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Published: January 6th 2016
Mercer Castle
A childhood fantasy in concrete in PennsylvaniaToday was a pretty bittersweet day. My trip is almost over. It was way too short, but it’s all I could afford this year. I still had one day left and I intended to make the most of it.
Last night, I commented how my hotel could serve as the set for a 70s horror movie. Well, when I went to settle my account this morning, I found a police cruiser parked in front of the entryway. I have no idea why it was there, because I didn’t ask. I quickly paid my bill and got out of there.
First thing, I needed some food. That’s surprisingly hard on a Sunday in King of Prussia, which is all office parks. What it does have is the
Court and Plaza of King of Prussia, the largest mall on the east coast and the second largest in the country (the Mall of America in Minnesota is larger). With its vast array of stores, I figured I could find something better than fast food. I got quite a workout walking its sprawling maze of corridors, but finally found what I wanted.
After the mall, I drove through Bucks County to Doylestown. Bucks County is southeast Pennsylvania’s version
of the Hamptons, a playground for the wealthy. Seemingly every town features chic art galleries, upscale clothing stores, trendy restaurants, painfully pretty architecture, and streets clean enough to eat on. Doylestown is the largest town and county seat.
I visited this area to view one of the strangest sites in Pennsylvania, the home of
Henry Mercer. Victorian age wealthy had a reputation for being slightly eccentric. Henry Mercer was so eccentric he made most others look dull by comparison. He built a singular dwelling that reflected his interests very well.
His first passion after college was anthropology. He came to believe that American industrialization would wipe out the skills of hand-made crafts that had been passed down since colonial days. To counteract this, he documented folk skills, and collected tools and other implements in vast amounts. Eventually Mercer opened a
museum in Doylstown to house his collection, which still exists.
After anthropology, he became fascinated by ceramic tiles. He collected them by the thousands. Ultimately, Mercer began designing his own and
learned to manufacture them. His tiles became very popular and he opened a factory.
A large inheritance from his aunt gave Mercer the means to fulfill another dream. Ever
since he visited Germany as a teenager, he had been fascinated with medieval castles. He dreamed of owning a castle of his own, that he would design and build himself. Starting in 1908, he fulfilled his dream in Doylestown by building Fronthill. Mercer lived in his house from its completion until his death in 1930. He had no heirs, so his will gave the house to Bucks County. The estate is now run as a public park, and the house is open for
guided tours. It ranks as one of the most
bizarre historic sites in the United States, and unmissable for history buffs.
Our guide started with a brief biography, and then described how Mercer built the castle. Unlike the European version, Mercer built his of concrete. He chose the material because it was easy to mold, fire proof, and strong. His design featured the latest technology, including electric lights, indoor plumbing, and telephones. Finally, every square inch of the place would be covered with his tiles, both those he created and those he had collected.
Mercer needed a crew of eight to build his castle. The group included a horse to power a winch, which received its own salary.
Rooms were roughly laid out using wooden boxes. These were covered in sand to create the final form. The tiles were then laid out upside down and pushed into the sand. Doing this well required working to elaborately drawn patterns, in reverse. Steel rods, water pipes, and wires were then inserted where needed. Finally, the concrete was poured. After it had hardened sufficiently, the workers moved to the next floor and repeated the process. Mercer greatly appreciated the skill of his workers, and included their names in his tile patterns for the house. At the end of the project, he also collected all their tools and hung them over a stairwell in a net.
The house today appears as a surreal gothic fantasy. Tiles appear on every surface in every room, including the ceiling and floors. They come in every shape and color imaginable, from tiny squares to huge mosaics put together like jigsaw puzzles. Mercer decorated the library with tiles that illustrate the settlement of the US. The floor of the main dining room contains a huge mosaic of the Western Hemisphere, surrounded by the crests of all nations in the map.
The guides point out which
Michener tribute
Tribute to James A. Michener, outside the art museum he founded. tiles were Mercer's and which came from elsewhere. Many of the latter are now so rare they literally can’t be valued. A wall in the living room contains a set of ancient clay tablets. They are from
ancient Sumeria, one of the oldest forms of writing known. This is only set in existence outside a major museum. One stairwell contains tiles from the Arabian Peninsula. Mercer apparently was not a fan, but knew their value and collected them. A Muslim scholar who visited once identified the writing on the tiles as from the Koran, and noticed that Mercer installed the tiles backwards.
The upper floor shows Mercer had a mean sense of humor. Proper gentlemen in that era were expected to have guests over and entertain regularly. While Mercer followed those rules, nothing implied he had to like them. In summer, Mercer often had parties on a balcony near the top of the house. His servants would lay out a buffet in the adjoining room. This room is decorated with tiles illustrating an apocryphal tribe from South America that practiced cannibalism! Don’t even ask how he decorated the guest bedrooms, especially those intended for single women. The guides will point out the details of the tiles (with some disgust) if asked.
After the castle, I found time to squeeze in the
Michener Art Museum. In 1998 famous author James Michener, a Doylestown native, offered to donate funds for an art museum if the county could find at least 40 people willing to donate art work. The museum is located in a century old building that was once the county jail. It’s pretty small, so I only needed an hour to see it all. I enjoyed the visit, but wouldn’t plan a trip around it.
Like another regional art museum I saw on this trip, Westmoreland, the emphasis of the
collection is on art from the region. The rest is much weaker. Bucks County was a center of
American Impressionism, and the museum has examples of most area artists. As noted back in New Britain, the movement was essentially conservative, after the French Impressionists had proven popular. One standout was
The Burning of Center Bridge by Edward Redfield, a painting of a bridge over the Delaware River on fire. The disaster was quite newsworthy in Southeast Pennsylvania, and the painting became locally famous as a result.
The Michener marked my last sight of the trip. The next part became a blur of highways and traffic with one exception, a stop at a supermarket. I had a craving for
TastyKakes. Philadelphia is home the Tasty Baking Company, which makes dozens of varieties of cupcakes filled with cream and covered in frosting. They are the most addictive junk food ever invented. The Philadelphia area has the widest variety, and I always stop for some. I bought enough to last over a month.
Connecticut held my last historic site of the trip, and certainly the most unusual. In the early 1920s, southwest Connecticut was choked with car traffic. The state decided to build a new road to speed people though. It was deliberately designed to be beautiful, with flower beds, lots of trees, bridges designed by prominent architects, and lots of curves to show it all off. It also featured what we now know as highway intersections so the traffic would flow smoothly. Planners considered it a long park with a road in the middle, so they called it the
Meritt Parkway.
The state has maintained the parkway incredibly well over the years, so it still resembles the early days. All but two of the bridges are original. The highway has a green buffer on either side, so drivers don't even see the surrounding tract housing and golf courses. It has one painful difference from the 1930s, though. Back then, a car could go 45 miles per hour max. Now, some drivers go close to double that, and all those pretty curves have become safety hazards. Cars drive this road in large packs, and safely navigating them requires considerable skill. A trip on the Meritt is both an incredible trip through time and really taxing.
Just south of Hartford, I ate dinner at the
Town Line Diner. This is yet another classic 24 hour diner heavily patronized by locals. The owner will greet you by name after you eat here a few times. The food consists of classic American comfort food with some Greek specialties. Be sure to save room for dessert, which is very good and served in large portions.
After dinner, I drove home to Boston. Soon after passing the Massachusetts border, I received a little insult from the weather gods. For every day but the first, I had remarkably good weather; it rained mostly when I wasn’t driving and the air was warm enough to drop the top day and night. Now, the sky started dripping and forced me to close the roof for good. Further east it downright poured. I found out later that at home the entire week had been like this. A little downer to an otherwise remarkable trip.
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Home and Away
Bob Carlsen
I've enjoyed reading about your travels around the mid Atlantic...
and thanks for going back to 2009. I look forward to your filling the gaps since then.