college would relocate to the uptown campus of Tulane University leaving the chapel at 6th and Chestnut behind. It was torn down in 1954 but the stained glass windows, made by Louis Comfort Tiffany, would be saved. Today the windows can be seen at the Myra Clare Rogers Memorial Chapel and "Woodward-Way" the breezeway of the Newcomb College Woldenberg Art Center.

The Penn Museum was designed by an all-star team of philadelphia architects including, Wilson Eyre, Cope & Stewardson, and Frank Miles Day in 1893. Intended to be much grander than was ever completed, the original plan(pic 1) would fall victim to the Great Depression, never being fully realized and would eventually take on the unfortunate additions of Mitchell/Giurgola in the 60s and 70s.

Designed by Wilson Eyre for Rudolph Ellis, director of the Pennsylvania Railroad and president of the Fidelity Trust Company of Philadelphia, in 1910. Only the carriage house and part of the library survive today.

Designed in 1889 by Wilson Eyre, A.J. Drexel's "Thurso" only stood a short time until it was destroyed by fire. The land was sold off in 1914 to the Archdiocese of Philadelphia who built St. Vincents Orphanage/Archbishop Prendergast High School and later Monsignor Bonner High School. The carriage house from the Thurso estate still stands on the site today.

"The stable is new and built of frame, plastered and whitewashed to match the house. At one end is the laundry, and thence a pergola extends a distance of fifty feet and connects with a minor building comprising a toolhouse and woodshed. At each end of the pergola, in the corners of the buildings, are recesses which play the part of shelters or summer houses. These are important in connecting the stable and its balancing buildings with the house."

Designed by Wilson Eyre for Richard L. Ashurst in 1886. "Farwood" was done in the shingle style with tudor half-timbers.

Designed in 1903 by Wilson Eyre for Theodore Eaton Conklin, owner of T.E. Conklin Brass and Copper Company. 

The Henry Cochran house at 3511 Baring Street was designed by Wilson Eyre in 1891. It was built with horizontal lines, a low roof, and in the Italianate style.

"This large structure is constructed of New Jersey sandstone and was completed in 1912. Its irregular plan varies in height from one to three stories with numerous gable roofs. The main entrance is through a triple-arched portico. Windows are of various sizes and locations, both single and in pairs. The main house was designed by Wilson Eyre. A circular drive and lily pond is located at the front of the house. Significant interior features include oak paneling and hand carved fireplaces with hearths of Mercer Tiles. The main house is approximately 200 feet by 70 feet."

The Sally Watson House was designed by Wilson Eyre, Jr., a noted architect in Philadelphia in the later nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Eyre was an important architect of the “Shingle School,” and the Watson House is an excellent example of this style. Eyre designed a number of other buildings in Philadelphia, including the Museum of the University of Pennsylvania. The Watson House is an example of Eyre's early work and as such provides an invaluable resource in understanding his development. The Watson House also affords an excellent demonstration of the combination of diverse historical architectural styles characteristic of the era of creative eclecticism in American design. Eyre, of course, stands as a major practitioner of this school of architecture. For example, in The Sally Watson House he employed elements of the Queen Ann style, popular in late Victorian England and America, which drew upon earlier English Gothic and Medieval domestic architecture. These influenses are evident in the shingle treatment of the upper stories, contrasted with the rough stonework and large openings of the ground floor, as well as in the organizing of casement windows into groupings and the verticle accents of the chimneys, all of which are Romanesque in feeling. The Gothic bay window reveals yet another historical influense. The inclusion of a Renaissance stair hall shows another influence and is a surprising, yet completely successful, device of the architect. The addition of a landing with a reading nook is pure Romanticism. In sum, The Sally Watson House is an excellent example of Eyre's early work and is a successful example of a small country house strongly influenced by the historical periods which preceded it, but a unique and creative building in its own right. Eyre has happily integrated a variety of elements into a charming and intimate city dwelling which can still be appreciated today.

The Harriet Schaeffer house at 433 W. Stafford Street, designed by Wilson Eyre in 1888, is a shingle style cottage built out of Wissahickon schist and wooden framing.

Located at 305 Cooper Street, Camden, NJ. Built for Dr. Henry Genet Taylor in 1884 this house escaped demolition in the 1970s.

The Bedell or “William Bradford Residence” at 2134 Chestnut St., Philadelphia, PA was designed by Wilson Eyre in 1889. Today it houses a drug store on the first floor which altered the street level facade.

The hall stairway of the Charles Lang Freer house. Built in 1890 and located at 71 East Ferry Avenue in Detroit, Michigan.