Private Estates For The Public: The Management and Interpretation of American Country Houses As Public-Facing Properties

PRIVATE ESTATES FOR THE PUBLIC:
THE MANAGEMENT AND INTERPRETATION OF
AMERICAN COUNTRY HOUSES AS PUBLIC-FACING PROPERTIES
by
Cara Caputo
A thesis submitted to the Faculty of the University of Delaware in partial

fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in American Material
Culture.
Spring 2021
© 2021 Cara Caputo

All Rights Reserved
PRIVATE ESTATES FOR THE PUBLIC:
THE MANAGEMENT AND INTERPRETATION OF
AMERICAN COUNTRY HOUSES AS PUBLIC-FACING PROPERTIES
by
Cara Caputo
Approved: __________________________________________________________
J. Thomas Savage, M.A.
Professor in charge of thesis on behalf of the Advisory Committee
Approved: __________________________________________________________
Martin Brückner, Ph.D.
Director of the Winterthur Program in American Material Culture
Approved: __________________________________________________________
John A. Pelesko, Ph.D.
Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences
Approved: __________________________________________________________
Louis F. Rossi, Ph.D.
Vice Provost for Graduate and Professional Education and
Dean of the Graduate College
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This thesis would not have been possible without the support and guidance of
several individuals and institutions. First, I am extremely grateful to my advisor,
Thomas Savage, whose engaging presentation on English country houses during a
course on British design history initially sparked the inspiration for this project. Since
then, he has provided valuable guidance, sources, and conversations that helped shape
this thesis into its final product. Other significant contributions and direction came
from Martin Brückner, Thomas Guiler, Catherine Dann Roeber, Gregory Landrey, and
Jeff Groff. In addition to their help with this thesis, they have been endless sources of
knowledge during my time in the Winterthur Program and I am indebted to the
expertise and experience they have shared with me for the past two years.
A large debt of gratitude is due to Joanie Mackie, the family liaison for the
Ardrossan Estate. Without her willingness to share her family’s stories and graciously
opening the doors of Ardrossan—both literally and figuratively—to me, this thesis
would not have been possible. Her intimate knowledge of the interiors and her passion
for preserving the house for future generations provided another layer to my research
and allowed me to better communicate the importance of the estate within this project.
My understanding of Ardrossan is also due to the help of David Nelson Wren, whose
extensive knowledge of the property was integral to this project.
I also wish to thank the staff at each case study’s institution who facilitated and
supported my exploration of each property’s institutional history despite limitations on
research due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Access to the Winterthur Museum’s
iii
archives was made possible by Heather Clewell, Emily Guthrie, Sarah Lewis, and
Carley Altenburger. The help of Lauren Henry at the Biltmore Estate was especially
integral as I was unable to travel to and conduct research at the estate’s archives. Her
assistance, along with that of Jill Hawkins, made the inclusion of Biltmore as a case
study possible and I am extremely grateful for their continued assistance throughout
the research process. Meanwhile, through Winterthur’s Brock Jobe Student Travel,
Research, and Professional Development Fund and Susan Hill Dolan’s willingness to
provide a private tour, I was able to visit the Crane Estate on Castle Hill in Ipswich,
Massachusetts, an experience that deepened my understanding of the property.
Furthermore, Alison Bassett and Sarah Hayes facilitated my visit to the Trustees of
Reservations’ Archives and Research Center, which supplemented my visit to Castle
Hill with the site’s rich institutional archive. Throughout this unique research process,
Chase Markee was also a great source of help and I am grateful for her continued
support of WPAMC fellows during our time at Winterthur.
Of course, my classmates, the WPAMC Class of 2021, had a large impact on
my experience at Winterthur and the ways in which I think about and approach
material culture research. Whether during classes, museum visits, or even virtual field
trips, I thank them for sharing their perspectives with me and for always being willing
to talk through various aspects of this project. Finally, I wish to wholeheartedly thank
my family and friends who have supported me in every endeavor, offered much-
needed distractions from stress, and celebrated every success.
iv
TABLE OF CONTENTS
LIST OF FIGURES ....................................................................................................... vi

ABSTRACT .................................................................................................................. ix
Chapter
1 INTRODUCTION .............................................................................................. 1
2 THE STATE AND FUTURE OF THE COUNTRY HOUSE ......................... 12
3 ARDROSSAN: THE UNCERTAIN FATE OF A QUINTESSENTIAL

AMERICAN COUNTRY HOUSE .................................................................. 33
4 THE WINTERTHUR MUSEUM: AN EDUCATIONAL, NON-PROFIT ..... 52
5 THE BILTMORE ESTATE: A PRIVATE, FOR-PROFIT TOURIST

ATTRACTION................................................................................................. 75
6 CASTLE HILL: A MODEL OF EDUCATION, ENTERTAINMENT, AND

LAND CONSERVATION ............................................................................... 98
7 CONCLUSION .............................................................................................. 122
FIGURES ................................................................................................................... 129

REFERENCES ........................................................................................................... 151
Appendix
A IMAGE PERMISSIONS ................................................................................ 162
v
LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1. The Lynnewood Estate in Elkins, Pennsylvania serves as an example of a

“lost” American country house. This Trumbauer-designed country
house is devoid of furnishings and has passed through several owners.
It remains unoccupied and in disrepair to the current day. Image
courtesy of James Kelleher.................................................................... 129
Figure 2. Graph tracking the number of English country houses demolished since
1800. The 1930s to 1960s is clearly identified as a critical period in
which hundreds of English country houses were “lost” each decade.
Image courtesy of Matthew Beckett / Lost Heritage
(www.lostheritage.org.uk). .................................................................... 130
Figure 3. The front facade of the Ardrossan Estate. Photograph by Steve Gunther
and published in Ardrossan: The Last Great Estate on the
Philadelphia Main Line. Image courtesy of Bauer and Dean
Publishing. ............................................................................................. 131
Figure 4. Ardenrun Place, the English country house that inspired Ardrossan.
Image published in Country Life. This image is in the Public Domain. 132
Figure 5. The dining room of Ardrossan, featuring Grinling Gibbons-inspired

woodwork approve the fireplace. Photograph by Steve Gunther and
published in Ardrossan: The Last Great Estate on the Philadelphia
Main Line. Image courtesy of Bauer and Dean Publishing. .................. 133
Figure 6. The rear wall of Ardrossan's sitting room, featuring the Montgomery's
familial coat of arms above the doorway. Photograph by Steve
Gunther and published in Ardrossan: The Last Great Estate on the
Philadelphia Main Line. Image courtesy of Bauer and Dean
Publishing. ............................................................................................. 134
Figure 7. Ardrossan's "ballroom," which features several portraits of family

members. Photograph taken by the author in 2021. .............................. 135
vi
Figure 8. The Meet at Ardrossan, Christmas Day, 1925 by Charles Morris Young.
Photograph by Tom Crane and published in Ardrossan: The Last
Great Estate on the Philadelphia Main Line. Image courtesy of Bauer
and Dean Publishing. ............................................................................. 136
Figure 9. Examples of Charlotte Montgomery's needlepoint works that feature

Ardrossan's interiors. Photograph by Tom Crane and published in
Ardrossan: The Last Great Estate on the Philadelphia Main Line.
Image courtesy of Bauer and Dean Publishing. .................................... 137
Figure 10. Exterior of the Winterthur Museum in the current day. Image courtesy of
Wikimedia Commons. This image is in the Public Domain. ................ 138
Figure 11. Front and back of the applications used to visit Winterthur prior to its
opening as a museum in 1951. Courtesy, Winterthur Library:
Winterthur Archives. ............................................................................. 139
Figure 12. Cover of the November 1951 Winterthur issue of the Magazine
Antiques. Vol. LXI, No. 5. Photograph taken by the author in 2021. ... 140
Figure 13. A group of four guests participating in the first iteration of tours at the
Winterthur Museum. “Winterthur, Adventure in the Past,” 1963.
Courtesy, Winterthur Library: Winterthur Archives. ............................ 141
Figure 14. Photograph of visitors in the mid-twentieth century viewing the spiral
staircase in the courtyard of the Château de Blois in the Loire Valley,
France. This building served as partial inspiration for Biltmore’s
architectural design. Image courtesy of Granger Academic. ................ 142
Figure 15. Front Façade of the Biltmore House, the main house on the Biltmore
Estate designed by Richard Morris Hunt for George Washington
Biltmore II. Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division,
Detroit Publishing Company Collection. This image is in the public
domain. .................................................................................................. 143
Figure 16. Pages from the Biltmore House Guide, 1930. Courtesy of the Biltmore
Estate Archives. Used with permission from The Biltmore Company,
Asheville, North Carolina...................................................................... 144
Figure 17. Plaque depicting the deed between Maskonomett and John Winthrop Jr.,
which is mounted on the southeast side of the Great House.
Photograph taken by the author in 2020. ............................................... 145
vii
Figure 18. Front view of Castle Hill, which was inspired by the Belton House
(Lincolnshire). Photograph taken by the author in 2020. ...................... 146
Figure 19. Rear view of Castle Hill, which was inspired by the Ham House
(Surrey). Castle Hill on the Crane Estate Stewardship Files. Image
courtesy of The Trustees of Reservations, Archives and Research
Center. ................................................................................................... 147
Figure 20. One of the two Griffin Statues created by Paul Manship in the Art Deco-
style and gifted to Richard Crane by Crane Company Employees in
1928. Photograph taken by the author in 2020. ..................................... 148
Figure 21. First page of a document sent to the Trustees by Crane’s son, Cornelius
Crane, entitled, “Some Non-impossible Uses of the Crane
Reservation.” David C. Crockett Papers (CH.MS.Coll.5). Image
courtesy of Trustees of Reservations Archives and Research Center. .. 149
Figure 22. “Important English Furniture, Other Valuable Art Property from the
Estate of the Late Florence H. Crane on the Premises of Castle Hill at
Ipswich, Mass.” Parke-Bernet Galleries, New York 1950. Image
courtesy of Trustees of Reservations Archives and Research Center. .. 150
viii
ABSTRACT
As a distinct category of historic house museums and significant repositories of

material, architectural, and social history, country houses are an important aspect of a
nation’s cultural heritage. In the context of America, the sprawling estates that once
served as the private homes of late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century
industrialists now provide windows into the domestic lifestyles of the nation’s Gilded
Age elite for twenty-first-century visitors. While scholars have studied the various
afterlives of English country houses, the transitions of American country houses into
public-facing properties have received less attention. This thesis utilizes case studies
to assess the various management models and interpretive strategies employed by
three American country houses (the Winterthur Museum, the Biltmore Estate, and the
Crane Estate on Castle Hill) as they transitioned from private estates to more
accessible public sites in the mid-twentieth century. By tracing the decisions made at
these properties during their institutional origins, this thesis not only evaluates each
transition’s lasting impact on the present-day iteration of these country houses but also
identifies valuable strategies that can be applied to country houses and other historic
houses that may be struggling to survive in the twenty-first century, including the
Ardrossan Estate. As it is unsustainable for Ardrossan to remain in private family
ownership, the property faces an uncertain future and this thesis ultimately identifies
and suggests avenues to ensure Ardrossan’s sustainability into the future as a public-
facing property.
ix
Chapter 1
INTRODUCTION
In October of 1936, The Times reported on the National Trust’s new
organizational model, eventually finalized as the National Trust Acts of 1937 and
1939, that would create “a stronger National Trust” and usher in a new era of country
house ownership in England.1 The article cites the growing difficulty for historic
houses and estates to be preserved under private ownership and states that the “public
ownership of everything…is a policy that has eager advocates.”2 These acts proposed
a “scheme” in which owners would transfer their properties to the Trust, allowing
them to avoid estate duties and the financial burden of upkeep while continuing to live
on the property. In exchange, the public would be allowed a greater degree of access
to the property.3 The Times argued that the public would greatly benefit from this
arrangement as their access to the estates’ “treasures” would be preserved under the
nature that “makes the difference between a dwelling and a museum, a country place
1"A Stronger National Trust," Times, October 20, 1936, The Times Digital Archive,
accessed December 21, 2020.
2 “A Stronger National Trust,” Times, October 20, 1936.
3 See the conditions of the National Trust Acts of 1937 and 1939 in “The National
Trust Acts 1907-1971,” https://nt.global.ssl.fastly.net/documents/download-national-
trust-acts-1907-1971-post-order-2005.pdf.
1
and a public playground.”4 This phrasing clearly separates a private home and public
museum into two distinctive categories and suggests an impossibility for these
properties to simultaneously exist in both categories. However, when applied to
country homes and estates around the globe, the line between private and public has
been and continues to be blurred in various ways, especially with regards to how the
property is managed and interacts with the public.
The country house is often considered as a unique sub-category of the historic
house museum, and even houses that are not strictly “museums,” such as those that
remain private family homes like Blenheim Palace, are frequently opened to the
public. Broad definitions of the museum also present an intriguing dichotomy between
the public and private sphere when applied to the country house. For example, the
International Council of Museums (ICOM) provides the following definition for a
museum:
Museums are not for profit. They are participatory and transparent, and work
in active partnership with and for diverse communities to collect, preserve,
research, interpret, exhibit, and enhance understandings of the world, aiming to
contribute to human dignity and social justice, global equality and planetary
wellbeing.5
4“A Stronger National Trust,” The Times, October 20, 1936, emphasis added by the
author.
5“Museum Definition,” International Council of Museums, accessed December 2,
2021, https://icom.museum/en/resources/standards-guidelines/museum-definition/,
emphasis added by the author.
2
When ICOM released this definition in 2019, it received much criticism and
“unleashed a flurry of controversy from museum professionals all over the world.”6
Brenda Salguero examined these responses and one of the most common arguments
was that it was “too narrowly focused” as “not all museums are non-profits, after all.”7
In fact, the Merriam-Webster definition merely states that a museum is “an institution
devoted to the procurement, care, study, and display of objects of lasting interest or
value,” and is inclusive of privately-owned entities—whether owned by a family or a
private corporation.8 While these definitions differ on this aspect, both assert that the
main function of a museum is to gather, care for, and display objects for the benefit of
both present and future generations of the public. Whether a country house is owned
by a public entity or remains in private ownership, these properties nevertheless meet
this criterion as they have consistently acted as significant repositories of material
culture as well as large sources of architectural, social, and cultural knowledge for the
public, reinforcing the importance of the country house to the field of museum studies.
In her comprehensive survey of historic houses, Linda Young distinguishes the
country house from other historic houses, including those that fit into the categories of
6Brenda Salguero, “Defining the Museum: Struggling with a New Identity,” Curator:
The Museum Journal, May 2020, https://curatorjournal.org/virtual-issues/defining-the-
museum/.
7 Brenda Salguero, “Defining the Museum: Struggling with a New Identity.”
8“Museum,” Merriam-Webster, accessed February 2, 2021, https://www.merriam-
webster.com/dictionary/museum.
3
“hero” (someone deemed as important lived there), “design” (especially important
form, technique, or innovation), and “historic event or process.”9 Instead, she defines
the country house museum as the “product of multi-generational development of the
house, furnishings, collections, and gardens.”10 Her definition applies to country
houses across the globe, but the use of this term is particularly intriguing when applied
to English and American country houses as while one was born from the other, they
both deserve their own category and definition due to several distinctive differences in
these houses’ past and present.
Though English settlers brought the idea and implications of the country house
to America, the trajectory of country houses took varying paths in the two nations as
British estates have more consistently maintained their status as private, ancestral
homes (whether by remaining in private ownership or with the help of public entity,
such as the National Trust) whereas a majority of American country houses passed
through several hands before eventually being repurposed, most often as house
museums. When the model of the British country house was transported to America to
serve as a visual representation of one’s wealth and power, the very nature of the
country house inevitably changed due to the nation’s different cultural, governmental,
and tax systems. Therefore, the history, present, and future of American country
9Linda Young, “Is There a Museum in the House? Historic Houses as a Species of
Museum,” Museum Management and Curatorship 22, no. 1 (2007): 63.
10
Young, “Is There a Museum in the House? Historic Houses as a Species of
Museum,” 63.
4
houses deserve to not only be examined and studied as a separate category of the
“historic house” within museum studies, but also within its own national context as is
the case for its predecessor, the English country house, in order to better understand
and more definitively answer how these properties function in the current day. How
did the divergence between these two types of country houses affect their survival into
the twenty-first century? How does the trajectory of the American country house
manifest within current iterations of these properties and how is the public able to
access and interact with them?
While the trajectory and current state of the British country house has been and
continues to be thoroughly studied, the transition of American country houses into
public sites has received less attention. In fact, the field of “country house studies,” a
recent but burgeoning field at British universities, is dedicated to examining the rise,
fall, and revival of the English country house as well as the current dangers facing
these properties.11 Scholarship from this field, including David Cannadine’s The
Country House: Past, Present, and Future and Clive Aslet’s Old Homes, New Lives:
The Resurgence of the British Country House, places a renewed emphasis on the
relevance of these houses to twenty-first-century visitors. This thesis ultimately aims
to provide insight on the American perspective of this field and examines how certain
11 M.A programs dedicated to studying the British country house can be found at
Oxford University, the University of Buckingham, and the University of Leicester.
See projects supported by the Oxford Heritage Network for examples,
https://www.heritagenetwork.ox.ac.uk/research-projects-0#/.
5
American country houses’ transitions into public-facing institutions have impacted the
current iteration of these sites as well as attempting to glean insights from these
processes that can be applied to historic house museums that may be struggling to
survive or face an uncertain future.
Investigating the transitions and institutional origins of American country
houses raises several questions, including: What does the process of “museumization”
entail? Which management models did various houses decide to use? What decisions
were made regarding the site’s interpretation? Why is studying this process important?
This project attempts to answer these questions by closely examining and analyzing
the formative moments of certain American country houses that have employed
different management models when they transitioned to public-facing institutions in
the mid-twentieth century. The goal of this study is to not only highlight the lasting
impact these transitions have on the current identity and interpretation of these country
houses but to also consider how the decisions to create these public institutions
ultimately prevented the loss of these houses’ architectural, material, and cultural
histories.
Linda Young echoes this idea and reinforces the critical importance of
studying these transitional moments as she argues that transforming a private house
into a museum is “often an act of rescue and redemption.”12 Not only does turning a
12
Museum,” 59.
6
property into a museum save and preserve the house’s structure, grounds, and
collections for future generations, but the decision to turn a private property into an
accessible cultural site also requires selecting a new management model and creating a
public image for the property, both of which inevitably shape the public’s interactions
with and perceptions of the site. If these properties did not become public sites, each
house’s historical and cultural influence would be lost to history and inaccessible to
future scholars—a fate that has inevitably fallen on several American country houses
(fig. 1).13 Furthermore, the “loss” of a country house has a substantial impact on
material culture studies as selling or demolishing the house often entails the selling
and separation of its collections to museums, antique dealers, or private collectors. Not
only does this act jeopardize the degree of accessibility the public may have to these
objects, but the context of how these objects were once displayed—in an assemblage
of objects within a domestic space—is also lost.
In addition to considering what was “rescued” when these sites became public,
it is also necessary to contemplate what was created during the “redemption” of these
country houses as questions regarding the current state and future of American country
houses, especially their relevance to the public, can in part be traced to the site’s
13Examples of abandoned American country houses include: Lynnewood Hall (Elkins

Park, Pennsylvania), Elda Castle (Ossining, New York), Ashlar Hall (Memphis,
Tennessee), and Carleton Island Villa (Cape Vincent, New York)
7
origins as a public institution.14 The recent publication, Reimagining Historic House
Museums: New Approaches and Proven Solutions, encourages museum professionals
to rethink their current strategies in order to enhance sustainability, and the authors
repeatedly assert the importance of reflection as the first step of this process.
Analyzing the ways in which these sites have historically interacted with the public
will provide insight into how these initial decisions are connected to the site’s current
relationship with the public.15 Gaynor Kavanagh’s 1996 essay, “Making Histories,
Making Memories,” also largely informs the framework for this project. Kavanagh
redefines the historic site as not only a place of history-telling but of history-making.
She writes that “museums are a meeting ground for official and formal versions of the
past called histories, offered through exhibitions, and the individual or collective
accounts of reflective personal experience called memories, encountered during the
visitor or prompted because of it,” essentially identifying museums and historic sites
as places where cultural and personal knowledge is actively produced.16 This theory
14 The history of visiting British country houses and how these properties were
interpreted has been outlined in several works, including Adrian Tinniswood’s The
Polite Tourist: A History of Country House Visiting (2001) and The Long Weekend:
Life in the English Country House, 1918-1939 (2016). The visiting of American
country houses—both as private estates and public museums—has received little
attention.
15Kenneth Turino and Max Van Balgooy, Reimagining Historic House Museums:
New Approaches and Proven Solutions (New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 2019).
16
Gaynor Kavanagh, “Making Histories, Making Memories” in Making Histories in
Museums (London: Leicester University Press, 1996), 1.
8
emphasizes the value and significance of analyzing the narratives that have historically
been communicated at these properties—whether through informational materials,
tours, public programming, or marketing—as the current relevance of these sites to the
American public are inextricably tied to these initial interactions with the public.
As each country house is different and faces its own set of unique challenges,
this project utilizes case studies to track the development of three American country
houses that chose different business and management models during their institutional
origins in the mid-twentieth century and continue to operate under different models in
the current day. The three main case studies will include the non-profit Winterthur
Museum in Winterthur, Delaware; the privately owned, for-profit Biltmore Estate in
Asheville, North Carolina; and Castle Hill on the Crane Estate in Ipswich,
Massachusetts, which is managed by a private, non-profit land conservation
organization. As well as tracing these properties’ transitions into public-facing
properties, these case studies will also attempt to address the following questions:
How did these management decisions help create the current entity of the house? How
did these decisions impact visitors’ perceptions and interpretations of the house? What
are the future implications and challenges of these decisions?
The assessment of these country houses’ transitions will ultimately provide
insight on the future of a particular American country house that remains owned and
occupied by the family and whose future is uncertain: the Ardrossan Estate in
Villanova, Pennsylvania. As Ardrossan has become financially unsustainable to
remain in family ownership, examining the historical decisions that shaped the
9
ownership and management models used by three American country houses that
successfully transitioned into public institutions will generate possible strategies and
management models that would facilitate Ardrossan’s own transition into a sustainable
public site. This house faces the risk of having to be sold and as a result, its material
contents would be separated and ultimately removed from their context within
Ardrossan’s interiors and social history. Furthermore, the various challenges facing
the sustainability of historic house museums in America, including the recent financial
hardships created by the COVID-19 pandemic, have placed the survival of several
museums into question.17 As a result, it is as critical as ever to consider the
sustainability of historic house museums, which can, in part, be traced to the decisions
made during each site’s institutional origin. This project hopes to highlight how
various country house museums navigated their own foundational moments and asks
how today’s historic house museums can adapt these lessons from the mid-twentieth
century to a very uncertain twenty-first century.
To provide context on the American country house, the second chapter briefly
addresses the current state of the English country house, how it was emulated in
America, and how the American country house eventually diverged from its English
17In her 2007 work, New Solutions for House Museums: Ensuring the Long-Term
Preservation of America’s Historic Houses, Donna Ann Harris outlines various
challenges and threats facing American historic house museums, including an aging
board of directors, small endowments and little planned giving, and limited staff.
These issues can also broadly apply to the specific challenges facing American
country houses.
10
predecessor. The third chapter provides further detail on the Ardrossan Estate and a
note on the methodology and nature of sources used in the three subsequent case
studies clarifies how lessons from these properties’ transitions will be used to inform
and guide the possible future of Ardrossan as a sustainable public-facing institution.
The next three chapters focus on the formative moments of the Winterthur Museum,
the Biltmore Estate, and the Castle Hill Estate, respectively, as they transitioned from
private estates to public institutions. Each case study provides a brief history of the
property, a thorough examination of the site’s transition into a public-facing property,
including analyzing the decisions made by the sites’ founders as they created the
public-facing identity of their respective institutions, and finally, lessons, or actionable
items, that can be applied to Ardrossan’s current situation.
11
Chapter 2
THE STATE AND FUTURE OF THE COUNTRY HOUSE
The American country house is inherently connected to its English counterpart
as the very idea of the American country house was born from the English tradition to
use grand estates as a way to communicate one’s wealth and power. However, the
sustained practice of primogeniture and the system of aristocracy in England cemented
these properties as a noble family’s dynastic seat within the nation and essentially
elevated these properties into symbols of national heritage. In his 1974 essay, “The
Future of the Country House,” country house historian Marcus Binney underscores the
importance of this system as he argues that the survival of several English country
houses into the twentieth century is “largely due to the system of primogeniture” as
without it, “estates would long ago have been broken up, collections dispersed and
many of the houses themselves and their parks transformed out of
recognition.”18 Linda Young echoes these ideas as she argues that the very definition
of the country house is “deeply connected to the presence of a hereditary aristocracy in
which property inheritance was by primogeniture,” which ultimately made it “difficult
18Marcus Binney, “The Future of the Country House,” in The Destruction of the
Country House, ed. Roy Strong, Marcus Binney, and John Harris (London: Thames
and Hudson, 1974), 184.
12
to replicate in America.” 19 The systems of aristocracy and primogeniture were not
present or enduring, respectively, when the English country house was transported to
colonial America and interestingly, American country houses did, in fact, follow a
different trajectory than their English equivalents largely due to this dissimilarity.20
For instance, American industrialists implemented the idea of the country house
merely to imitate the upper-class lifestyle associated with the country estate and used
their grand estates as a physical representation of their wealth rather than aristocratic
and dynastic seats. As a result, these properties were rarely passed down
generationally and as they were not established ancestral homes, they are not
considered to be as vital to the nation’s cultural heritage as their British counterparts.
Despite these differences, country houses in both nations have left an
unmistakable mark on both the physical and cultural landscapes to which they belong
and consistently served the public in various ways. Therefore, the long, well-
established tradition of country house ownership and visiting in England, including the
period in the twentieth century that placed the survival of these pieces of cultural
fabric into question, provides a model to which the state of the American country
house can be compared. Why and in which ways did English country houses transition
19
Museum,” 61.
20These laws were applied to the British colonies, but primogeniture laws were
abolished throughout America by the end of the eighteenth century; several states
never recognized entail laws, but they are still partially practiced in the states of
Massachusetts, Delaware, Maine, and Rhode Island.
13
into public-facing properties? Which models of reuse and ownership were employed?
What can we learn about the state of the American country house from their English
predecessors? This chapter addresses these questions by providing a brief overview of
the English country house’s historical relationship with the public, the significant
period of “crisis” that forced English country house owners to rethink and readapt how
these properties were being used and managed in the mid-twentieth century, and the
threat facing private country houses in the present day before pivoting to the trajectory
of the American country house and how it differs.
The English Precedent: A Cautionary Tale?
The public aspect of the English country house dates to the seventeenth
century as grand palaces and stately homes were often popular destinations for
members of the upper and middle classes who wished to tour their impressive grounds
and material contents. In his work, The Polite Tourist, Adrian Tinniswood tracks the
tradition of visiting English country houses throughout four centuries and writes of the
country house’s evolving meaning to the British public: “to the seventeenth century, it
talked about power; to the eighteenth, taste; and to the twentieth, nostalgia for a world
we never lost because we never owned it.”21 These houses have continuously held
specific meanings for the nation’s public and served as popular destinations, elevating
these properties to integral aspects of the nation’s cultural heritage. In her work, The
21Adrian Tinniswood, The Polite Tourist: Four Centuries of Country House Visiting
(London: National Trust, 1998), 209.
14
Uses of Heritage, Laurajane Smith identifies country house visiting as an act of
heritage “in which the visitor considers they are participating in a national process of
maintaining values and historical meaning.”22 In a survey conducted at various
English country houses for the purposes of Smith’s research, visitors were asked
“What meaning does a place like this have in modern England?” Responses often
highlighted the connection of the house to the participants’ own national identities. For
instance, one male argued “Without [places like this] we would lose English identity
and history,” while a female respondent stated that “the past is important as we won’t
know who we are if we don’t know our past.”23 These responses help justify the
indelible mark these grand properties have left on both the nation’s physical and
cultural landscapes.
Despite the sustained importance of the country house to British heritage and
culture, the state of the English country house has faced periods of uncertainty and
decline, ultimately forcing owners to reposition and rebrand their properties as public
entities—a pattern that continues in the present day. Discussion and debate regarding
the “loss” and “destruction” of the country house have been present in scholarship
since the second half of the twentieth century with topics ranging from the financial
hardships facing the owners of these home, decreased public interest, and the more
recent criticism of the National Trust’s lack of dedication to these sites of cultural
22 Laurajane Smith, The Uses of Heritage (London: Routledge, 2006), 133.

23 Smith, The Uses of Heritage, 149.
15
heritage.24 Country house scholars, including Clive Aslet, Marcus Binney, and John
Harris, consider the so-called “decline” of the English country house to be primarily
due to the rise of taxation and modern industry in the late nineteenth century as well as
the simultaneous agricultural depression, which was caused by the significant fall of
grain prices that coincided with the increased use of steamships and lower
transportation costs.25 During this period, several country house owners were forced to
find secondary sources of income or even resorted to marrying American heiresses for
their substantial fortunes, such as the Duke of Marlborough’s marriage to Consuelo
Vanderbilt that ultimately saved Blenheim Palace.26
Another primary cause of this “crisis” and “demise” can be traced to the severe
and devastating financial and social impacts of the World Wars and, as a result, the
early and mid-twentieth century proved to be a significant period of change and
adaptation for the English country house. James Lees Milne wrote of the English
country house that “it is true that the First World War gravely shook the foundations.
24 “National Trust to Scrap its Experts,” The Times, August 21, 2020,
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/national-trust-to-scrap-its-experts-hdmzlqbhd.
25For further reading on the British Agricultural Depression, see David Cannadine’s
The Decline and Fall of the British Aristocracy (1992) and Richard Perren’s
Agriculture in Depression, 1870-1940 (1995).
26 The Duke received about $2.5 million in their marriage settlement in 1895. For
further reading on their marriage and Vanderbilt’s impact on Blenheim Palace, see
Amanda Stuart’s Consuelo and Alva Vanderbilt: The Story of a Daughter and Mother
in the Gilded Age (2005).
16
The Second World War toppled it.”27 During World War I, owners not only faced
financial stress, but the number of staff maintaining these estates also dramatically
decreased as several were drafted to fight and then never returned.28 The state of the
country house only worsened during World War II when numerous houses were
seized by the military and following the war, they were returned in disrepair, and
owners were faced with higher tax rates.29 These challenges directly impacted the
public’s accessibility to these properties as in his work, The Rise and Fall of the
Stately Home, Peter Mandler writes that “neither the supply nor the demand for
country-house visiting was certain in the aftermath of the war[s].”30 This development
can also be attributed to the social impacts of the wars, which led the English public to
view the country house as an outdated symbol that represented an old social order and
the privilege of the wealthy noble class.31 Diminishing public interest in touring
country houses coupled with the substantial maintenance costs that these estates
27James Lees-Milne, “The Country House in Our Heritage,” in The Destruction of the
Country House, 1875-1975, ed. Roy Strong (London: Thames and Hudson, 1974), 11.
28 Giles Worsley, “Country Houses: The Lost Legacy,” The Telegraph, June 2002,
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/art/3578853/Country-houses-the-lost-legacy.html.
29
John Martin Robinson, Requisitioned: The British Country House in the Second
World War (London: Aurum Press, 2014).
30Peter Mandler, The Rise and Fall of the Stately Home (New Haven: Yale University
Press, 1997), 369.
31See the chapter, “Desertion, Demolition, Disuse,” in Peter Mandler’s The Rise and
Fall of the Stately Home (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997), 242-253.
17
required ultimately forced owners to either sell their homes and contents or to remodel
the house’s ownership and use, leading this period to be considered as the “decline” of
the privately-owned country house.
Data collected by the Lost Heritage Project illustrates the number of country
houses that have been “lost” (meaning either demolished, abandoned, or repurposed)
since the 1890s and reinforces that the 1930s to 1960s were a critical period for the
English country house as over 1,000 houses were demolished within four decades (fig.
2).32 Along with properties being demolished and abandoned, several country houses
were also repurposed. For example, the owners of Heslington Hall, the de Yarburgh-
Batesons, vacated their ancestral home at the outbreak of World War II when it
became a headquarters for the Royal Air Force, but they never returned to the estate.
The house was subsequently acquired by the University of York and eventually
transformed into their administrative building.33 Other estates were more drastically
repurposed during this time, including Alton Towers—originally the private estate of
the Earls of Shrewsbury. The family was forced to open the property to the public as
early as 1860 to generate revenue but it was ultimately put up for auction in the
32The Lost Heritage Project (lostheritage.org.uk) was founded by Matthew Beckett in

an effort “to create an authoritative and comprehensive list of the many significant
English country houses which have been demolished or severely reduced.”
33“Heslington Hall,” National Heritage List for England, Historic England, accessed
October 17, 2020, https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1148497.
18
1920s.34 In the 1950s, a group of businessmen bought the property and reopened it as
an amusement park.35 Other reuses of English manor homes include conversions into
luxury apartments (Thurland Castle) or hotels (Cliveden), childcare centers
(Winmarleigh Hall), and prisons (Hewell Grange).36 While the public can continue to
interact with these historic properties in some—albeit very limited—capacity, these
properties were completely altered from their original purpose and devoid of the
assemblage of material culture that was once displayed within them.
As Michael Sayer argues in his work, The Disintegration of Heritage, the
necessity to sell a house’s contents to traditional museums or private collections
causes the dispersal of these objects and as a result, the integrity and context of that
object and the house’s collection are inevitably affected.37 While the demolition,
abandonment, and repurposing of these houses result in the separation of a house’s
contents, remodeling the management or ownership of these properties is considered
34Nick Sims, Tales from the Towers: The Story Behind Alton Towers, Britain's Most
Popular Theme Park (London: Theme Park Tourist, 2014), 36; The contents of the
house were also sold during this period in a 1924 auction.
35Nick Sims, Tales from the Towers: The Story Behind Alton Towers, Britain's Most
Popular Theme Park, 58.
36Thurland Castle is a Georgian-revival country estate located in Lancashire;
Cliveden is an Italianate mansion located in Buckinghamshire; Winmarleigh Hall is a
Jacobean revival manor located in Lancashire; Hewell Grange is a Jacobethan country
house located in Worcestershire.
37Michael Sayer, The Disintegration of Heritage (Norwich: Michael Russell
Publishing, 1993), 71.
19
as the preferable option from the cultural heritage perspective as it ensures the
protection of its architecture, material collections, and the continued involvement of
the family—an aspect that truly differentiates the country house from other historic
houses.38 This option is typically made possible with the help of public organizations,
such as the National Trust. For instance, in the 1940s, it became financially impossible
to maintain Chatsworth, England’s most visited country house, as a private home. In
1946, the family established the Trustees of the Chatsworth Settlement and in 1981, a
new charitable foundation, the Chatsworth House Trust, was established to ensure the
preservation of the house and its contents for the benefit of the public. Interestingly,
the Duke of Devonshire continues to rent private apartments in Chatsworth, allowing
the house to still be occupied by the family despite being owned by a public entity.39
Meanwhile, Waddesdon Manor also operates under a unique arrangement as the house
has been owned by the National Trust since 1957, but the Trust allows the property to
be managed by the family’s own charitable organization, the Rothschild Foundation,
and is regularly opened to the public.40 Contrasted with the country houses that have
38Clive Aslet, Old Homes, New Lives: The Resurgence of the British Country House
(London: Triglyph Books, 2020), 17.
39 “History of Chatsworth: 20th Century,” Chatsworth, accessed October 12, 2020,
https://www.chatsworth.org/about-chatsworth/history-of-chatsworth/20th-century/.
40 The house and grounds of Waddesdon are typically open to the public for tours
Wednesday through Sunday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.; “History of the House,”
Waddesdon Manor, accessed October 12, 2020, https://waddesdon.org.uk/your-
visit/house/history-of-the-house/.
20
been abandoned, demolished, or repurposed, properties that have remodeled their
ownership and management models in partnership with public organizations are more
likely to ensure the original integrity of the house as well as the original context in
which the house’s material culture was collected and displayed. As seen in these and
countless other examples, English country houses have faced a variety of fates as
owners were often forced to either reevaluate and alter the ownership and management
of their property or risk losing their ancestral homes and collections.
The so-called “decline” of the English country house has had a consistent
presence in scholarship, but the particular field of “country house studies” places a
renewed emphasis on how to reassess this decline by considering the relevance of
these houses to twenty-first-century visitors. For instance, David Cannadine and
Jeremy Musson’s 2018 work, The Country House: Past, Present, and Future, provides
an overview of how twenty-first-century values have affected the state of the country
house as they cite that there is “evidence that the numbers of country house visitors are
declining,” which they attribute to the public’s increased interest in more domestic
spaces, such as the servants’ quarters or kitchens, rather than manors’ formal living
spaces and their impressive collections “to which they cannot relate so easily, and
which do not change much, if at all.”41 Oliver Cox’s chapter within this work further
explores this phenomenon by examining the impact of popular media, especially
41David Cannadine and Jeremy Musson, The Country House: Past, Present, and Future
(London: Rizzoli, 2018), 17.
21
Downton Abbey, on the public’s impression of the country house.42 More recent
conversation on the English country house has centered on these properties’
connections to the Atlantic Slave Trade, which is also addressed in Cannadine and
Musson’s work through Madge Dresser’s essay, “Legacies of British Slave
Ownership: Facing a Difficult Past.”43 The presence of colonialism and slavery in
country houses was further examined in a report published by the National Trust in
September 2020 that is being used to “share the histories of slavery and colonialism in
its properties and collections, and engage people in these histories.”44 The large
amount of scholarship on how to enhance the relevancy of British country houses and
their collections to twenty-first-century visitors strongly suggests the urgent need to
reassess and reinterpret these spaces. Furthermore, several country houses continue to
face financial challenges as access restrictions due to the COVID-19 pandemic have
drastically decreased the revenue generated from these sites.45
42 Oliver Cox, “Downton Abbey and the Country House: Exploring New Fictions” in The
Country House: Past, Present, and Future, ed. David Cannadine and Jeremy Musson
(London: Rizzoli, 2018), 413-417.
43Madge Dresser, “Legacies of British Slave Ownership: Facing a Difficult Past” in The
Country House: Past, Present, and Future, ed. David Cannadine and Jeremy Musson
(London: Rizzoli, 2018), 343-348. See also “The Grim Truth Behind Britain’s Stately
Homes,” CNN, September 27, 2020, https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/national-trust-
colonialism-slavery/index.html.
44 “Interim Report on the Connections between Colonialism and Properties now in the Care of
the National Trust, Including Links with Historic Slavery,” National Trust, September 2020,
https://nt.global.ssl.fastly.net/documents/colionialism-and-historic-slavery-report.pdf.
45 As the COVID-19 pandemic is still ongoing at the time of writing this thesis, research on its
overall impact on museums cannot be considered as conclusive, but see
22
As evidenced by the current state of the country house in England, the story of
privately-owned country houses can be identified as a declension narrative. Managing
these estates as private, familial properties requires constant time, energy, and money
and these needs unsurprisingly have a fatiguing effect on the person to whom this
responsibility falls.46 Along with the obvious challenges of maintaining these
properties, such as financial burden or delicate family dynamics, uncontrollable
external factors, including altering trends in public interest, have also reinforced the
impracticality of sustaining privately-owned country houses. This issue is further
evidenced by the wealth of research being conducted in the field of “country house
studies” as it was born out of the recognition and continued dialogue surrounding the
unsustainability of British country houses.47
The trajectory of the British country house and the countless properties that
have been lost reinforce the necessity for country house owners to reconsider the
futures of these houses and their contents. As demonstrated by the examples of
Chatsworth and Waddesdon, owners were forced to remodel the ownership and
management of their ancestral homes in order to ensure their survival. These examples
https://www.artfund.org/blog/2020/05/28/covid19-impact-research-report and
https://www.museumsassociation.org/museums-journal/news/2020/10/museums-among-the-
worst-hit-in-cultural-sector-research-finds/ for more information.
46 Clive Aslet, Old Homes, New Lives, 22.

47 See ongoing projects sponsored by Oxford University’s Heritage Network
(https://www.heritagenetwork.ox.ac.uk/research-projects-0) as well as courses offered
by The Attingham Trust (https://www.attinghamtrust.org/courses/summer-school/).
23
also stress that the risk of losing the rich assemblage of material culture, architecture,
and social history enclosed within these houses as well as the supplemental value of an
estate’s grounds, outbuildings, and gardens, can be avoided if a new model of
ownership—favorably one that increases both funding streams and public
accessibility—is adopted. This foresight and the assistance of a public entity
ultimately rescued these important houses from being “lost.” As a result, for the
British country house owner, it is not a question of “if” they will have to reconsider
the future of their houses, but a question of “when” they should start considering and
implementing changes to ownership and management that will ultimately aid its
survival for future generations rather than chance the loss of another country estate.
Considering both the past and current threats to the survival of the English
country house raises the question of whether or not the current state of the country
house in the United Kingdom serves as a cautionary tale to their American
counterparts. Have these properties faced a similar trajectory and if so, why and in
which ways have America’s formerly private country estates transitioned to more
public-facing properties?
The Past, Present, and Future of the American Country House
In November of 1985, the National Gallery of Art opened their lauded
exhibition, The Treasure Houses of Britain, which displayed over 700 objects ranging
from the fifteenth to twentieth centuries that had been loaned from the private
collections of over 200 British country houses. The exhibition provided an
24
unprecedented opportunity for the American public to view these objects as several
had been removed from these houses for the first time. Articles published in American
newspapers revealed ardent public interest as several writers praised the “pomp” and
“beauty” of the exhibit, which included an opening event attended by the Prince and
Princess of Wales.48 These glowing reviews and the nearly one million visitors who
saw the exhibition during its short five-month run further reinforced the American
public’s sustained fascination and interest in the English country house.49 A review of
Treasure Houses published in a local Delaware newspaper provided a brief
explanation of this persistent captivation as a curator at the Winterthur Museum,
Nancy Richards, stated that this “admiration for the English country house goes back
to our nation’s roots.”50 She elaborates on this point by arguing that the nation’s
earliest settlers did not only bring English artifacts with them “but a sense of tradition
and style” that “wasn’t the only tradition in the United States, but it was the
strongest.”51 While the objects in Treasure Houses may have arrived and been
48“’Treasure Houses of Britain’ a Royal Display of Pomp, Beauty,” The Morning Call
(Allentown, Pennsylvania), November 17, 1985, Newspapers.com.
49 The Cincinnati Enquirer, November 5, 1985: in 1984 more than 45 million people
went to visit English country houses and only 20% of them were visitors from
overseas; Total attendance of Treasure Houses was reported to be 990,474 visitors,
https://www.nga.gov/exhibitions/1985/treasure_britain.html.
50“I Say There, Chap, Charming Home,” The Morning News (Wilmington,
Delaware), November 3, 1985, Newspapers.com.
51 “I Say There, Chap, Charming Home,” The Morning News.
25
displayed in America for the first time, the idea, tradition, and implications of the
English country house had, as Richards asserts, arrived in the nation nearly three
centuries earlier and by the 1980s, it had morphed into a new, unique American
iteration of the country estates discussed in Treasure Houses.
The American country house takes various forms and its definition has often
been debated, but it is unanimously acknowledged that the American country house is
undeniably connected to its Old World counterparts as it was born from the English
tradition. The country house was brought to the American colonies as early as the
seventeenth century in an attempt to emulate the British system of aristocracy and to
serve as a visual representation of one’s wealth and power.52 The first American
houses to emulate this definition were Southern plantation estates as the wealth and
power communicated by these grand properties were directly tied to the enslaved labor
and agricultural land on which the house was built. Another category of the American
country house is the villa. Primarily used as a seasonal home for merchants and
manufacturers, this category of houses was popular during the eighteenth century and
was designed to bring merchants and manufacturers closer to their work in major
cities, such as New York and Philadelphia, while also providing a retreat from the
pollution and crowds of the city.53 However, the particular category of the American
52 Davis Moss, The American Country House (New York: Henry Holt & Co, 1990), 1.
53David Moss, The American Country House, 6. Also see Stephan Hague, “Building
Status in the British Atlantic World: The Gentleman’s House in the English West
26
country house that will serve as the focus of this project largely developed after 1885:
the home of the “country gentlemen.”54
In 1903, the Architectural Record wrote of this version of the country house
and reported that “nothing comparable to it exists elsewhere in the world,” asserting
its individuality among both other forms of American architecture and other European
country houses. Architectural historian, Barr Ferree, defined this “entirely new type of
American country house” in 1904:
The great country house as it is now understood is a new type of dwelling, a

sumptuous house, built at large expense, often palatial in its dimensions,
furnished in the richest manner, and placed on an estate, perhaps large enough
to admit of independent farming operations, and in most cases with a garden
which is an integral part of the architectural scheme.55
In Roger Moss’s 1990 work, The American Country House, he retrospectively defines
this type of country house as the homes of late-nineteenth and early-twentieth-century
industrial-capitalists stating that these houses “represent the ultimate consumption of
wealth derived from means other than the land.”56 While the main source of these
owners’ wealth came from industrial investments and fortunes, American country
Country and Pennsylvania,” in Building the British Atlantic World: Spaces, Places,
and Material Culture, 1600-1850, ed. Daniel Maudlin (Chapel Hill: University of
North Carolina Press, 2016), 231-252.
54Clive Aslet, The American Country House (New Haven: Yale University Press,
1990), 20.
55Barr Ferree, American Estates and Gardens (New York: Munn and Company,
1904), 1.
56 Moss, The American Country House, 7.
27
estates often included lucrative agricultural aspects as well. The owners of these
houses further attempted to mimic life in the English countryside by creating and
managing independent farming operations on their estates to “convey the illusion of
self-sufficient landed life” that would provide “their own produce for the table and
every form of outdoor amusement for family and guests.”57 The primary purpose of
the country houses constructed by turn-of-the-century American industrialists was
succinctly relayed in a 1906 issue of San Francisco’s Sunset Magazine, which reported
that outside California’s cities, “the rich are making country places which are intended
to afford an opportunity for the most elaborate and expensive pleasures of country
life.”58
A root cause for the differing trajectories of the English and American country
house is the fact that American country houses were principally built and designed for
these short-term enjoyments and pursuits rather than the long-term, permanent
function of the British country house as dynastic seats. Aslet reinforces the idea that
American country homes were not meant as ancestral homes as he writes: “owners
rarely expected them to be lived in by even their sons and daughters.”59 As a result,
several country houses were abandoned when their owners died or decided to move on
57 Aslet, The American Country House, 21.

58Herbert D. Croly, “The California Country House,” Sunset Magazine (1906);
reprinted in Architect and Engineer of California 7 (December 1906), 24.
59 Aslet, The American Country House, 26.
28
from that particular house or area, leading ownership of numerous homes to be
transferred outside of the original family and dispersing the assemblage of material
culture that was once displayed within it.
Despite the temporary intentions most industrialists had for their country
house, several American country estates were ultimately preserved as public-facing
sites—albeit in various forms and for several different uses—largely due to their
impressive architecture and connections to the social and material histories of the
Gilded Age. As will be further explored in the case studies, many country houses were
preserved as a result of their founders or immediate descendants’ decision to donate
the house and its contents for the benefit of the public. As a result, these properties
were often made into formal historic house museums, a tradition that began in
America in the mid-nineteenth century with the preservation and opening of the
Hasbrouck House in Newburgh, New York. Hasbrouck House served as George
Washington’s living quarters while he commanded the Continental Army during the
last year of the Revolutionary War and was the first American property to be
purchased by a state for its historical significance.60 The first country house museums
were also preserved due to their association with America’s founders, including the
plantation estates of George Washington (Mount Vernon) and Thomas Jefferson
(Monticello) in the late nineteenth century. As noted by Patricia West in her work,
60Christopher Monkhouse, “America: The Country House Museum,” in The

Destruction of the Country House: 1875-1975, eds. Roy Strong, Marcus Binney, John
Harris (London: Thames and Hudson, 1974), 135.
29
Domesticating History: The Political Origins of America’s House Museums, this
particular type of country house museums (those that memorialize American figures)
was shaped by the “exigencies of the period in which [it] is founded, in particular by
the political issues so meaningful to those defining its public role.”61 She also
emphasizes the importance of investigating the institutional origins of these house
museums as their “actual histories…have been superseded by vague, mollifying
‘creation myths,’ which give conventional form to early missions and institutional
self-conceptions.”62 While the houses featured in Key’s work fit into Linda Young’s
“hero” category of historic houses as they were saved due to the people who lived
within them, interpretation employed at properties considered as “country house
museums” also frequently overlap into the “hero” category as the social history of the
American elite and prominent families, such as the Vanderbilts and Rockefellers, are
often relayed at these sites. As a result, Key’s investigation into the political origins of
house museums nevertheless provides a helpful framework that will be applied to this
project’s examination of the public-facing origins of country estates lived in and built
by turn-of-the-century American industrialists.
Focusing on the singular category of the country houses of American
industrialists will ensure that these houses have more similar histories, collections, and
61
Patricia West, Domesticating History: The Political Origins of America’s House
Museums (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Books, 1999), xi.
62 West, Domesticating History: The Political Origins of America’s House Museums,
xii.
30
interpretative strategies to analyze, ultimately creating a more fruitful comparison that
provides both specific and universal strategies for improvement. Furthermore,
Ardrossan was founded by a twentieth-century industrialist, leading this category of
country houses to be the most comparable to Ardrossan’s history and collections and
providing more compatible parallels to the challenges currently facing the property.
While studies and surveys have been conducted on the architecture and history of this
category of American country houses, including Frank Miles Day’s American Country
Houses of Today (1913), Arnold Lewis’ American Country Houses of the Gilded Age
(1982), Virginia and Lee McAlester’s Great American Houses and Their Architectural
Styles (1994), and Clive Aslet’s The American Country House (2005), the transition of
these houses from private homes to public-facing institutions has received less
attention. Monographs on individual American country houses may include the
modern history of the house’s afterlife as a museum or public-facing space, but this
project is unique as it aims to provide an intensive study of various American country
houses’ transitions from private to public properties and places these transitions into
dialogue with one another.
Examining these properties’ transitions to public sites will ultimately provide
an American perspective of the subjects addressed and analyzed in the field of
“country house studies,” including reassessing these properties and their relevance to
new, changing audiences in order to ensure their survival. Interestingly, the period of
crisis and loss that plagued British country houses between 1930 and 1960 was also a
significant period for American country houses as several properties were
31
transitioning from private homes to public institutions during this time. Modeled after
the efforts to reexamine English country houses, the case studies included in this thesis
assess how the interpretative and management decisions made during these transitions
have shaped and informed the current iteration of these properties and the public’s
interactions with them. Furthermore, as the mid-twentieth century was a redefining
moment for the country house in both nations, examining three American country
houses that remained open and preserved their social and material histories during this
period by employing three different ownership and management models reveals
strategies and possibilities for historic houses that are facing an uncertain fate in the
twenty-first century, such as the Ardrossan Estate.
32
Chapter 3
ARDROSSAN: THE UNCERTAIN FATE OF A QUINTESSENTIAL

AMERICAN COUNTRY HOUSE
A year after the construction and furnishing of the Ardrossan Estate was
complete, the New York Times reported it as being “among the notable homes of
America,” a statement that would prove true as Ardrossan would remain a central hub
of Philadelphia’s high society for decades.63 Built from 1911 to 1913 as the fifty-
room, 33,000 square foot, Georgian-revival country home for investment banker
Colonel Robert Leaming Montgomery and his family, Ardrossan is an outlier on
Philadelphia’s Main Line as its first-floor rooms are largely the same as they were
when they were first furnished in 1913 and remarkably, the house remains in the
private ownership of Montgomery’s descendants (fig. 3). Despite the family’s
dedication to their ancestral home, Ardrossan’s future remains in jeopardy due to
financial concerns and uncertainty of how to best increase public accessibility. The
future of Ardrossan is at a crossroads and if a sustainable plan is not enacted, the
house risks being sold and its contents risk being dispersed. Throughout its history,
Ardrossan has served as the backdrop for grand society balls, visits from diplomats
and first ladies, photoshoots for Vogue and Town & Country, and countless
63“Palatial Home Distinctive for Lack of Ornamentation,” New York Times, January
11, 1914, as quoted in David Wren’s Ardrossan, 90.
33
Montgomery family memories. In addition to this rich social and familial history,
Ardrossan can be considered as a significant repository of material culture, reinforcing
the impetus to preserve this home and its contents in situ for the benefit and study of
future generations. This chapter will provide a brief history of the Ardrossan estate,
largely guided by David Nelson Wren’s comprehensive study on the estate’s history
and architecture, as well as the current state of the house and its uncertain future.
An Overview of Ardrossan’s Architectural, Material, and Social History
In his 2017 work, the first and only comprehensive study on Ardrossan, Wren
identifies the property as the “last great estate on the Philadelphia Main Line,” an area
northwest of the city that served as a country retreat for its affluent community.
Located northwest of Philadelphia, the Main Line gets its name from the “Main Line
of Public Works” legislation passed in 1826, which allowed the construction of a new
canal system and later in 1828, a railroad that would facilitate efficient commercial
travel between Pittsburgh and Philadelphia.64 The residential area that became known
as the “Main Line” was centered around the seventeen railroad stations on the route
between Paoli and Philadelphia’s 30th Street Station.65 As John Marshall Groff argues
64John H. Hepp, IV, “The Pennsylvania Railroad and the Development of the Main
Line” in The First 300: The Amazing and Rich History of Lower Merion, ed. Dick
Jones (Collingdale, PA: Diane Publishing Co., 2000).
65 David Nelson Wren, Ardrossan: The Last Great Estate on the Philadelphia Main
Line (New York: Bauer and Dean Publishers, 2017), 6; The seventeen stations along
the “Main Line” include Overbrook, Merion, Narberth, Waynewood, Haverford, Bryn
34
in his work, Green Country Towns: The Development of Philadelphia’s Main Line,
1870-1915, “the development of the Main Line as an area of country houses is
intricately linked to the Pennsylvania Railroad.”66 Not only did the company own the
land adjacent to the tracks that would soon be developed into impressive country
estates, but when the company’s executives, prominent members of Philadelphia’s
elite, began to build their own houses in the area, other members of high society
followed suit.67 In the late nineteenth century, way stations were built along the tracks
and several wealthy families flocked to the surrounding areas to purchase land that
would secure a sprawling estate and the construction of a grand main house that would
provide “healthy, yet cultivated, country living.”68
Located in the heart of the Main Line in a small town in Radnor Township is
the land that Robert Leaming Montgomery would purchase in 1908 and call
“Ardrossan,” affectionally named after the Scottish town in which his ancestors
lived.69 Born in 1879, Montgomery came from a modest background but found
Mawr, Rosemont, Villanova, Radnor, St. Davids, Wayne, Strafford, Devon, Berwyn,
Daylesford, and Paoli.
66
John Marshall Groff, "Green Country Towns: The Development of Philadelphia’s
Main Line, 1870-1915," Master’s Thesis (University of Delaware, 1981), 20.
67 Wren, Ardrossan: The Last Great Estate on the Philadelphia Main Line, 6.
68Fodor's Philadelphia & the Pennsylvania Dutch Country, 16th Edition (Fodor's
Gold Guides, 2015), New York, 83.
35
substantial success and wealth when he and his two business partners founded the
investment firm, Montgomery, Clothier & Tyler, in 1907.70 At this point,
Montgomery had already married his second cousin and the matriarch of the
Montgomery family, Charlotte Hope Binney Tyler. Charlotte came from a family with
a generational fortune, primarily from land investments, but her family’s fortune
increased with her father’s appointments as the president of the Shenandoah Valley
Railroad in 1885 and then in 1886, the first president of the Fourth Street National
Bank.71 Following their marriage in 1902 and Montgomery’s financial success in
1907, Robert (hereafter referred to as the “Colonel”) and Charlotte’s combined
industrial fortune was used to purchase 309 acres of land on the Main Line and to rent
the main house of Roselyn, a neighboring Main Line estate, while construction began
on the main house of their future familial estate, Ardrossan.72
By the time he was commissioned to design the Montgomerys’ home in 1911,
Gilded Age architect, Horace Trumbauer, was already renowned for “his elegant and
well-proportioned city mansions and country houses,” largely due to the twenty-nine
72 Wren, Ardrossan: The Last Great Estate on the Philadelphia Main Line, 27; From
this point forward, Robert Leaming Montgomery will be referred to as the “Colonel”
to avoid confusion with other family members also named Robert Montgomery.
36
page spread in the 1904 issue of The Architectural Record that featured his work.73
Trumbauer’s former work included Grey Towers Castle, designed for sugar magnate
William Welsh Harrison, and Lynnewood Hall, a Neoclassical Revival-style mansion
designed for Peter Arrell Browne Widener, a successful real-estate developer and
founding partner of the Philadelphia Traction Company.74 In addition to the Wideners,
several other members of the Montgomerys’ social circle, including the Clothiers,
Elkins, and Drexels, had worked with Trumbauer, so he was the natural choice to
design and oversee the construction of Ardrossan. Similar to other American country
houses, the main house of Ardrossan was modeled after a particular English country
house as Trumbauer used Ardenrun Place, the home of financier, Woolf Barnato, for
his inspiration. Designed by Ernest Newton in 1906, Ardenrun Place is located in
Surrey, England and is in the Georgian Revival style (fig. 4). The house shares several
similarities with Ardrossan, including the same “H shape” ground plans, slate roofs
73 Wren, Ardrossan: The Last Great Estate on the Philadelphia Main Line, 37; “A
New Influence in the Architecture of Philadelphia,” The Architectural Record 15, no.
2 (1904): 93-121,
https://www.architecturalrecord.com/ext/resources/archives/backissues/1904-02.pdf?-
2080148400.
74 Lynnewood Hall, located in Elkins Park, Pennsylvania, is a 110-room country
house that has switched ownership several times after Widener’s death in 1912. The
property has been used to train military dogs and served as a theological seminary.
During its time as a seminary, the religious group began to sell large portions of the
house’s interior details, including paneling and mantels. Currently owned by a doctor
living in New York, it has been largely vacant since 1952.
37
with scrolled dentils, and limestone cornerstones.75 Ardrossan remains a prime
example of the distinctive homes Tumbauer designed for his “robber baron” clients
throughout the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and significantly,
Ardrossan is the only Tumbauer-designed house remaining in the ownership of the
original family and with its original contents.76
After the structural aspects of the house were finished in early 1912, the
Montgomerys hired White, Allom & Company, a London-based decorating firm that
had previously completed commissions from high-end clients, such as Henry E.
Huntington, Henry Clark Frick, and Buckingham Palace.77 The firm was responsible
for decorating and furnishing several first-floor rooms, including the dining room,
library, and ballroom, and was managed by the lead designer for the project, Leonard
L. Lock.78 Interestingly, the Colonel and Charlotte Montgomery requested that
“everything was to be as plain as possible but of a quality unsurpassed” in order to
create a sophisticated yet functional and relaxing home for their family.79 The objects,
75More information on the similarities and differences between Ardrossan and

Ardenrun Place can be found in Wren’s Ardrossan: The Last Great Estate on the
Philadelphia Main Line, 41-44.
79“Palatial Home Distinctive for Lack of Ornamentation,” New York Times, January
11, 1914, as quoted in David Wren’s Ardrossan, 90.
38
furnishings, and woodwork selected and installed by Lock and his team create an
impressive assemblage of material culture throughout Ardrossan’s first-floor interiors,
most of which remain as they were when they were first installed in 1913. The house’s
woodwork includes several intricate Circassian walnut features in the dining room:
carved garlands in the style of Grinling Gibbons above the fireplace, fiddleback panels
on the walls, and arch pediments with the family’s coat of arms above all three sets of
the room’s double doors (fig. 5, fig. 6).80 There are several examples of Chippendale
furniture in the house, including a mahogany case clock made between 1775 and 1780
that sits next to two Chippendale chairs dating to 1775 in the “long hall,” all of which
are family heirlooms.81 While the family continued to make some purchases for their
home throughout the years they lived there, the furnishings selected by White, Allom
& Company have seen little alteration, providing insight on the family’s early years at
Ardrossan as well as a prime example of the interior design and furnishings of a
quintessential early twentieth-century American country house.
Ardrossan’s art collection receives its own chapter within Wren’s work as the
Montgomerys had acquired an impressive collection of works by significant American
and European artists that continue to decorate the halls of Ardrossan’s first-floor
rooms (fig. 7). As members of the “American aristocracy,” both the Colonel and
Charlotte boasted lineages that traced back to Colonial America, and they emphasized
39
this connection by primarily collecting portraits of their distant ancestors. Several of
these familial portraits are displayed in Ardrossan, including portraits by Charles
Wilson Peale, Jacob Eichholtz, Gilbert Stuart, and several by Thomas Sully. A unique
pair of silhouettes by Charles Balthazar Julien Févret de Saint-Mémin that were
created in 1789 using a physiognotrace and feature two of the Colonel’s distant
ancestors were also displayed at Ardrossan until 1995. Known by the family as the
“Pink Uncles” due to the pink-tinted paper on which they were drawn, Helen Hope
Montgomery, the Colonel’s daughter, specified in her will that these portraits would
be donated to the Philadelphia Museum of Art following her death.82 However,
reproductions of these Saint-Mémin works and their frames were made and now hang
in the same place as the original silhouettes in Ardrossan’s living room. Among the
portraits of immediate and distant family members is a work by George Romney, an
English artist known for his portraits of prominent leaders in eighteenth-century
British society. The Montgomerys acquired Romney’s portrait of politician Paul Cobb
Methuen in 1912, and it remains the only portrait in the collection that is not of a
family member.83 Other works in the collection feature Ardrossan’s main house,
including The Meet at Ardrossan, Christmas Day, 1925 and Montgomery’s Meadow
by American painter, Charles Morris Young (fig. 8). These pieces of fine art and
familial portraits are complemented by several examples of Charlotte Montgomery’s
40
own needlework pieces that are prominently displayed, including a needlepoint
recreation of Young’s 1922 painting, Tyron Lewis Covered Bridge. She also created
several needlepoints of Ardrossan’s interiors and coverings used to reupholster various
pieces of antique furniture within the house (fig. 9).84 Ardrossan’s collection of
decorative arts creates a unique synergy between the intrinsic value of each object and
their display within a domestic space. While each object has significant historical,
cultural, and material value on its own, the personal connections the Montgomerys had
to these objects as they collected and lived among them provide an additional layer to
their provenance, ultimately creating a more holistic narrative for each object.
This brief overview of Ardrossan’s architectural history and material
collections demonstrates the significant contributions this house has to both
architectural and material culture studies and reinforces the importance of keeping
these collections together within the space they were originally assembled and
displayed. Furthermore, the Montgomerys’ sustained presence in and influence on
Philadelphia’s high society enhances the historical significance of Ardrossan, another
motivation for saving this house and increasing public accessibility. In addition to the
Colonel and Charlotte Montgomery, their four children, especially their daughter,
Helen Hope Montgomery Scott, also created a lasting legacy for Ardrossan. Helen
Hope was a prominent socialite who was known for being independent and witty, and
would eventually serve as the inspiration behind the character of Tracy Lord, the lead
41
in Philip Barry’s 1939 play, The Philadelphia Story, and the widely successful 1940
film adaption that starred Katharine Hepburn as Lord.85 The film’s representation of
Helen Hope depicts her and her family as the peak of high society, an accurate
portrayal as Wren asserts that the Montgomerys, being “good Philadelphia blue
bloods,…understood the obligations that came with their wealth and embraced their
responsibility as leaders in society.”86 While the height of the family’s power and
influence belong to a bygone era of Philadelphia’s high society, the Montgomerys’
descendants continue to own and manage Ardrossan’s “Big House,” allowing it to be
preserved as a remnant of the Main Line’s former Gilded Age glory.
Ardrossan’s Unique Present and Uncertain Future
As previously established, the typical trajectory of American country houses
includes several changes in ownership before the house is eventually abandoned or
repurposed. Ardrossan’s unique ownership situation can largely be attributed to the
foresight of its founders, Colonel and Charlotte Montgomery. Following the initial
construction of the house, the patriarch and matriarch of the family placed the estate
into “two principal, irrevocable family trusts that still own the Ardrossan property.”87
An irreversible trust was implemented after both of their deaths that stipulated that the
85 Wren, Ardrossan: The Last Great Estate on the Philadelphia Main Line, 8-9.
42
house could not be divided until twenty-one years after the death of their last child. As
Robert Alexander Arnulph Montgomery, the last surviving sibling, died on March 14,
1997, the estate could be divided among the Montgomerys’ descendants as of March
14, 2018.88 However, the impracticality and challenge of managing Ardrossan as a
private, family home became a pressing issue long before 2018. In 1999, only two
years after Alexander’s death, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported on the heirs’
dedication to sustaining the property despite the “taxes, trust law and the tide of
suburban development along the length of the Main Line” that were “all forces of
erosion, swirling around Ardrossan's beautiful, open spaces.”89 The urgency of these
threats inspired Robert “Bob” Montgomery Scott, the son of Helen Hope, to organize
a workshop to address these pressing concerns and discuss the uncertain future of the
estate.
Sponsored by the Brandywine Conservancy, Natural Lands Trust, and Radnor
Conservancy, the “Ardrossan Vision Workshop” convened at the property in May
2005 to work towards ideas that would preserve the site as well as “providing value to
the family trusts which own it.”90 The workshop’s ultimate purpose was to “assemble
an objective team to provide top-notch professional input on potential outcomes both
89“Undermining Good Intentions,” The Philadelphia Inquirer, February 8, 1999,
Newspapers.com.
90
“Preservation and Use of the Ardrossan Estate: The Report of the Ardrossan Vision
Workshop” (2005), 1.
43
suited to the property and feasible for the long-term, sustained operation of the site.”91
The team was comprised of nine experts who ranged from museum professionals,
preservationists, and luxury real estate agents.92 To provide further context, the
experts received background information on the property and attended several panel
discussions facilitated by local and regional leaders on a wide array of topics related to
the property and nearby cultural institutions. The final report generated by the
workshop’s team offers possible uses for the future of Ardrossan and suggests various
pathways for a transition into a more accessible public institution. However, this
workshop was conducted fourteen years ago, and Ardrossan’s fate still remains
uncertain, especially given new challenges like the COVID-19 pandemic. Assessing
the solutions and next steps suggested by the expert team provides insight on
Ardrossan’s current situation and comparing these possible solutions to the successful
public transitions of the country houses discussed in the case studies will highlight the
feasibility and sustainability of these recommendations, ultimately helping the family
move forward with this process.
91
92 The full team of experts for the Ardrossan Vision Workshop included: Charles
Granquist (Director of Pocantico Programs at Kykuit), Andrew Kendall (The Trustees
of Reservations), Judith LaBelle (Glynwood Center), Steve Miller (Biltmore
Company), Susanne Pandich (Filoli, a property of the National Trust for Historic
Preservation), Richard Perkins (LandVest), Ann Taylor (Filoli/Big Sur Environmental
Institute), Giles Waterfield (Royal Collections Study Course), and Alec Webb
(Selbourne Farms).
44
The workshop team ardently echoed the significance of Ardrossan to both
national and local heritage and asserted that the property was “worthy of protection.”93
They also highlighted the critical role the family had played in the house’s
preservation and praised their continued stewardship. Furthermore, the experts
emphasized how important the family’s continued participation is to the future of the
house as the “preservation of the house should reflect the imprint of the family as this
gives this building and its contents a life and soul it would not have otherwise.”94 The
family’s importance and involvement is most evident in the first-floor interiors that
held countless family gatherings and retell the Montgomerys’ history through its
furnishings and portraits. As a result, the team identified the first floor as a priority for
preservation, but interestingly, warned against turning the space into a formal museum
as this option was too expensive and not sustainable as “house museums in general are
losing visitors and experiencing financial problems because they are usually under-
endowed.”95 These threats to the historic house museum are echoed in Donna Ann
Harris’ work, New Solutions for House Museums, as she cites a 1988 survey
conducted by the National Trust for Historic Preservation, which revealed that “54
93
94
95
45
percent of house museums received no more than 5,000 visitors…and 80 percent had
annual budgets of less than $50,000.”96 Even more relevant to Ardrossan’s situation,
Harris provides a statistic that states that of the over 275 house museums in the
Philadelphia region, “less than 10 percent have a sufficient endowment of at least
$250,000 to sustain a site into the next generation,” meaning that over 90 percent of
house museums in the area are neither financially secure nor sustainable.97 Rather than
risk the sustainability of the property as a house museum, the team of experts
identified the house’s connections to high society and the Philadelphia Story as a
possibility for the site to become a “premium entertainment venue.”98 Of course, the
financial feasibility of these options is a crucial consideration, but addressing possible
funding streams was outside the scope of this particular workshop.99 Despite this
unaddressed aspect, the team ultimately decided that in terms of ownership, Ardrossan
would be best served if a “new non-profit entity” was created that would negotiate
96Donna Ann Harris, New Solutions for House Museums: Ensuring the Long-Term
Preservation of America’s Historic Houses (Lanham, MD: AltaMira Press, 2007), 11.
97 Harris and Silberman, “Grant,” 3. Donna Ann Harris, “Field Research for Heritage
Philadelphia Program, Internal Revenue Service Form 990 Reports for 27 Heritage
Sites,” Heritage Philadelphia Program, December 2005, quoted in Donna Ann Harris,
New Solutions for House Museums: Ensuring the Long-Term Preservation of
America’s Historic Houses (Lanham, MD: AltaMira Press, 2007), 11.
98
99The expert team did suggest that portions of the funding for the property’s
protection could come from the Township, county and/or state within the final report.
46
with the family to buy the entire property and subsequently serve as the property’s
steward.100
While the report from the Vision Workshop provided possible solutions and
feasible next steps, Elaine Schafer, director of the Radnor Conservancy and workshop
participant, revealed in 2005 that after Bob Scott died just five months after the
workshop, the team “[did not] get very far with the family.”101 However, the
Montgomerys did seem to accomplish one of the most pressing “next steps” suggested
by the team: to hire a consultant to facilitate the development of a “cohesive family
mission, vision, and core values” as well as selecting a family spokesperson,
reinforcing the team’s assertation that “the family history is the heart and soul of
Ardrossan.”102 The role of family spokesperson was embraced by one of the two
descendants that continue to live on the property: Joanie Mackie, a granddaughter of
the Colonel and Charlotte Montgomery.103 While Mackie lives on an area of the
property that she purchased and now owns, she continues to inform the public on the
state and future of Ardrossan’s “Big House.” Following the publication of Wren’s
100“Preservation and Use of the Ardrossan Estate: The Report of the Ardrossan
Vision Workshop” (2005), 20.
101“More than a Mansion is on the Market,” The Philadelphia Inquirer (Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania), May 6, 2007, Newspapers.com.
103
The other Montgomery descendant to live on the property is Mackie’s cousin,
Mary Remer.
47
work on Ardrossan in 2017, which revived public interest in the house, Mackie
conducted several interviews with press outlets to maximize publicity as it “might get
people to think about the house and what it really means [and] help us see how much
interest there is in helping it be preserved.”104 Another wave of publicity came in 2018
when the family began to sell portions of the over 700-acre estate. While the house
itself and the ten acres of land that surround it have stayed in family ownership, a large
remainder of the estate’s acreage and outbuildings have been sold for development,
including an $11.6 million deal with Radnor Township in 2018 that allowed them to
preserve seventy-one acres of the estate as open space.105 The family is continuing to
sell portions of land and are currently in “Phase III,” with the Ardrossan Farm’s
website stating that “buyers may use the builder and architect of their choice to create
a home that is tailored to their preferences…at one of the most sought-after locations
on the Main Line.”106 While the open land of Ardrossan is in the process of being sold
and developed, the future of the “Big House” and its collections remain uncertain.
104Quote from Joanie Mackie in John Timpane’s “Estate’s Fate: Ardrossan, the Main
Line’s ‘Philadelphia Story’ Mansion, Faces an Uncertain Fate,” The Philadelphia
Inquirer, February 16, 2018.
105 “The Preservation of Portions of Ardrossan: Executive Summary,” Radnor
Township, 2018, https://www.radnor.com/DocumentCenter/View/13871/The-
Preservation-of-Portions-of-Ardrossan---Executive-Summary. According to the
Executive Summary, this space will be used for trails, agricultural purposes,
reforestation, and wetland restoration.
106 Ardrossan Farms, accessed February 20, 2021, https://ardrossanfarms.com/.
48
Mackie has also spearheaded and facilitated a series of events that have
gradually enhanced the accessibility of the “Big House.” Of the several small-scale
tours that she leads on a limited basis, the most notable are occasional tours of the
estate sponsored by the Philadelphia chapter of the Institute of Classical Architecture
and Art (ICAA) for the cost of $125.107 While the first iteration of this event in 2018
was extremely successful, the following tour was canceled due to the COVID-19
pandemic. Nevertheless, the ICAA recently published an informative video series on
Ardrossan’s history and interiors for their “ICAA Visits Series,” which further
enhanced accessibility and Ardrossan’s public-facing offerings.108
Despite the 2005 Vision Workshop and these more recent efforts to generate
public interest, the future and fate of the “Big House” remains an unresolved issue for
both the family and the public.109 As recently as September of 2019, The Philadelphia
Inquirer reported on this ongoing challenge and pithily stated: “unfortunately for
Ardrossan, there’s no nonprofit acting as steward or community-supported agriculture
107 “Behind the Scenes at Ardrossan: A Private Tour and Reception,” American
Institute of Architects: Philadelphia Chapter, accessed October 1, 2020,
https://www.philadelphiacfa.org/events/behind-scenes-ardrossan-private-tour-and-
reception.
108 View the ICAA’s video series on Ardrossan at
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oNJEP0tpLAk&t=279s.
109The 2005 Vision Workshop Report cited a significant public interest in the
property and its survival: “There is “a sense of commitment to the place evident
among members of the local and regional community, which is important to carrying
forward future work toward the preservation of the property,” 5.
49
farm. There’s no master plan, no strategic plan, no land-use plan.”110 The descendants
that have been tasked with maintaining the property are well-aware of these obstacles
but are nevertheless dedicated to ensuring the preservation of the family history and
material culture that Ardrossan contains. Reassessing the insights provided in the
Vision Workshop report concerning the possible uses for the “Big House” through the
lens of the successful public transitions of three American country houses during the
mid-twentieth century provides an opportunity to pave the way for a new and
sustainable chapter in Ardrossan’s future as an accessible and public country house in
the twenty-first century.
To examine each country house’s transition from private to public, I relied
heavily on materials housed in their institutional archives. The following case studies
utilize sources that relate to the site’s early interpretive strategies, the management
model chosen (non-profit, private, mixture, etc.), and the rhetoric used when
describing the purpose and goals of the museum, which were largely located in local
periodicals, promotional materials, and internal documents, such as founders’ personal
correspondence and board meeting minutes. In addition, I examined ephemera related
to the initial tours offered at each site, including details relating to their structure, the
targeted audience, and the objects and narratives emphasized during these tours. While
pinpointing and analyzing the formative moments of each house, I assess each site’s
110“A Main Line Family’s Fortune and Misfortune,” The Philadelphia Inquirer
(Philadelphia, Pennsylvania), September 2, 2019, Newspapers.com.
50
institutional origins, how decisions made during this period shaped the current entities
of the property, and finally, how lessons from each case study can be applied to
Ardrossan’s situation and future transition into a public-facing property.
51
Chapter 4
THE WINTERTHUR MUSEUM: AN EDUCATIONAL, NON-PROFIT
On October 30, 1951, the Director of the National Gallery of Art and Chairman
of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, David Finley, delivered a speech to
celebrate the recent achievement of his friend, Henry Francis du Pont: the official
opening of his former home as the Henry Francis du Pont Winterthur Museum. Finley
praised du Pont’s dedication to the field of American decorative arts and the value of
his collection, which would thereafter be available for the enjoyment and education of
the general public. Furthermore, Finley specifically lauded the display of this
collection within the context of du Pont’s ancestral home and compares the effect this
arrangement has to the display of fine art seen in traditional art museums:
Furthermore, [these objects] are shown, in accordance with the purpose for
which they are made, as part of the furnishings of a house. In the case of a
museum of paintings and sculpture, the work of art should be isolated, so far as
possible, so that one can enjoy it without being forced at the same time to take
account of its too insistent neighbors. But in the arrangement of a museum of
decorative arts, this rule should be reversed, as at Winterthur. Fine examples of
furniture, ceramics, silver and textiles, can best be understood and enjoyed
when seen in the kind of setting for which they were intended, with other
objects that contribute to a harmonious whole.111
111 “Speechof David E. Finley,” 1951, WC 137, ARC 46, Winterthur Library:
Winterthur Archives, Winterthur, Delaware.
52
Finley’s assessment of the displays at Winterthur not only reinforces the impact and
significance of displaying objects within the context in which they were assembled but
also designates Winterthur, originally the private home of du Pont and his family, as a
“museum,” signifying the 30th of October 1951 as an imperative transitional moment
for the site. Winterthur is unique among the other case studies in this project as the
owner of this particular country house collected objects and designed interiors for the
express purpose of eventually turning his house into a decorative arts museum. As a
result, several moments throughout Winterthur’s transition from a private home to a
public institution can be identified as “formative”—all of which were primarily shaped
by du Pont himself to some degree.
Along with being proactively prepared as a museum by its owner, the
Winterthur Museum also provides an illustrative example of an American country
house that transitioned into a non-profit institution dedicated to education and
scholarship for the benefit of the public. The Winterthur Museum has operated as a
501(c)3 non-profit organization since its opening in 1951 and is now open to the
public six days a week for eleven months of the year and charges between $6-$20 for
admission (as well as $1 admission for Philadelphia Art-Reach Access
Cardholders).112 Along with being known as the premier museum for the American
decorative arts, Winterthur further emulates this model of education and scholarship
112 “Admission Packages,” Winterthur, accessed January 14, 2021,

https://www.winterthur.org/visit/admission-packages/.
53
through its graduate programs in American Material Culture and Art Conservation as
well as the numerous conferences that have been held at the site throughout its history
as a museum.113 Exploring Winterthur’s journey into a non-profit institution provides
an avenue to investigate the particular decision-making process and implications of
becoming a non-profit entity focused on education and scholarship. Furthermore,
assessing the legacy and sustainability of these decisions, including how it affects the
public’s interactions with and perceptions of Winterthur, ultimately provides insight
into the feasibility of Ardrossan’s possible future as a non-profit entity that primarily
aims to educate the public.
Brief History of the Winterthur Estate114
Prior to its opening as a museum, Winterthur was the private estate of Henry
Francis du Pont and his family, which he inherited from his father, Henry A. du Pont,
upon his death in 1926. Nearly 1,000 acres in size, the estate’s first residents were
113 The Winterthur Program in American Material Culture was founded in 1952 and
the Winterthur-University of Delaware Program in Art Conservation was founded in
1974. Winterthur also continues to host scholarly conferences such as Furniture
Forum, Needlework conferences, and sponsors academic lectures at the annual
Delaware Antiques Show.
114 The history of the Winterthur Estate has been largely documented and E. McClung
Fleming’s article, “History of the Winterthur Estate,” provides a comprehensive
history of the house, gardens, farm, and land before the opening of the Winterthur
Museum. An in-depth biography on the life of Henry Francis du Pont can be found in
Ruth Lord’s work, Henry F. du Pont and Winterthur: A Daughter’s Portrait (1999).
This section is meant to provide a brief context of the origins of the Winterthur estate
prior to Henry Francis du Pont’s decision to transform it into a museum.
54
Jacques Antoine Bidermann and his wife, Evelina Gabrielle du Pont, the daughter of
the founder of the du Pont family, Éleuthére Irénée du Pont. After purchasing the
estate in 1837, Bidermann named it after his ancestral home of Winterthur,
Switzerland and began the construction of a twelve-room house that would serve as
the origin and basis of the 175-room house Henry Francis du Pont would eventually
create to display his growing collection of decorative arts. This original house would
remain without major alterations from 1839 to 1884. Renovations to the exterior began
after Colonel Henry Algernon du Pont (H.A.) and his wife, Mary Pauline Foster,
settled at Winterthur in 1876 and drastically remodeled the roof in 1884.115 A more
extensive remodeling occurred between 1902 and 1903, which resulted in a new front
door, a port-cochere, and a three-story addition on the east side of the house.116 H.A.
du Pont’s additions and expansion of the Winterthur house, gardens, and farm to
further emulate European estates parallels the decisions of other industrialists as they
used inspiration from English estates to design and create their American country
houses. In fact, H.A. and his son, Henry Francis, toured several country homes while
they were in England in 1914, and made quick improvements to Winterthur’s gardens
upon their return, including planning the Pinetum and Azalea Woods.117
115 E.McClung Fleming, “History of the Winterthur Estate,” Winterthur Portfolio 1,

1964, 29.
116 Fleming, “History of the Winterthur Estate,” 29.
55
Henry Francis du Pont (H.F.), who would eventually turn the du Pont ancestral
home into a public museum, was actively involved in his three chief interests that
would shape the property into its present-day iteration long before he inherited
Winterthur in 1926. H.F. studied horticulture at Harvard University’s Bussey
Institution until his graduation in 1903, after which he took an increasingly active role
in developing the estate’s grounds and “naturalistic” gardens. He also took over
managing the estate’s farm when H.A. was elected to the United States Senate in 1906
and began to establish the famed Winterthur cattle herd by 1914. In these pursuits,
H.F. was said to have employed “meticulous attention to details, use of expert
advice…and above all, a passionate search for not only excellence but perfection.”118
While his dedication to the estate’s gardens and thriving farm were integral aspects of
Winterthur, H.F.’s most impactful interest on Winterthur’s future was his dedication to
the American decorative arts, a serious interest of his since 1924.
It was this commitment to collecting American antiques that motivated H.F. to
drastically transform his ancestral home after he inherited it in late 1926 by enlarging
the interior area of the house by 200% as he collected the interiors of abandoned
houses and appropriate objects to furnish and decorate these rooms “not for mere
display, but to be used and enjoyed as the settings of his own home.”119 Among the
major renovations were the relocation of the main entrance and driveway to the west

56
façade of the house, the addition of a nine-story wing that extended 150 feet from the
south end of the house, and the installation of the woodwork from the interiors of over
ten houses built between 1730 and 1762 in twenty-three of the house’s new “period
rooms.”120 The exterior was also altered to fit its new purpose of housing H.F.’s
collection of early American decorative arts as the house’s former European
Renaissance designs were replaced with “a new simplicity based on eighteenth-
century American architecture” (fig. 10).121 In fact, various elements that contributed
to Winterthur’s new architectural design were salvaged from two country houses
outside of Philadelphia, Port Royal and Woodlands, which were built in 1762 and
1788, respectively.122 Additions to the house and installations of each room’s
furnishings and accessories would continue until the house officially transitioned into
a museum in 1951, but the years of H.F.’s major renovations (1927 to 1931) were a
significant period for Winterthur as not only was the very nature and layout of the
house rapidly changing and expanding, but H.F. himself started to view this project as
a significant aspect of his legacy as the plan to turn his house and collections into a
museum began to take shape.
120Fleming, “History of the Winterthur Estate,” 48; Landscape architect Marian

Coffin was also designing and installing several aspects of the Winterthur gardens
during this period.
57
From Private Home to Museum: Winterthur’s Transition into a Non-Profit
Institution
According to Henry Francis’ youngest daughter, Ruth Lord, the decision to
turn his collection into a museum was a topic that “was never discussed at home” and
therefore, any answer “must be speculative.”123 While the exact moment H.F. decided
to create the Winterthur Museum is impossible to pinpoint, his actions during this
period of major renovations were certainly integral to the property’s future as a public,
non-profit entity. For instance, H.F. was contemplating the future of another one of his
residences in the late 1920s—his summer house in Southampton, New York, known
as the Chestertown House. In 1927, he inquired about the provisions in Isabella
Stewart Gardener’s will regarding the transformation of her Boston home into an art
museum, including whether it was left in a trust, as he was “thinking about doing
something of the kind with my Southampton house.”124 While Chestertown House
never became a museum, this information was no doubt applied to his larger ancestral
home in Delaware, and in 1930, H.F. cemented Winterthur’s path to becoming a non-
profit entity.
On February 28, 1930, H.F. established the Winterthur Corporation as an
educational and charitable membership corporation. The thought process behind this
123 RuthLord, Henry F. du Pont and Winterthur: A Daughter’s Portrait (New Haven:
Yale University Press, 1999), 195.
124 Quoted
in Ruth Lord, Henry F. du Pont and Winterthur: A Daughter’s Portrait
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999), 195.
58
decision is best detailed in a letter he wrote to potential board members nineteen years
after the Winterthur Corporation was first established. Revealing his initial intentions
for the property, H.F. writes that he planned to retain the control and ownership of
Winterthur and its contents throughout his lifetime and upon his death, the ownership
of the house, the collections of American antiques displayed within it, and the grounds
would be passed to the Winterthur Corporation in order to “become a museum run by
a Board of Directors and open to the public.”125 Importantly, a large motivating factor
for creating a non-profit entity was the fact that the corporation would be exempt from
taxes, which played a significant role when H.F. began “gifting” pieces of his
collection to the museum in 1951. As he believed that the house would not become a
museum before his death, the corporation remained largely inactive and functioned as
“a skeleton organization” with a small number of members and directors for several
years. However, H.F. made several gifts to the corporation during this time and by
1949, the organization “already possesse[d] securities and other assets of substantial
value,” which can be considered as the foundation of the Winterthur Museum’s
endowment.126 He also disclosed why he altered his plan and ultimately chose to
transform his home into a museum prior to his death within this letter as he wrote,
125 Letter
from H.F. du Pont to potential board members of the Winterthur
Corporation, 1949, WC 14, ARC 46, Winterthur Library: Winterthur Archives.
Winterthur, Delaware.
126Letter from H.F. du Pont to potential board members of the Winterthur
Corporation, 1949, Winterthur Library: Winterthur Archives.
59
“during the past few months I have felt that I should make an active start towards the
establishment of the museum as a going concern with an organization which could
take over immediately upon my death.”127 H.F. further expanded on this point during
an interview with a Tennessee report about the opening of the museum in 1951 and
was quoted saying: “I always knew what I wanted Winterthur to be, but I never
thought it could happen until after I popped off…Then one day I got to thinking if I
want a museum here I ought to see the job through myself.”128 As a result, H.F.’s own
vision for his former home was integral in shaping the mission and nature of the
Winterthur Museum and his goals were twofold. First, he hoped that his collections
would show Americans how previous generations lived, and second, he “sincerely
hope[d] that the Museum [would] be a continuing source of inspiration and education
for all time."129 Furthermore, these ideals continue to be upheld by the institution as
its current mission statement asserts that the museum “builds upon the vision of Henry
127 Letter
Corporation, 1949, Winterthur Library: Winterthur Archives.
128 “Winterthur
Museum,” Morristown Gazette Mail, 19 November 1951,
Newspapers.com.
129“To the Executors and Directors under my Will and the Winterthur Corporation,”
74WC3, WC 39, ARC 46, Winterthur Library: Winterthur Archives, Winterthur,
Delaware.
60
Francis du Pont to inspire and educate through its collections,” reinforcing the critical
importance H.F.’s vision has to both the institution’s past and present.130
Two other figures had a large role in shaping the institutional history of the
Winterthur Museum: the first curator, Joseph Downs, and the executive secretary and
eventual first director of the museum, Charles Montgomery. As du Pont lacked a
traditional museum background, he hired Downs, former curator of the Metropolitan
Museum of Art, and Montgomery, an expert in American decorative arts, in 1948 to
prepare the museum for its official opening. Downs and Montgomery were two of
H.F.’s most trusted collaborators and advisors and were critical to Winterthur’s
transition into a museum. For instance, Charles Montgomery, who had been
acquaintances with H.F. since 1939, claims it was his idea to formally catalog H.F.’s
collections, effectively employing professional museum practices and elevating the
objects within Winterthur from pieces of a private collection to museum objects.131
This cataloging project coincided with the revitalization of the Winterthur Corporation
spearheaded by H.F. in 1949. He wrote to several colleagues and friends to ask if they
would be “interested in the preservation of Americana and willing to cooperate with
me…in the establishment of what I hope will be known as the Henry F. du Pont
130 “The Mission,” Winterthur Museum, accessed December 11, 2020.

https://www.winterthur.org/employment/.
131Montgomery states it was his idea to catalog H.F.’s collections in an oral history
conducted by the Winterthur Library in 1977. Oral History with Charles F.
Montgomery, May 16, 1977, ARC 36, Winterthur Library: Winterthur Archives,
61
Winterthur Museum.”132 Interestingly, of the eleven members of Winterthur’s first
board of directors, eight were members of the du Pont family and the other three were
H.F.’s close acquaintances, suggesting that their visions for the museum were also
greatly aligned with that of H.F.133
The first annual board meeting for the Winterthur Corporation was held on
January 11, 1950, to officially elect the board members and inform them of H.F.’s
plan for the future museum, which was set to open within the year of 1951. The
meeting minutes state that “in addition to the gift of the residence and collection of
Americana, Mr. du Pont’s intention is eventually to give to the Museum a sufficient
endowment,” which was a large factor in ensuring Winterthur’s sustainability and is
important to consider when contemplating the application of Winterthur’s model to
Ardrossan’s current situation.134 This meeting also featured a brief presentation from
Charles Montgomery on the status of the house’s preparation in which he reports that
he and Joseph Downs had been photographing and cataloging the collection in
132 Letter
Corporation, 1949, Winterthur Library: Winterthur Archives, Winterthur, Delaware.
133 Winterthur’sfirst board of directors was comprised of: Crawford Greenewalt,
Louise Crowninshield, Pauline Louise du Pont Harrison, George deForest Lord, Ruth
du Pont Lord, Edmond du Pont, Henry B. du Pont, Lammot du Pont Copeland, Pamela
Cunningham Copeland, Walter Laird, and George Edmonds. The president of the
Corporation was Beverly Robinson, H.F.’s attorney, George E. Hite, Jr. served as the
Secretary and Treasurer, and George W. Jaques served as the Assistant Secretary and
Assistant Treasurer.
134
“Winterthur Corporation Meeting Minutes,” January 11, 1950, WC 14, ARC 46,
Winterthur Library: Winterthur Archives, Winterthur, Delaware.
62
addition to shouldering the “very elaborate work which must be undertaken to prepare
a private house for conversion into a museum.”135 These tasks also entailed finalizing
the legalities of this process as H.F. planned to officially gift the house to the
Winterthur Corporation in early 1951 when his family would move into a new house
on the property designed by Thomas Waterman known as “the Cottage,” which
ultimately forced him to redefine his relationship to and use of his ancestral home.136
Correspondence between H.F. and his attorney, Beverly Robinson, outlines the
various issues that had to be sorted out during this process, including setting
parameters for the transferal of property ownership from H.F. to the corporation. In
January of 1950, Robinson informed H.F. that the “deed to Winterthur would be a
deed of the residence and fixtures with the right of access to and from it over all
existing roads.”137 In response, H.F. asks for clarification about which fixtures
Robinson is referring to as he states that he is removing the fixtures from eight
bathrooms to turn them into “special rooms” for the museum and asks if this should be
135 “WinterthurCorporation Meeting Minutes,” January 11, 1950, WC 14, ARC 46,
Winterthur Library: Winterthur Archives, Winterthur, Delaware.
136 Ruth Lord, Henry F. du Pont and Winterthur: A Daughter’s Portrait, 203; Thomas
Waterman, an architect involved in the Colonial Williamsburg restoration and head of
the Historic American Buildings Survey, was integral in the design and creation of
several of Winterthur’s period rooms. During their collaboration, Waterman’s
concerns for historical accuracy were often in conflict with H.F.’s primary concern for
aesthetics. See Pauline Evermann’s Discover the Winterthur Period Rooms (1998) for
more information on Waterman’s contribution to Winterthur.
137Letter
from Beverley Robinson to Henry Francis du Pont, January 16, 1950, WC
14, ARC 46, Winterthur Library: Winterthur Archives, Winterthur, Delaware.
63
“noted on the deed of gift.”138 Furthermore, H.F. inquiries which roads Robinson is
referring to as he only wished to give the corporation ownership of a few select roads
and does “not plan ever to have the general public using all the little roads around the
place,” providing insight on the earliest iteration of Winterthur as visitors did not have
access to a large portion of the estate, including the gardens.139 These letters also
contain discussions regarding H.F.’s use of the house after he deeds it to the
corporation as Robinson suggests that du Pont should make a “clean break” from the
house in order to avoid issues with the legalities of gifting the house to a non-profit
organization.140
Conversations and decisions during this critical period not only highlight the
unique issues Winterthur faced during the formative years of its transition due to the
involvement of the property’s founder but also reveal the decisions that shaped the
nature of the museum and public access to the property. Regarding his vision for the
museum, H.F. wrote to Robinson: “You know that I plan to have a free museum. It
will be open to the public every day except Sundays, but the number of visitors will be
138 Letter from Henry Francis du Pont to Beverley Robinson, January 19, 1950, WC
14, ARC 46, Winterthur Library: Winterthur Archives, Winterthur, Delaware.
139Letter from Henry Francis du Pont to Beverley Robinson, January 19, 1950,
Winterthur Library: Winterthur Archives; The Winterthur Corporation eventually
convinced H.F. to offer limited garden tours in 1952, which were expanded in the late
1950s and early 1960s.
140
Letter from Beverly Robinson to Henry Francis du Pont, April 24, 1950, WC 14,
ARC 46, Winterthur Archives, Winterthur, Delaware.
64
limited to twenty a day, and they will have to get a ticket beforehand.”141 H.F.’s
proposal for the museum’s tour structure was clearly inspired by the tours he had
offered to the public on a very limited basis beginning in 1941. On the application to
visit, potential visitors were informed that admission to tour H.F.’s house was free, but
it was only “open the first Tuesday and the following days of each month from 2:00 to
4:00 p.m.” and no children were allowed (fig. 11).142 However, H.F.’s model for the
tour was altered when the operations of the house and museum officially changed
hands to the Winterthur Corporation in January of 1951.143 The board voted to charge
an admission fee of $2.00 plus federal tax after the Finance Committee recommended
instating the fee due to the “critical need of the Corporation for additional income to
defray operating expenses.”144 Despite this deviation from his original desires, several
aspects of H.F.’s plan were approved by the board, such as requiring the public to
apply for tickets, limiting the number of visitors per day, and providing a luncheon for
141
Letter from Henry Francis du Pont to Beverley Robinson, January 19, 1950,
WC14, ARC46, Winterthur Library: Winterthur Archives, Winterthur, Delaware.
142“Museum Applications,” WC 6, ARC 46, Winterthur Library: Winterthur
Archives, Winterthur, Delaware.
143E. McClung Fleming, “History of the Winterthur Estate,” Winterthur Portfolio 1,
1964, 50.
144Meeting Minutes of Winterthur Corporation Finance Committee, August 23, 1951,
Delaware.
65
visitors during the tour.145 The board also stipulated that “children under 16 years of
age shall not be admitted, even though accompanied by their parents,” mimicking
H.F.’s original rule of prohibiting children’s admission to the house. This regulation
reveals that Winterthur immediately excluded this aspect of the general public from
their key demographic during its transition into a museum and is most likely
connected to the low number of young visitors that Winterthur receives in the present
day.146
While the road to opening the house as a museum was filled with legal and
logistical challenges as well as a limited amount of time to prepare the house for
public display, the Henry Francis du Pont Museum was nevertheless set to open to the
public on October 30, 1951. Archival materials related to the grand opening of the
museum, including promotional materials and press releases, are particularly
informative as H.F. and his colleagues were forced to clearly and concisely articulate
the goals and missions of the museum as a non-profit entity. Despite being opened to
the public on a limited basis in the 1940s, the Magazine Antiques issue dedicated to
145Minutes of Special Meeting of Directors, Winterthur Corporation, September 18,

1951, 70WC2, WC 17, ARC 46, Winterthur Library: Winterthur Archives,
146 Minutes of Special Meeting of Directors, Winterthur Corporation, September 18,
1951, Winterthur Archives; In a recent survey conducted by the Winterthur Museum,
participants were asked “Why do they Visit?” Of the responses, the two categories that
received the lowest votes were “Learning for children” and “My children enjoy it” and
less than 10% of respondents chose these answers (2020 Annual Survey of Museum-
Goers, Winterthur Museum).
66
the opening of the Winterthur Museum stated that “almost nothing had been published
about it” (fig. 12).147 Within an oral history conducted by the Winterthur Library,
Charles Montgomery states that he was primarily responsible for facilitating this issue
of Antiques focused on Winterthur as well as writing the press releases—all of which
would be ultimately approved by Joseph Downs and H.F. du Pont himself.148 As a
result, both the goals of the estate’s original owner and the museum professionals
dedicated to reframing the collections for public education are reflected throughout
both private and public documents concerning Winterthur’s official transition into a
public, non-profit museum.
A number of these goals are clearly expressed in the first round of press
coverage the museum received as it officially opened in 1951. In a letter sent to local
and national news outlets two weeks before the opening, Montgomery defined the
Winterthur Corporation as “a charitable and educational foundation” that will operate
the museum, which will be open to the public every day except for Sunday and
Monday.149 Montgomery also invited representatives to a “press luncheon” at the
Hotel du Pont on October 29, during which he assured that “descriptive material and
147 Magazine Antiques: The Henry Francis du Pont Museum, November 1951, 403.
148Oral History with Charles F. Montgomery, May 16, 1977, Winterthur Library:
Winterthur Archives, Winterthur, Delaware. Montgomery also states that Tony
Higgins assisted with this process, but further information on Higgins could not be
found in the Winterthur Archives.
149
“Winterthur Opening,” 93WC11, Box 137, ARC 46, Winterthur Library:
Winterthur Archives, Winterthur, Delaware.
67
photographs” would be available and distributed.150 The articles that resulted from this
luncheon are significant as they represent the first wide-reaching and large-scale
interactions the museum had with the public, which ultimately shaped the public
perception of the estate as a premier educational and cultural institution. Reports
announcing the opening of Winterthur as a museum were printed throughout
American publications, including newspapers in Pennsylvania, California, and
Indiana.151 Similar photographs and rhetoric are found in these reports, further
suggesting that the specific contents of the articles were largely curated by
Montgomery, Downs, and H.F., and that these excerpts reveal which aspects of the
museum they wished to highlight and communicate to the public. Consistencies in
these articles include identifying Winterthur as the “185-room house of Henry Francis
du Pont,” estimating the value of the house and its collections at $20,000,000, and
inserting a quote from H.F. in which he states that the museum’s goal is to “help show
modern Americans how earlier Americans lived.”152
150
“Winterthur Opening,” 93WC11, Box 137, ARC 46, Winterthur Library:
Winterthur Archives.
151Examples of articles on Winterthur’s opening can be found in the Philadelphia
Inquirer, the San Francisco Examiner, and the Indianapolis Star; all found on the
Newspapers.com Database.
152
Quotes are seen in numerous articles, including the 1951 issue of The Museum
News and an article of the New York Times housed in the Winterthur Archives (WC 8,
ARC 46).
68
As expected, the ground rules of visiting are also included in nearly every
report and informed the public that a maximum of twenty people could visit the
museum each day and tours would last from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Readers were also
encouraged to reserve shorter, focused tours designed for “devotees of a specific
period.”153 The Magazine Antiques issue provides further detail on the tour structure
and informs readers that there are “no ropes or guard rails [that] provide forbidding
barriers to the visitor who with a trained guide, may circulate at will.”154 Downs also
writes that groups are limited to four in order to “contribute to the impression of
personal privilege for the visitor.”155 An informative clip from a 1963 orientation
video provides a visual depiction of the tour structure that was put in place during the
1951 opening of the museum. H.F. himself greets guests and after telling them the
story of his own inspiration for collecting, he informs them that he hopes one of these
objects can inspire visitors as well. The video also shows a group of four people and
their tour guide about to embark on their all-day tour and no stanchions or barriers are
visible in the museum, a strategy employed to reinforce the “lived-in feeling” of the
153“Vast du Pont Home to Open as Museum,” The New York Times, October 30,
1951, WC 8, ARC 46, Winterthur Library: Winterthur Archives, Winterthur,
Delaware.
154
Joseph Downs, Magazine Antiques: The Henry Francis du Pont Museum,
November 1951.
155 Downs, Magazine Antiques, 407-408.
69
room that H.F. hoped to communicate to guests (fig. 13).156 As these tours lasted
several hours and were designed to provide in-depth information on the museum’s
rooms and the objects displayed within them, it can be assumed that only those
interested in learning about the decorative arts, including scholars, museum
professionals, and higher-education students, would be interested in visiting the
museum, further reinforcing that Winterthur’s main goals of education and scholarship
were implemented during the institution’s origins.
Of course, Winterthur’s dedication to education and scholarship are connected
to the institution’s status as a non-profit organization as it is obligated to serve the
local community, but it was H.F.’s long-time wish to open his house for the benefit of
the public that cemented Winterthur’s status as both a non-profit entity and an
institution designed to advance the fields of American material culture and American
decorative arts. This mission was a guiding principle for the museum throughout its
infancy as outlined by Charles Montgomery in his article, “The First Ten Years of
Winterthur as a Museum.” Within three months of its opening, Winterthur’s staff
began an annual lecture series in collaboration with the Wilmington Y.M.C.A. and
published its first academic work, American Furniture: Queen Anne and the
Delaware.
70
Chippendale Periods by Joseph Downs.157 Winterthur also hosted various
conferences, such as those sponsored by the College Art Association and the Pewter
Club of America, as well as the museums’ own conferences, including the “Winterthur
Seminar on Museum Operation and Connoisseurship” and “The Place of Objects and
Ideas in Early American History,” both held in 1954.158 The establishment of the
Winterthur Program in Early American Material Culture in 1952 furthered H.F.’s
vision of his museum becoming a center for emerging museum professionals and
future scholars in the decorative arts. Graduates of the program have consistently
made significant contributions to the museum studies and material culture fields,
including 1956 graduate Jules Prown, whose article, “Mind in Matter,” continues to be
a seminal work within material culture studies.159 The institution’s emphasis on
education was also strengthened in the 1960s with the opening of the Louise du Pont
Crowninshield Research Building, which housed a new library, archive, and several
157Charles Montgomery, “The First Ten Years of Winterthur as a Museum,”

Winterthur Portfolio 1 1964, 65.
158Charles Montgomery, “The First Ten Years of Winterthur as a Museum,”
Winterthur Portfolio 1 1964, 66; “The Place of Objects” conference served as the
basis for nine articles on “America’s Arts and Skills” that appeared in Life Magazine.
159See David Jules Prown’s “Mind in Matter,” Winterthur Portfolio 17 (1982): 1-19
and Charles F. Montgomery’s “The Connoisseurship of Artifacts,” in Material Culture
Studies in America, edited by Thomas J. Schlereth (London: Altamira Press, 1999).
71
conservation labs. The establishment of another graduate program, the Winterthur-
University of Delaware Program in Art Conservation, soon followed in 1974.160
The first tours implemented at Winterthur also reflected the institution’s
guiding vision as visitors were invited to closely examine pieces of the museum’s
collections in order to learn about previous generations of Americans and to inspire a
keen interest in American decorative arts. This tradition is largely continued in the
interpretation given to current-day visitors as Winterthur guides are instructed to point
out certain “highlights” of H.F.’s collections to guests during the “Introductory Tour.”
While the nature of the property has certainly evolved since it transitioned into a
museum, the tours, programs, exhibitions, and interpretation offered at Winterthur
continue to be primarily guided by H.F.’s initial and steadfast vision of his house and
collection as “a Museum and arboretum for the education and enjoyment of the
public.”161 Winterthur did not become a public museum out of financial necessity, but
the institution’s transition into a non-profit entity with the mission to forward
academic and educational initiatives nevertheless provides a helpful model when
considering Ardrossan’s possible future.
160 “History of Winterthur,” Winterthur, accessed December 12, 2020,

http://www.winterthur.org/visit/about-winterthur/history-of-winterthur/.
Delaware.
72
Lessons from Winterthur and Actionable Items for Ardrossan
As detailed in Chapter 3, the team of experts that assessed Ardrossan’s
situation in 2005 advised against turning the “Big House” into a house museum as
they are consistently losing visitors and facing financial challenges because “they are
usually under-endowed.”162 Instead, the workshop concluded that the creation of a
“new non-profit entity” would be the best option for the future of the house,
reinforcing the advantage of considering the models and missions of a non-profit
entity that is also focused on interpreting the story of a country estate and its material
contents.163 When examining Winterthur as a potential model for Ardrossan, it is
important to consider that while H.F.’s involvement and financial support secured a
significant endowment that has provided a degree of financial security and
sustainability for the institution, Ardrossan will most likely be unable to secure a large
endowment.
Despite this difference, Winterthur’s foundational model of educating the
public and advancing the study of the American decorative arts can be applied to
Ardrossan as the house is a repository of American material culture and the objects’
assemblage within a family home presents endless opportunities to share the various
narratives and stories contained within the house with both the local community and
162
“To the Executors and Directors under my Will and the Winterthur Corporation,”
Winterthur Library: Winterthur Archives, Winterthur, Delaware, 9.
163
“To the Executors and Directors under my Will and the Winterthur Corporation,”
Winterthur Library: Winterthur Archives, Winterthur, Delaware, 20.
73
the general public through guided tours and educational programs. After establishing a
non-profit organization, the next step that H.F. took to turn Winterthur into a museum
was to hire museum professionals to begin cataloging and photographing his
collections. While Joanie Mackie stated that objects in the house have been somewhat
inventoried due to various appraisals, formally cataloging the objects in the first-floor
rooms with standard museum practices would best serve the site’s future as a public-
facing property.164 This is perhaps the largest priority for Ardrossan’s future as
creating a database of the house’s objects will prove the site’s significance to the
decorative arts and material culture studies and will begin the process of
professionalizing the space, which would ultimately facilitate a smoother transition
into a public-facing—possibly non-profit—entity.
164Relayed by Joanie Mackie in an interview conducted by the author, March 19,

2021.
74
Chapter 5
THE BILTMORE ESTATE: A PRIVATE, FOR-PROFIT TOURIST

ATTRACTION
In 1998, the Athenaeum of Philadelphia hosted a symposium entitled,
“American House Museums in the 21st Century,” which aimed to “assess the current
state of American house museums and explore alternative sources of support for those
that will survive—and alternative uses for properties that may not continue as
traditional house museums.”165 During this event, C.E.O. of the Biltmore Company at
the time, William A. V. Cecil, Jr., presented on Biltmore’s success as a historic house
that utilized methods and strategies that could be viewed as “unconventional” within
the museum world. This unique approach was best summarized by Cecil himself as he
said: “In creating Biltmore Estate, George Vanderbilt built a home and a business. He
did not build a museum. As C.E.O. of Biltmore, and the great-grandson of George
Vanderbilt, I run Biltmore just as he did: as a home and business; not as a
museum.”166
165“American House Museums,” Athenaeum of Philadelphia, accessed November 2,

2020, http://www.athenaonline.org/hmuseum/index.htm.
166William A.V. Cecil, Jr., “Biltmore Estate: As the Century Turns,” American House
Museums in the 21st Century: An Athenæum of Philadelphia Symposium, December
75
Built and designed for George Washington Vanderbilt in 1889, Biltmore is
marketed as both a historic house museum and a “tourist attraction” with admission
prices ranging between $64 and $284.167 This site provides an example of a previously
private home that has remained in private ownership but is also consistently opened
for public visitors. While the estate originally opened to the public in the 1930s to
combat the property’s failing economic situation during the Great Depression,
members of the family resided in the museum until 1956. Biltmore is currently owned
by the Biltmore Company, a private enterprise founded by the family that continues to
be operated by Vanderbilt descendants today.168 C.E.O.s of the company have adhered
to the model set by George Vanderbilt and echoed by Cecil, and continue to
commercialize the estate in various ways, including the creation of the Biltmore
Winery and most recently, establishing the Biltmore Inn, which encourages visitors to
equate their visit to Biltmore to a resort vacation. These strategies are certainty
profitable as in 2016, total sales from the Biltmore Company were estimated to be
around $207 million.169 Despite its lack of traditional museum practice, Biltmore’s
model of a private, for-profit company focused primarily on entertainment inevitably
167 “Tickets & Pricing,” Biltmore Estate, accessed October 1, 2020,

https://www.biltmore.com/visit/tickets-pricing/.
168Denise Kiernan, The Last Castle: The Epic Story of Love, Loss, and American
Royalty in the Nation’s Largest Home (New York: Atria, 2017), 276.
169Timothy Rooks, “The Business of Owning America’s Biggest Home,” DW,
October 5, 2019, https://www.dw.com/en/the-business-of-owning-americas-biggest-
home/a-48647671.
76
attracts a larger number of visitors as well as generates significant profit that
contributes to the maintenance and conservation of the property and its collections,
ensuring its long-term sustainability. While Ardrossan will most likely not be operated
by a private company in the future, examining the Biltmore Estate’s transition into a
private company focused on offering profitable programs and activities to the public
nevertheless provides a helpful model of an American country house that
commercialized its history in various ways as a means to generate profit that
ultimately enables the survival of the house and its contents for future generations.
Lessons from Biltmore’s transition can certainly be applied to Ardrossan’s situation
and provide suggestions for how the estate may be able to diversify its streams of
revenue and generate profit in order to safeguard its survival.
Brief History of the Biltmore Estate170
Known as the “Last American Castle” and the “Largest House in America,”
the Biltmore Estate can undoubtedly be considered as an American icon. Its founder,
the grandson of Cornelius Vanderbilt and the youngest child of William Henry
Vanderbilt, George Washington Vanderbilt II was born into wealth and enjoyed a life
of leisure. Rather than getting involved in the family business, Vanderbilt dedicated
170For a comprehensive history of the estate and the George Washington Vanderbilt
Family see Denise Kiernan’s The Last Castle: The Epic Story of Love, Loss, and
American Royalty in the Nation’s Largest Home (2017) and John M. Bryan’s G.W.
Vanderbilt’s Biltmore Estate: The Most Distinguished Private Place (1994). This
section is meant to provide context and offers a brief history of the estate prior to the
family opening the estate to the public in 1930.
77
his time to traveling and exploring cultural pursuits, including acquiring a large
collection of fine art and rare books. While traveling in Asheville, North Carolina in
1888, Vanderbilt was “captivated by the rugged beauty of the rural region and found it
the perfect setting” for his own country estate.171 Inspired by the country estates he
saw while in Europe, Vanderbilt was determined to create a property that would
“serve not only as a showcase for his cherished collections and a retreat for
entertaining but also as a profitable, self-supporting business.”172 To prepare for this
endeavor, he purchased 125,000 acres of land and named his newly acquired estate
“Biltmore,” which was derived from the Dutch town of Bildt, from whence his
ancestors originated, and the old English word for “open, rolling land:” “more.”173
His next step was to hire two of the most well-renowned Gilded Age
architects: Richard Morris Hunt and landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted. Hunt
had a long and prestigious resume by the late nineteenth century as he designed the
façade of New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, the pedestal for the Statue of
Library, and several other Vanderbilt properties. He designed the Petit Chateau in
1886 for William Kissam Vanderbilt and while he was working on Biltmore, Hunt
was also designing another home for W.K. Vanderbilt, the Marble House in Newport,
171 Rachel Carley, Biltmore Estate (Asheville, N.C.: The Biltmore Company, 2004),
13.
172 Carley, Biltmore Estate, 13.
78
Rhode Island.174 Vanderbilt informed Hunt that he wanted his future home to be made
of limestone and modeled on the Château de Blois, the former residence of several
French kings located in the Loire Valley, and construction began in 1889 (fig. 14).175
The four-story, 250-room main house was built in the French Renaissance style and its
interiors were inspired by various European estates, including Haddon Hall and
Hatfield House (fig. 15).176 These spaces were soon filled with impressive objects and
furnishings dating from the fifteenth to nineteenth centuries that Vanderbilt had
purchased during several trips to Europe for the purpose of displaying them within his
new home. While Biltmore’s collections primarily consist of European objects, Nan
Chase identifies a few examples of the American-made pieces within Biltmore,
including an oak drop-front desk, a walnut piano, and several bronze candlesticks.177
As a result, Biltmore’s architecture and collections create a significant amalgamation
174 John M. Bryan, G.W. Vanderbilt’s Biltmore Estate: The Most Distinguished
Private Place (New York: Rizzoli International Publications, 1994), 19; Haddon Hall
is a medieval manor house in Derbyshire and Hatfield House is a Jacobean country
house located in Hertfordshire. Both Haddon Hall and Hatfield House are examples of
English country houses that have remained in private family ownership.
175The limestone used for the property was transported 600 miles from Indiana and
most of the supplies used to build Biltmore were delivered using a private rail spur
near the estate. A woodworking factory, used to process oak and walnut for the
house’s floors and paneling, and a kiln, used to create the house’s bricks, were built
onsite during the construction.
176Mark Alan Hewitt, The Architect and the American Country House (New Haven:
Yale University Press, 1990), 3
177Nan Chase, Asheville: A History (Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland Publishers, 2007),
69–70.
79
of English, American, and Continental European design and material culture
traditions.
Meanwhile, Frederick Law Olmsted, known as the “father of American
landscape architecture,” was hired to design the gardens and grounds of Biltmore.178
Olmsted was also already well-established in his career when he began working for
Vanderbilt as he had designed the Niagara Reservation at Niagara Falls, the grounds
of the United States Capitol, and New York’s Prospect Park and Central Park.
Olmsted worked closely with both Vanderbilt and Hunt as they created the Biltmore
Estate. When Olmsted discovered that the estate’s terrain was topographically unfit for
the large park that Vanderbilt had originally intended for the estate, he created a new
plan that entailed “installing a 250-acre pleasure garden…establishing farms along the
fertile river bottoms, and replanting the rest of the property as a commercial timber
forest.”179 As Olmsted continued to shape the landscape, he was increasingly
impressed with the magnificence of Biltmore as he believed that “George’s home
could be on par with the great estates of England and Europe.”180 The gardens and
farms designed by Olmsted also enhanced Vanderbilt’s ability to pursue the life of a
“country gentlemen” as Biltmore’s farms became extremely lucrative and yielded
178Olmsted’s son, Frederick Law Olmsted Jr., was an apprentice to his father in 1890
and worked on the design of Biltmore’s gardens alongside his father.
180Denise Kiernan, The Last Castle: The Epic Story of Love, Loss, and American
Royalty in the Nation’s Largest Home (New York: Atria, 2017), 27.
80
large numbers of fruits and vegetables as well as several dairy and meat products.
Furthermore, the 300-acre nursery designed by Olmsted was known for being one of
the most complete stocks in the nation as it “offered for sale about five million
plants.”181
Once construction was complete, the Biltmore estate was opened with fanfare
on Christmas Eve of 1895 for friends and family members. Guests were encouraged to
partake in a variety of leisurely country activities, including archery, croquet, hunting,
and horseback riding, to celebrate the Vanderbilts’ new North Carolina home. After
spending a significant amount of time in Ashville, Vanderbilt and his wife, Edith
Stuyvesant Dresser, became increasingly involved in the nearby community. They
bought a neighboring town for the purposes of developing it and renamed it Biltmore
Village as well as founding Biltmore Industries in 1901, which produced “furniture
based on models at the big house” in order to provide employment for locals.182 While
these endeavors were lucrative, the Biltmore Estate became financially difficult to
maintain following Vanderbilt’s death in 1914. In order to both make the estate more
manageable and fulfill her husband’s wishes to begin a national forest, Edith sold
about 87,000 acres to the federal government to create Pisgah National Forest.183 In an
181Carley, Biltmore Estate, 8; This nursery was eventually flooded and destroyed in
1916.
182 Clive Aslet, The American Country House, 14-15.
183 Kiernan, The Last Castle: The Epic Story of Love, Loss, and American Royalty in
the Nation’s Largest Home, 130.
81
effort to further consolidate, Edith sold both Biltmore Estate Industries and Biltmore
Village by 1921 and rarely occupied the house while her daughter, Cornelia, continued
to live at Biltmore with her husband, John Francis Amherst Cecil, and their two
children.184 The financial stress would only continue and once Cornelia was officially
deeded the estate in 1929, it became apparent that the family would have to open the
estate to the public in order to offset the property’s increasing financial demands,
which were made worse by the onset of the Great Depression.
Biltmore as a Business: Transition into a Tourist Destination and the Formation

of the Biltmore Company
Given its status as an “American Icon” and the nearly half-million visitors it
attracts each year, it seems inevitable that the Biltmore Estate would eventually be
opened to the public not only for tourists’ enjoyment but also to preserve the house
that was said to be “the beginning of an era of great American country places and
country homes.”185 However, the future of Biltmore was debated among family
members prior to its public opening and while it was clear that the management of the
estate would have to be altered, the nature of this alteration was very much in
question. In 1929, faced with the financial stress of the colossal maintenance costs and
taxes that Biltmore Estate required, the lawful owner of the estate, Cornelia
Stuyvesant Vanderbilt, and her husband began to debate options to alleviate this stress.
184 Clive Aslet, American Country Houses, 16-17.

185 Quoted in Clive Aslet’s American Country Houses, 17.
82
Interestingly, Biltmore’s situation in the early twentieth century parallels that of
Ardrossan in the twenty-first century, and examining the decisions made by the
Vanderbilts during this time—as well as the revival of Biltmore in the 1960s—offers
further options and actions that could be taken by the Montgomerys’ descendants.
Following the transfer of the title of the property to Cornelia in mid-1929, the
family’s attorney, Junius G. Adams, negotiated “a settlement between the trustees and
the Cecils for the house and land to pass into a new private corporation called the
Biltmore Company.”186 This corporation would be responsible for supporting and
managing the estate and Cornelia placed a significant amount of her inheritance in
trust to support this endeavor. However, the Biltmore Company was not formally
organized until 1932 and the Cecils themselves were responsible for deciding the fate
of Biltmore during this interim period. The first written indication of this decision-
making process in the Biltmore Estate Archives is in a letter Cecil wrote to his lawyer,
Harry Nims, in September of 1929. He outlines the “various schemes” that he and
Cornelia had been discussing for “over a year” and reveals that their initial plan was to
continue owning and occupying the house and its immediate surrounding grounds but
to sell the farm and the rest of the estate.187 Cecil then wrote that Nims had previously
186
Howard E. Covington Jr., Lady on the Hill: How Biltmore Estate Became an
American Icon (Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 2006), 70.
187John Francis Amherst Cecil to Harry Nims, 12 Sept 1929, The Biltmore Company
Collection, Box 5, Folder 96, 3.09/10-96, Biltmore Estate Archives.
83
“suggested feeling out some of the very rich people in America, who might possibly
feel inclined to buy the place” and that the idea to sell the entire estate appealed to
Cornelia for a period of time.188 However, her final decision regarding the future of
the property was motivated by ensuring the family ownership and legacy of Biltmore
as Cecil informed Nims that:
Now she has decided on another plan, with two main objects in view. Firstly to
find a method of carrying this appalling and ever increasing taxation, and
secondly, to devise a means of keeping Biltmore House in her hands as a sort
of memorial to her Father, and should brighter days come in the future, when
the boys are grown up, her hands will not be tied and she will be relieved from
the feeling of sacrificing the whole of her father’s life’s work. This is the plan
which Mrs. Cecil has decided upon: To take the House and immediately
surrounding grounds, i.e. about 100 acres and open them up to the public.189
Cecil himself stated that this plan may seem unprofitable, but he cites the Magnolia
Gardens in Charleston as an example on which Biltmore can model itself upon its
public opening. However, he believed that Biltmore would be even more successful as
the property could be a year-round attraction whereas Magnolia Gardens “are only at
their best for about three weeks in the year” and still generated around $30,000 each
year.190 Cecil and Cornelia had already been allowing the public to tour the grounds of
the estate three days a week, which generated about $7,000 per year, but Cecil wrote
188John Francis Amherst Cecil to Harry Nims, 12 Sept 1929, Biltmore Estate
Archives.
Archives.
Archives.
84
that opening the house for public tours and charging $2 for admission would most
likely “bring in $50,000 [to] $60,000 a year, after paying for all the necessary
expenses of the upkeep of the grounds and gardens,” which would greatly “help Mrs.
Cecil to carry tax burden.”191 This arrangement would not only lessen the financial
challenges of managing the property, but it would also benefit the local tourism
industry, which was struggling due to the Great Depression. Within this letter, Cecil
also wrote that successfully opening the property to the public would require the
assistance of the local Chamber of Commerce and the Southern Railways to promote
the property and facilitate a large number of visitors and through “a good deal of
careful advertising.”192 In fact, it was Junius G. Adams that would effectively
orchestrate and execute this plan, which would both benefit the city’s tourism industry
and also save the Cecils the “embarrassment” that would accompany the news of
Biltmore turning into a tourist attraction due to the family’s need for financial
support.193
The method of advertising implemented by those involved with the transition
of Biltmore would largely follow the model suggested by Cecil: “We want to steer
Archives.
Archives.
193
Howard E. Covington Jr., Lady on the Hill: How Biltmore Estate Became an
American Icon (Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 2006), 67.
85
clear of any idea of a Museum – it will be a sort of “Show Place.”194 This choice to
market the estate as a display and tourist attraction rather than a museum is unique
among the other case studies included in this project, and it not only cements
Biltmore’s guiding pillar as “entertainment” and “tourism,” but also offers an
intriguing approach to marketing that offers valuable lessons for Ardrossan’s possible
transition to a public-facing property. The plan to open the house began in earnest
when the Asheville Chamber of Commerce approved the resolution to spend a
minimum of $5,000 on advertising the Biltmore Estate during 1930 as they believed
that the privilege of viewing Biltmore’s architecture, material collections, and gardens
“would be genuinely welcomed by our guests and would prove an exceedingly
popular addition to the attractions which serve to draw tourists to this community.”195
With the opening of the Biltmore House set for March 15, 1930, the Chamber of
Commerce widely circulated news of this event, and less than two weeks before the
grand opening, the Ashville Citizen-Times reported that according to the Chamber of
Commerce, clippings about Biltmore’s opening had “a total circulation of over
7,000,000.”196 The materials reproduced in newspapers throughout the nation were
Archives.
195
Judge Junius Adams to John Francis Amherst Cecil, 11 Dec 1929, The Biltmore
Company Collection, Box 5, Folder 96, Biltmore Estate Archives.
196 “Wide Publicity Given Biltmore House Event,” Asheville Citizen-Times
(Asheville, North Carolina), March 2, 1930, Newspapers.com; The article states that
the New York Times, the Boston Post, the Chicago Tribute, the St. Louis Post-
Dispatch were among the publications that printed news of Biltmore’s opening.
86
mailed by the Chamber’s publicity bureau and contained “reproductions of photos of
the house and its interior and stories regarding the opening of the mansion.”197
Private correspondence between Cecil and Nims further discusses strategies for
publicizing this new chapter of Biltmore’s history and highlights the specific approach
the Cecils took when marketing and promoting the opening of their home to the
public. In January of 1930, Cecil wrote:
the policy, which we want to convey to the public, is that Cornelia is making a
sacrifice in opening up the House…and that she is doing this solely at the
appeal of the Chamber of Commerce as offering an incalculable benefit to the
people of Asheville and a tremendous assistance towards the advertisement
and hence development of this part of the country. Adams has steered clear
entirely of the material benefits which we hope to derive from the
scheme…The benefits of Cornelia’s generosity will accrue to the citizens of
Asheville and let the local authorities take the praise for having persuaded her
to come so magnanimously to their assistance. If we can stick to this line and
get the public to swallow it, you can realize what a tremendous difference it
will make to the whole ‘prestige’ of the place and throw a completely different
light on the transaction than if we, by some unwitting move, gave the idea that
the matter was tinged with commercialism.198
This excerpt details the narrative that the family chose to promote and disseminate
throughout publications in order to maximize the public’s interest in the house,
encouraging visitors to contribute financial support to the local community of
Asheville rather than to members of the high-society Vanderbilt family. This narrative
was perpetuated in various publications, including the Asheville Citizen-Times which
197 “Wide Publicity Given Biltmore House Event,” Asheville Citizen-Times.

198
Junius Adams to Harry Nims. 11 Jan 1930. The Biltmore Company Collections.
Box 6. Folder 98. 3.09/10-98. Biltmore Estate Archives.
87
reported that “the Asheville Chamber of Commerce is to be congratulated upon,
having persuaded Mr. and Mrs. Cecil to open Biltmore House to the public” and that
the local community and general public will be appreciative of the decision “which
Mr. and Mrs. Cecil with fine civic spirit, have reached.”199 Interestingly, this version
of events is also included in contemporary histories of the estate, including Richard
Hansley’s 2014 work, Asheville’s Historic Architecture, which states that the Cecils
opened the house at the request of the City of Asheville in order to revitalize the area’s
tourism industry, highlighting the extent to which this marketing strategy was
effective.200
In addition to advertising and marketing strategies, decisions related to how the
public would interact with the property and its collections were also debated prior to
the official opening of Biltmore. This process was largely the responsibility of the
Cecils’ head butler, Herbert Noble, who was appointed as the house’s first “curator”
by the Cecils in January of 1930. Aspects of Noble’s actions and motivations during
this critical period are documented in the Biltmore Archives as he recorded various
observations in a journal known as the “Butler’s Log.” He writes that his new position
was not an easy task “as Biltmore House had to be run as a private residence as well as
a public art collection” and several of the rugs and pieces of furniture within the house
199 “Opening of Biltmore House to Public Enhances Asheville’s Lure,” Asheville

Citizen-Times (Asheville, North Carolina) February 16, 1930, Newspapers.com.
200 Richard Hansley, Asheville's Historic Architecture (Cheltenham: The History
Press, 2014), 151–152.
88
were in a “terribly run down and deplorable condition” prior to Biltmore’s public
opening.201 Noble was given full permission from the Cecils to employ his own
“discretion in using any of the materials in Biltmore House to a better advantage and
try to restore the furnishings to a better and former beauty” for future visitors.202 In
addition to restoring several objects within the house, the Cecils’ lawyer offered the
practical advice of installing electric alarms at all exits and also suggested a potential
tour structure that could be implemented at the house. Nims informed John Cecil that
“It is much safer, in this man’s opinion, to handle the people in groups, each group
being conducted by a guide, rather than post people around the house.”203 The Cecils
did implement this strategy soon after opening the house as an article in the
Minneapolis Sunday Tribute reported that the “gatemen, wardens and
watchmen…have been transformed into guides, who will reveal to the public the
mysteries hidden effectually for so many years” through a “systematic tour of the
house.”204 The use of guards for tour guides not only suggests that the possibility of
theft was an issue carefully considered by the Cecils but also causes one to
201 Herbert Noble, “The Butler’s Log,” Biltmore Estate Archives.

202 Herbert Noble, “The Butler’s Log,” Biltmore Estate Archives.
203Harry Nims to John Francis Amherst Cecil. 5 Jan 1930. The Biltmore Company
Collection. Box 5. Folder 97. 3.09/10-97. Biltmore Estate Archives.
204“Visit the Vanderbilts—Admission $2,” The Minneapolis Sunday Tribune
(Minneapolis, Minnesota), May 25, 1930, Newspapers.com.
89
contemplate how informative these initial tours were as providing an educational tour
was not these “guides’” primary responsibility or concern.
Instead of educating the public on the craftsmanship and social history of the
objects within the house, it appears that the Cecils and their advisors chose to center
the house tour around its extravagance and connections to a rich, old-monied family.
Not only did newspaper articles advertise the tour as an opportunity to “roam
American’s Costliest Castle, where only bluebloods once were welcome,” but the
1930 House Guide provided to guests during their visit offers little information
besides basic facts about a few objects in each room (fig. 16). For instance,
information on the “Entrance Hall” lists that the room contains wooden French
candlesticks that date to the late seventeenth century and “one of Cardinal Richelieu’s
Furnishings.” Certain rooms have more objects listed than others, but the pamphlet is
primarily focused on providing guests with the materials and dates of significant
objects. In addition to objects belonging to Richelieu, another object often highlighted
was a chess table that belonged to Napoleon Bonaparte, which the guide asserts that
“upon his death, his heart was placed in the drawer of this table.”205 Interestingly, a
recent blog post about the chess table written by Biltmore staff clarifies that after
Napoleon’s heart was removed during an autopsy, it was “sealed in an alcohol-filled
silver urn, and placed on the nearby gaming table,” further suggesting that early tours
205 1930 House Guide, Biltmore Estate Archives.
90
aimed to sensationalize the history of Biltmore and its objects for the benefit of
visitors’ entertainment.206
This strategy was clearly lucrative as only one month after Biltmore’s grand
opening, Adams wrote to Harry Nims that the house had “been running an average of
considerably over 100 a day paid admissions...So far I have not heard of a single case
where a visitor did not think the show was well worth the money, and in fact quite the
greatest that they had seen, either in this country or abroad.”207 This success continued
into the year as reported by the Robesonian in August of 1930, which informed
readers that since its March 15th opening “an average of 200 to 250 persons have
visited the place daily.”208 Content with the estate’s financial success, Cornelia and
John Cecil left the majority of operations to the Biltmore Company and its first
president, Junius Adams, following the company’s formal organization in 1932.
However, the house faced another period of crisis within the next decade. Adams was
forced to closed Biltmore to the public during World War II and in 1942, several
pieces of valuable art, including one of Gilbert Stuart’s famed portraits of George
Washington, were transferred from the National Gallery of Art and stored at Biltmore
206 Amy Dangelico, “The Emperor’s Chess Set,” Biltmore, October 23, 2016,
https://www.biltmore.com/blog/the-emperors-chess-set/.
207
Judge Adams to Harry Nims. 18 Apr 1930. The Biltmore Company Collection.
208
“A Visit to Biltmore House,” The Robesonian (Lumberton, North Carolina)
August 14, 1930, Newspapers.com
91
for protection while David Finley, the museum’s director, lived on the estate.209 After
it reopened in 1946, Biltmore saw consistent growth in ticket sales as over 42,000
visitors came to Biltmore in 1946 and nearly 50,000 tourists paid admission in
1950.210 However, interest in the estate was dwindling as neighboring tourist
attractions, such as National Parks, were more sought-after destinations than George
Washington Vanderbilt II’s former estate. In addition, members of the Cecil family,
including their oldest son, George Henry Vanderbilt Cecil, had stopped living in the
house since 1956, leading the maintenance and condition of the house to gradually
decline.211 However, when the Cecils’ second son, William A. V. Cecil, Sr. decided to
return to Biltmore in the late 1950s, he utilized the same model of prioritizing
entertainment implemented by his parents and their advisors in 1930 to make Biltmore
a profitable endeavor once again.
The restoration and revitalization of the Biltmore Estate in the 1960s is
detailed in Howard E. Covington’s Lady on the Hill: How Biltmore Estate Became an
American Icon, but a brief overview provides further evidence of the Biltmore
Company’s effective use of applying a private, for-profit business model to a historic
house. When William Cecil first returned to Biltmore, the estate was receiving a small
209 Covington, Lady on the Hill: How Biltmore Estate Became an American Icon, 96.
210Covington, Lady on the Hill: How Biltmore Estate Became an American Icon, 106;
120.
92
number of visitors and the company was losing about $250,000 a year. Covington
argues that Cecil brought a new perspective to Biltmore as he “wanted visitors to stroll
at their own pace, unencumbered by guides, and see a residence that met his
grandfather’s standards.”212 Cecil was determined to increase Biltmore’s self-
sufficiency and began this process by investing heavily in restoring aspects of the
house and most importantly, in marketing Biltmore to potential visitors. In the 1960s,
Cecil continuously expanded the Biltmore Company’s advertising budget, eventually
reaching $90,000 a year in the mid-1960s.213 This strategy proved to be effective as in
1965, Biltmore welcomed over 94,000 visitors, a stark difference from the site’s
visitation in the 1950s.214 Cecil also raised the price of admission to $2.50 not only to
further offset the costs of taxes and other expenses that were required due to
Biltmore’s status as a private company but also because Cecil simply believed that
“Biltmore was worth the charge.”215
After Cecil’s intervention and unique approach to managing a historic house,
Biltmore was once again a profitable endeavor that only continued to increase in
value. In 1980, the Biltmore Company opened the house’s downstairs servants’
quarters and kitchens to the public and the addition of these spaces to public tours
93
provided an opportunity to increase ticket prices by 55% and the estate saw a 28%
increase in visitation due to this new endeavor.216 Further profitable expansions to the
company include the establishment of the Biltmore Estate Wine Company in 1983, the
Inn on the Biltmore Estate in 2001, and the Antler Hill Village, which features “a
Vanderbilt exhibition and new opportunities for shopping, dining, and outdoor
activities” in 2010.217 Alongside resorts, wine tastings, and shopping, Biltmore also
offers a host of educational programs, including guided house tours for field trips, a
homeschool festival, and hands-on learning experiences at Antler Hill Barn, which
facilitates a variety of experimental academic programs that align with the North
Carolina Standard Course of Study.218 Furthermore, despite the Biltmore Company’s
emphatic separation from the term “museum,” the company does feature a Museum
Services department that focuses on conservation, curation, and educational programs
and these activities are most likely well-funded due to Biltmore’s financial success as
a for-profit tourist attraction, reinforcing the benefit of Biltmore’s management model
of emphasizing visitor entertainment and profit.
216 “Biltmore Estate: As the Century Turns,” American House Museums in the 21st
Century: An Athenæum of Philadelphia Symposium, December 1998,
http://www.athenaonline.org/hmuseum/index.htm.
217 “Estate History,” Biltmore, accessed October 15, 2020,
https://www.biltmore.com/our-story/estate-history/.
218 “Educational Groups,” Biltmore, accessed February 5, 2021,
https://www.biltmore.com/groups/educational/.
94
Lessons from Biltmore and Actionable Items for Ardrossan
Former CEO of the Biltmore Company, William A. V. Cecil, Jr. aptly
described the model of entertainment and profit utilized by his family’s company
during the previously mentioned symposium on historic house museums: “I consider
the best comparison to Biltmore is Disney. My mission is to create an atmosphere
where people enjoy their experience at Biltmore—a place where guests have fun,
interact, and live out a fantasy. I know they’ll learn something in the process; it will
just be an easier, more palatable of doing so.”219 This prioritization of entertainment
may overshadow the estate’s dedication to education, but the profit generated by this
model ultimately ensures the long-term preservation of the property and its public
accessibility. Just as Biltmore capitalized on its connections to a “blue-blood”
American family during its transition to a public-facing property, Ardrossan’s history
provides opportunities to employ creative ways to generate revenue that will ensure its
survival and eventual growth as a cultural institution.
In the final report of the 2005 Ardrossan Vision Workshop, the expert team
suggested that “one positioning message for the house could emphasize its history of
entertaining,” which would provide “a way of differentiating the estate and
communicating some of what makes it distinctive and unique among historic
219William A.V. Cecil, Jr., “Biltmore Estate: As the Century Turns,” American House
Museums in the 21st Century: An Athenæum of Philadelphia Symposium, December
95
properties worldwide.”220 In addition to opening the first floor for occasional tours,
using Ardrossan as a “premium entertainment venue” was among the team’s top
solutions for the house as it would “keep life in the house.”221 Both the property’s
interior and exterior spaces offer the potential to be a profitable rental facility for high-
end events, such as academic conferences, fundraising galas, antique shows, and even
dog shows.222 Ardrossan’s familial ties to the blockbuster film, The Philadelphia
Story, provide further opportunities to attract elite, prestigious functions. The report
also included further ways to generate revenue, including the possibility of converting
the two upper floors into “life estates for family members.” Joanie Mackie, the
descendent currently living on the property, has also echoed this idea and is agreeable
to renovating these upper stories into condominiums as a way to share the expenses of
the Big House and as a result, this financial burden would not fall entirely onto the
family or a future non-profit foundation.223 Furthermore, this plan would allow the
Vision Workshop” (2005), 5; 8.
222Another suggestion is creating unique, limited experiences on platforms like
Airbnb. Ardrossan could offer a “booking” in which small groups of people visit and
tour the house and these offerings have earned the most popular “hosts” over
$200,000. See Jim Richardson’s “With 1.5 million annual bookings, is your museum
missing out on Airbnb Experiences?” https://www.museumnext.com/article/is-your-
museum-missing-out-on-airbnb-experiences/.
223 Interview with Joanie Mackie conducted by the author, March 19, 2021.
96
first floor and its contents to remain in situ, functioning as a museum space and
effectively preserving the house’s history and material culture.
These options and possibilities would create a unique model for a historic
house, but ultimately reflects Biltmore’s model of prioritizing the entertainment of
visitors throughout its transition to a public property. The lessons gleaned from this
case study and Biltmore’s example reveal that taking steps to emphasize the site’s
history with entertainment and creating various streams of revenue during Ardrossan’s
own transition can provide an opportunity to not only secure financial stability in the
present but may also ensure Ardrossan’s growth and sustainably for the future.
97
Chapter 6
CASTLE HILL: A MODEL OF EDUCATION, ENTERTAINMENT, AND

LAND CONSERVATION
In August of 1949, the Boston Sunday Globe reported that the “Reservation
Trustees have a $1,000,000 problem in what to do with Castle Hill.”224 A month
earlier, Florence Crane, the widow of Richard Teller Crane II, had died and left the
ownership and management of her family’s fifty-nine-room summer home in Ipswich,
Massachusetts to the Trustees of Reservations. The Trustees is a private, non-profit
land conservation and historic preservation organization established in 1891 that owns
over 100 properties and 26,000 acres throughout Massachusetts with the mission to
“preserve, for public use and enjoyment, properties of exceptional scenic, historic, and
ecological value” throughout the state.225 The family’s relationship with the Trustees
had been established in 1945 when Florence deeded over 950 acres of land, including
224“Reservation Trustees Have a $1,000,000 Problem in What to Do with Castle

Hill,” The Boston Globe, August 14, 1949, Newspapers.com.
225Internal Revenue Service. 2019. Form 990. Retrieved from GuideStar. Return of
Organization Exempt from Income Tax: Trustees of Reservations.
https://pdf.guidestar.org/PDF_Images/2019/042/105/2019-042105780-17243691-
9.pdf?_gl=1*oneumm*_ga*MTQ0Njg5ODE3Ni4xNjE2NTQ4NjE1*_ga_0H865XH5JK*MT
YxNjU0ODYxNS4xLjEuMTYxNjU0ODY1NC4w*_ga_5W8PXYYGBX*MTYxNjU0ODYx
NS4xLjEuMTYxNjU0ODY1NC4w&_ga=2.161002493.1373866148.1616548615-
1446898176.1616548615.
98
the Cranes’ private dunes and beach, to the organization for conservation and public
use. However, her gift of the house and the remainder of the property presented a
challenge for the Trustees as this mansion and its surrounding lands were unique
among its existing properties and the house’s use was debated among Trustees
employees and the Cranes’ children.
Castle Hill now operates as a historic house museum open to the public as well
as a popular rental venue for weddings and corporate events. While the grounds and
gardens are open seven days a week, the main house is typically open for tours on
Tuesday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.226 The site also offers special tours
and programs, including various hikes throughout the estate. Castle Hill’s rental
offerings are prominently advertised on a separate website dedicated to booking
private events and its homepage states that the property “offers a dramatic setting for
weddings, celebrations, and corporate functions, with extraordinary atmosphere and
breathtaking views along the half-mile-long manicured lawn.”227 While the Trustees’
operation of Castle Hill includes both education and entertainment offerings, their
rental activities are certainly more profitable. As the Trustees oversee numerous
226 Tours on Fridays and Saturdays are typically available from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.
However, these hours reflect the site’s pre-COVID hours. The grounds are still open to
visitors, but tours of the Main House are currently being offered by appointment only
and on a limited basis. See “Admissions and Hours,” The Trustees of Reservations,
https://thetrustees.org/place/castle-hill-on-the-crane-estate/.
227 “About the Estate,” Crane Estate Events, accessed February 12, 2021,
https://www.craneestateevents.com/#about.
99
properties, the statistics in their annual reports reflect the revenue gained from the
properties collectively, but in the fiscal year 2020, the Trustees gained 41% of their
revenue from “Property and Other Revenues,” a majority of which comes from events
and rentals, compared to 14% of revenue gained from programs related to “Education
and Engagement.”228
While the management model and uses of Castle Hill are well-established and
sustainable in the present day, the nature of its survival was just as undefined and
ambiguous during its public origins as that of Ardrossan. Just as the Montgomerys’
descendants are presently discussing various uses and futures for the house, the
Cranes’ descendants and those tasked with managing the estate (the Trustees) were
considering various possibilities, all of which would have had a unique impact on how
contemporary and future generations would interact with the property and its
collections. The uncertainty surrounding the future of the Crane Estate on Castle Hill
in the mid-twentieth century parallels the situation facing Ardrossan in the present
day. As a result, examining the decisions and debate that surrounded the transition of
Castle Hill into a public property is undoubtedly a valuable exercise and provides a
comparative example of an American country house that not only efficiently balances
models of education and entertainment but also considers land conservation as a
228 The Trustees of Reservations, Annual Report for Fiscal Year 2020 (2021), page 3,
https://issuu.com/thetrustees/docs/trustees_fy20_annual_report_lr.
100
guiding principle—a factor that was and remains essential to those managing
Ardrossan.
Brief History of Castle Hill on the Crane Estate229
While the Crane Estate was established when industrialist, Richard Crane, Jr.,
purchased the property in 1910, the land known as Castle Hill has a long history.
Before European colonization, this land was originally inhabited by indigenous
groups, especially Algonquians, who referred to the land as “Agawam” (meaning
“resort for fish of passage”).230 In 1637, the son of John Winthrop, the first governor
of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, arrived in Ipswich to establish a plantation that
would inhibit French colonists from further extending their influence on the Gulf of
Maine and “negotiated” with Agawam’s sagamore, Maskonomett, to purchase the land
for £20.231 This deed was signed with Maskonomett’s mark and stipulated that “I do
fully resign up all my right of the whole town of Ipswich as far as the bounds thereof
shall go…unto the said John Winthrop…and I do bind myself to make it clear from
229This section is meant to provide a brief overview of the estate prior to Florence
Crane’s death in 1949 and the transfer of ownership to the Trustees of Reservations.
For a more comprehensive study of Castle Hill’s history see Elsbeth Magnarelli’s
National Registry of Historic Places Nomination Form for Castle Hill (1998), Anna
Kasabian’s Castle Hill on the Crane Estate (2021), and Past Designs’ Historic
Landscape Assessment Report for Castle Hill (1997).
230
Sidney Perley, The Indian Land Titles of Essex County, Massachusetts (Salem,
M.A.: Essex Book and Print Club, 1912), 26.
231
Alternate spellings of Maskonomett found in archival sources include
“Masquenominet” and “Masconomet.”
101
the claims of any other Indians whatsoever.”232 Interestingly, this text was copied onto
a plaque that was mounted on the southeast side of the Great House and continues to
be a physical reminder of the Indigenous history connected to the land and property
(fig. 17).
The property continued to be used as farmland for over two centuries under
various owners as Winthrop deeded the land to Samuel Symonds in 1644 and it was
passed down throughout his family until 1745 when it was deeded to the Brown
family. No major changes happened on the estate until John Burnham Brown hired a
landscape gardener, Ernest Bowditch, in 1886 to create a road system that would
enhance the site’s natural features and views. Several trees were also added to the
property and a farmhouse was renovated into a “rambling seaside cottage” and these
alterations were “evidence of [the] 19th century change from the utilitarian to the
aesthetic.”233 After Brown’s death, the estate was purchased by Richard Teller Crane
II in 1910. Crane inherited an industrial fortune from his grandfather, Richard Teller
Crane, who founded the Crane Company in 1855. Based in Chicago, the Crane Co.
sold and manufactured plumbing supplies and brass goods. The company quickly
expanded and by 1890, was producing the pipes used in the central heating systems of
232 Perley, The Indian Land Titles of Essex County, Massachusetts, 26.
233 Elsbeth T. Magnarelli, “Castle Hill,” National Register of Historic Places
Nomination Form (Washington, DC: U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park
Service, 1997), Section 8,
https://npgallery.nps.gov/NRHP/GetAsset/NHLS/77000183_text.
102
several of Chicago’s skyscrapers as well as the heating equipment for various public
buildings, including the Cook County Courthouse.234 Richard Crane II was the
president of the company by 1910 and purchased the Castle Hill property to create a
large summer house for his wife, Florence Higginbotham Crane, and their two
children, Cornelius and Florence.
Prior to the creation of the main house currently standing atop Castle Hill, a
sixty-room villa designed in the Italian Renaissance Revival style by the Boston-based
architecture firm, Shepley, Rutan, and Coolidge, was commissioned in 1912 by Crane.
He also hired the sons of Frederick Law Olmsted, known as the Olmsted Brothers, and
Arthur Shurcliff as the site’s landscape architects. The Olmsted Brothers and Shurcliff
collaborated to create various terraced gardens, including the “Rose Garden” and
“Wild Garden,” as well as the most iconic feature of the house: the Grande Allée.235
This grass mall is bordered with classical statues and evergreens that span half a
mile—from the top of the hill to Crane Beach—and offers a magnificent view of the
rolling lawn meeting the Ipswich Bay as one looks on from the Great House. Along
with the elements created by the landscape architects, other remnants of the initial
construction of the Crane Estate are the Farm Complex and the Casino Complex, both
of which were built between 1914 and 1915 by Shepley, Rutan, and Coolidge in the
234 “History,” Crane Company, accessed January 12, 2021,

https://www.craneco.com/about/history/default.aspx.
235Magnarelli, “Castle Hill,” National Register of Historic Places Nomination Form,
Section 8.
103
Italian Renaissance Revival style.236 The estate’s farm consisted of several barns,
greenhouses, a workers’ dormitory, and the caretaker’s residence. Most of these
structures feature green tile roofs and stucco exteriors and “provided an infrastructure
that enabled the estate to be self-sufficient,” a defining characteristic of industrialists’
houses built during the Country Place Era.237 Meanwhile, the Casino, which was built
at the midpoint of the Grande Allée, features a courtyard that was originally the
family’s swimming pool, the “Bachelor’s Quarters,” which served as a four-bedroom
guest house, and the “Ballroom,” a building that was typically used for large social
gatherings. These buildings were also built with stucco walls but have red tiles as
roofing instead of green. Nevertheless, these and other buildings designed by Shepley,
Rutan, and Coolidge offer insight into the architectural style and appearance of the
first Great House built on Castle Hill.
The impetus behind Richard Crane’s decision to replace the Italianate villa
with a new country house is attributed to Florence Crane’s vocal dislike towards the
original house as she often described it as “drafty.”238 In 1925, Crane ordered for the
Shepley, Rutan, and Coolidge-designed mansion to be demolished and replaced with a
236The Farm Complex was also created with the help of an agricultural design
consultant.
237“Castle Hill on the Crane Estate: Self-Guided Tour.” Brochure. Trustees of the
Reservations.
238Magnarelli, “Castle Hill.” National Register of Historic Places Nomination Form,
Section 8.
104
fifty-nine room Great House designed in the Stuart Revival style. For this task, the
family hired Chicago-based architect, David Adler, who had built the Crane’s winter
estate in Jekyll Island, Georgia in 1916.239 While Adler is well-known for his country
house designs in the North Shore area of Chicago, architectural historian, Mark A.
Hewitt, writes that “his best works include…Castle Hill (1927), the mammoth
Wrenaissance Crane estate at Ipswich,” referring to the property that currently stands
on top of Castle Hill: the Stuart-style country house Adler designed in the style of Sir
Christopher Wren.240 As common with main houses of the Country Place Era, Adler
modeled the north (rear of the house) and south facades (front of the house) of Castle
Hill’s Great House after two different seventeenth-century English country houses: the
Ham House in Surrey and the Belton House in Lincolnshire, respectively (fig. 18, fig.
19).241 The house also features “pink Holland bricks set in Flemish bond…with a
239Adler’s designs and plans for Castle Hill can be found in both the Burnham
Library of Architecture at the Art Institute of Chicago and the Trustees of
Reservations’ Archive and Research Center.
240Mark Alan Hewitt, The Architect and the American Country House (New Haven:
Yale University Press, 1990), 267.
241The south façade is also reminiscent of the Dutch Palladian style of Coleshill and
Eagle House and it is probable that Adler also drew inspiration from these houses;
Susan Hill Dolan, “Mr. and Mrs. Richard T. Crane, Jr., House,” in David Adler,
Architect: The Elements of Style, edited by Martha Throne (New Haven: Yale
University Press, 2002), 141.
105
sandstone trim” and follows Palladian and Baroque-style symmetry commonly seen in
seventeenth-century English country houses.242
Along with the significant influence of English country estates in the exterior
of the house, the interiors of Castle Hill also draw inspiration from these manorial
houses, and some even utilize features salvaged from abandoned English country
houses. In his work, The Architect and the American Country House, Hewitt asserts
that Adler’s “finest houses are memorable for their graceful and meticulously detailed
interiors” and this assessment certainly applies to Castle Hill.243 Perhaps the most
significant feature refitted by Adler was woodwork from the home of the Earls of
Essex, Cassiobury Park, which was demolished in 1922. Crane purchased limewood
festoons carved by famed woodcarver Grinling Gibbons at the bequest of Adler, who
refit them as overmantel carvings prominently featured in the Great House’s library.
Crane also purchased a staircase and several wood-paneled rooms from the “Hogarth
House,” an eighteenth-century London townhouse in the Georgian-style and the
previous residence of artist William Hogarth, that Adler installed across nine rooms in
the Great House.244
242Dolan, “Mr. and Mrs. Richard T. Crane, Jr., House,” in David Adler, Architect:
The Elements of Style, 141.
243 Hewitt, The Architect and the American Country House, 267.
244Dolan, “Mr. and Mrs. Richard T. Crane, Jr., House,” in David Adler, Architect:
The Elements of Style, 143.
106
Despite these seventeenth- and eighteen-century elements and inspirations,
Castle Hill is also firmly a country house of the twentieth century as it is made of load-
bearing bricks, framed in steel, and features state-of-the-art plumbing and bathroom
fixtures due to Crane’s own industrial trade, creating an eclectic country estate that
mixed the traditional features of various English manors with the industrial, modern
comforts expected by American industrialists. Other indications of the period in which
the house was built are two griffin statues that were presented to Crane by employees
of the Crane Company as a gift for his new home upon its completion in 1928 (fig.
20). These griffins, created by American sculptor Paul Manship, are in the Art Deco
style and flank either side of the house’s north entrance. In a letter sent with the
statues, employees informed Crane that they “set these griffins to guard his home on
Castle Hill.”245 While these statues were designed to guard Crane’s family home as
they did for over twenty years, the Griffins continue to serve their purpose as they
greet thousands of visitors each year as they explore, tour, and use Castle Hill as a
public-facing site.
From the Trustee’s “Problem” to a Popular Public Site: Castle Hill’s Transition
On July 29, 1949, New York’s Daily News reported that Florence Crane,
widow to industrialist Richard T. Crane and daughter of the president of the 1893
Columbian Exposition, had passed away in “her 1,500 acre summer estate…at
245 “The Griffins at Castle Hill,” Label Text, The Crane Estate on Castle Hill.
107
Ipswich, Mass.”246 Richard had died eleven years earlier in 1938 and after deeding
several acres of the Crane beach to the Trustees, Florence stipulated in her will that the
remainder of the property, including the Great House, would be owned and managed
by the Trustees of Reservations following her death. Her children were also included
in this portion of the will as they were both granted the option to purchase various
portions of the property.247 The Boston Globe informed the public of Crane’s gift and
reported that a “meeting of the Trustees will be held to decide whether to accept the
bequest and that if it is accepted, the use [of] the buildings, especially the huge
mansion house, will…have to be decided.”248 The Trustees unanimously voted to
accept this gift, but while Florence specifically stated in her will that the beaches
should be opened for Ipswich residents in perpetuity, her wishes for the Great House
were less strict. Within the meeting minutes for a discussion in 1945 on the Trustees’
eventual ownership of the entire Crane Estate, the standing committee presented the
family’s plan for the property:
It is the present desire of the family that…the Trustees ultimately should hold
the remainder of the property with [the] right to put the buildings to such use as
246“Mrs. Florence H. Crane: Chicago Philanthropist,” Daily News (New York, New
York) July 29, 1949, Newspapers.com.
247As outlined in her will, Florence bequeathed the estate’s Brown Cottage, Gate
House, Barn group, and Hog Island to Cornelius Crane and Steep Hill and Steep Hill
Beach to Florence Crane; Crane Family Collection (CH.MS.Coll.1), Box2A, Deeds,
Trustees of Reservations Archive and Research Center.
248“Reservation Trustees Have a $1,000,000 Problem in What to Do with Castle
Hill,” The Boston Globe, August 14, 1949, Newspapers.com.
108
they might deem advisable, or if they thought necessary to tear them down;
that Mrs. Crane had under consideration, for insertion in her will provisions to
the foregoing effect; that her personal preference would be to have the house
established and endowed as a museum in memory of the late Richard T. Crane,
but at the moment it appeared an annual expenditure of some $40,000 would
be required to maintain such an institution satisfactorily, and the amount of
endowment which would be required to support the project would thus, it now
seems, be too great.249
While Florence was keen on the estate becoming a museum, the Trustees were
ultimately free to decide the eventual use of the Great House and conversations about
possible uses began as early as one month after they were officially deeded ownership
of Castle Hill.
In a preliminary study on the property conducted by the Trustees in August of
1949, concerns about the lack of an endowment were echoed as the report stated that
the property would be expensive to own and as a result, “it must pay back something
or be heavily endowed” (the author of this report suggested a sufficient endowment
would be over $800,000).250 Furthermore, the author asserts that “the maximum
earning power and maximum utility to the public would not be reached together” as,
249“Ipswich Beach,” Trustees of Reservations Meeting Minutes, 1945, Charles W.

Eliot II Papers (TTOR.4.Coll.1), Folder 12, Trustees of Reservations Archives and
Research Center, Sharon, Massachusetts.
250“Impression from a Trip to Castle Hill: Saturday, August 27, 1949,” Charles W.
109
for example, renting portions of the grounds would limit public access.251 Achieving
this balance of public accessibility and generating revenue that would ensure the
property’s sustainability is a common challenge facing historic houses, reinforcing the
value of examining how Castle Hill planned to strike this balance throughout its
transition to a public-facing property. Despite Florence’s wishes for the house, this
report suggested against the idea of turning the property into a museum not only for
financial reasons but also due to the house’s limited possibilities for education other
than “a place where people examine the luxuries of a wealthy man.”252 This
observation is especially relevant to American country houses as their narratives and
collections are often considered to be solely concerned with the lifestyles of the upper
classes, an unrelatable topic for a majority of the nation’s public. Rather than turning
the property into a museum, the potential uses provided by the report’s author
included offering Castle Hill as a filming location for movies, a county club, a golf
course, a summer hotel, hiking trails, or a convalescent home. While all of these
suggestions were possible futures for Castle Hill, the debate over the Great House’s
use continued into the following year as the Cranes’ children, who had been
bequeathed the interior furnishings of the house, were simultaneously debating
251“Impression from a Trip to Castle Hill: Saturday, August 27, 1949,” Charles W.
252“Impression from a Trip to Castle Hill: Saturday, August 27, 1949.” Trustees of
Reservations Archives and Research Center.
110
whether or not these belongings should remain in the house, another factor that would
ultimately shape the current-day iteration of Castle Hill.
In January of 1950, Cornelius Crane wrote to the president of the Trustees,
Laurence Fletcher, to inform him that “my sister and I have finally definitely decided
to sell all of the furniture in the Castle Hill house which we have not already taken for
our own use.”253 This decision was the result of several discussions the siblings had
with their lawyers and Trustees staff, especially Henry Channing, who had petitioned
for the house to become a museum of eighteenth-century furniture. Cornelius wrote
that while he, his sister, and his lawyers “appreciate Mr. Channing’s position and have
carefully considered his point of view, we simply do not feel that the creation of a
museum…is at all practical.”254 Instead, he asserted that there were more practical
uses for Castle Hill, a list of which he provided himself. Crane sent a list of thirty-
eight “non-impossible uses of the Crane Reservation” as he believed “the surface has
been but scratched in the use of Castle Hill and the surrounding lands” (fig. 21). The
suggested uses are wide-reaching and reinforce the countless models that could be
applied to country houses forced to remodel their use for public accessibility or to
generate revenue to effectively maintain the property. Crane’s suggestions included
253Letter from Cornelius Crane to Laurence Fletcher, January 10, 1950, Charles W.
Eliot II Papers (TTOR.4.Coll.1), Folder 12. Trustees of Reservations Archives and
254Letter from Cornelius Crane to Laurence Fletcher, January 10, 1950, Trustees of
111
becoming a destination for ski weekends and a venue for various events, such as
fashion shows, model airplane meets, barn dances, jamborees for Scouts, horse shows,
and field trials for dogs.255 The large number and wide variety of possible uses all
share the purpose of increasing the site’s accessibility, benefitting the public, and
generating revenue for the Trustees’ operations. Furthermore, implementing any of
these models and uses would have inevitably altered the public’s interactions with and
perceptions of Castle Hill, underlining just how impactful these transitional
discussions and moments are to a site’s future trajectory and sustainability. Along with
deciding against a museum and providing multiple suggestions of use, Cornelius
Crane also adamantly encouraged the Trustees to preserve the Great House in some
way and warned the Trustees that if they decided to tear it down without a thorough
and careful consideration of its “uses for public or charitable purposes, there might
very well be such an outcry from the Massachusetts public as to seriously jeopardize
the whole future of the Trustees.”256 Cornelius’s warning and recommendations to the
Trustees not only imply the public’s ardent investment in the property, but also
reinforce the Cranes’ heirs continued role in their family’s property during the critical
period of its transition.
255“Some Non-impossible Uses of the Crane Reservation,” David C. Crockett Papers

(CH.MS.Coll.5), Box 2, Folder 2, Trustees of Reservations Archives and Research
Center, Sharon, Massachusetts.
256“Some Non-impossible Uses of the Crane Reservation,” Trustees of Reservations
Archives and Research Center.
112
The siblings’ decision to sell the remaining furnishings of Castle Hill resulted
in an auction hosted by Parke-Bernet Galleries that was held at the estate from June 29
to July 1, 1950, and further affected the property’s afterlife as a public site. The
event’s catalog emphasized the important seventeenth- and eighteenth-century English
furniture from Florence Crane’s estate and also mentioned that the “vast array of
decorative material” offered in the sale included Georgian portrait mezzotints,
Wedgwood wares, Irish glass, Chinese jades, marble statues, and garden ornaments
(fig. 22).257 As a result, the interiors of Castle Hill were left empty and the site’s
original assemblage of material culture was dispersed and lost. Furthermore, the
siblings’ decision to sell the house’s furniture significantly impacted the future of the
property as the house’s social and material history was not presented or available to
guests until the Trustees decided to refurnish the house in the late 1950s and early
1960s.258 While several of the Cranes’ descendants have donated items that were once
displayed within the house back to the property, a majority of the furniture and objects
currently at Castle Hill are not original to the estate. Instead, Trustees employees used
an inventory of the house taken shortly after Florence’s death (as well as the 1950
257“Important English Furniture, Other Valuable Art Property from the Estate of the
Late Florence H. Crane on the Premises of Castle Hill at Ipswich, Mass.” Parke-
Bernet Galleries, New York 1950, Trustees of Reservations Archives and Research
258The restoration was led by David C. Crockett. For future information, see Gordon
Abbott, Jr.’s Saving Special Places (The Ipswich Press, 1993) and the David C.
Crockett Papers (1925-1994) Collection held at the Trustees of Reservations Archive
and Research Center.
113
auction catalog) to locate pieces similar in period, design, and style. Tour guides are
trained to differentiate between these items and often point out which objects were
present while the Crane family lived at the site, including several family portraits that
have returned to the estate. Despite the Trustees’ dedication and efforts to refurnish
the house in order to inform the public of this aspect of the Crane estate’s history, the
mixture of original and non-original pieces displayed in Castle Hill nevertheless
presents an altered and modified version of the house’s original assemblage of
material culture—a form of interpretation that was ultimately dictated by the siblings’
wish to sell the house’s collection. While this decision did not entirely alter the
house’s nature or lead to the demolishment of the house, separating the house’s
contents is a fate that those managing Ardrossan are actively trying to avoid as the
overall synergy of the site’s collections enhances its narrative and historical
significance.
Following the sale of the house’s furnishings, the Trustees decided to
experiment with using the Great House as a venue for concerts and music camps.
Beginning in the summer of 1950, the Trustees offered “the free use of the House and
part of its grounds to an interested group which established an Art Center there on a
trial basis.”259 The Castle Hill Art Center offered fine art classes for local students and
those who wished to reside at Castle Hill throughout the summer as well as offering
259Castle Hill Foundation Archive (CH.MS.Coll.3), Finding Aid, Trustees of

Reservations Archive and Research Center, Sharon, Massachusetts.
114
several public programs. This experiment was so successful that the Trustees not only
decided to continue this program but also formed a new organization, the Castle Hill
Foundation, to develop the art center and manage the estate in January 1951. The
Castle Hill Foundation’s Articles of Organization states that its purpose is “to advance
education, skill, and appreciation in the Fine Arts; to give courses of instruction,
conduct exhibitions, performances, symposia, convocations in the foregoing field” and
to ensure the preservation and restoration of the property.260 The foundation hosted a
variety of events, including a demonstration of Renaissance music and dance called
“Dancing on the Green” and a “Children’s Early Dance and Music Week” that offered
daily classes and games. However, the most popular event was the foundation’s
annual “Castle Hill Concerts” series, which featured several musical and dance
performances throughout each summer. This series also provided an optimal
opportunity for the Trustees to raise money for the operation of the property,
especially as several concerts featured notable artists, such as Ella Fitzgerald and
Louis Armstrong.261 As a result, each program also solicited visitors to become
members of the foundation and informed them that their support was integral to the
house’s survival:
260“Castle Hill Foundation, Inc. Articles of Organization,” The Commonwealth of

Massachusetts: Department of Corporations and Taxation.” Crane Family Collection
Reservations Archives and Research Center, Sharon, Massachusetts.
115
the future of the Great House is not assured. Since Mrs. Crane’s bequest came
to the Trustees without endowment, the Reservation’s only means of assured
support is the net income from fees charged for the use of the parking spaces at
the beach…an annual sum which is wholly inadequate for maintenance of the
Great House and its surroundings. Without additional income to keep it in
repair and to maintain its terraces and gardens, the House would have to be
torn down. The Foundation must therefore continue its work…because this
place, unique in its architecture and landscape setting, must endure.262
As admission and concessions for these events were so successful, it is clear that the
Art Center and Castle Hill Foundation were both vital in generating revenue during
this critical period of the property’s transition into a public-facing site. However, both
ventures ended in 1987 when the Trustees and the foundation’s leadership reached an
agreement that the Trustees would become “the sole member of the corporation and
[assume] full management responsibility for the property” beginning in January
1988.263 Despite this change, the Trustees continued to use the property as a venue for
outdoor picnic concerts each summer and it remains one of the site’s most popular
public events. While certain concertgoers may visit Castle Hill for this event, the
Trustees assert that after learning about the site’s various programs, “many come back
262Castle Hill Concerts, 1953 program, Castle Hill Foundation Archive

Reservations Archives and Research Center, Sharon, Massachusetts, 3.
116
for interior and exterior house tours, other events and programs and to visit our world-
famous, family friendly Crane Beach and Wildlife Refuge.”264
This strategy of offering popular entertainment offerings as a way to bring
visitors to the site and then encourage them to return for different, more educational
programs is an effective balance that Castle Hill successfully achieved during its
infancy as a public site and continues to do so today. In addition to being a popular
rental and event venue, the Trustees have also generated revenue from the site by
serving as a filming location. Along with the movies, The Witches of Eastwick (1987)
and Ghosts of Girlfriends Past (2009), the most recent major feature film to use the
Crane Estate as a shooting location was Greta Gerwig’s Little Women (2019), which
resulted in a significant amount of press attention surrounding the property.265 The use
of Castle Hill as a filming location not only produced significant profit but also
garnered media attention that undoubtedly attracted more visitors to the site,
ultimately reinforcing the value of the property’s model of utilizing entertainment as a
means to advance their mission of educating the public about the estate’s history and
conserving the land on which it sits.
264 “History of Concerts at Castle Hill,” Trustees of Reservations, accessed February

4, 2021, https://www.ttorevents.org/125/history-of-concerts-at-crane.pdf.
265 See reports from the Chicago Tribune and Wicked Local Ipswich:
https://www.chicagotribune.com/travel/sc-trav-little-women-sites-0204-20200130-
jq3htokarre2jfetvdqlw5te2i-story.html and
https://ipswich.wickedlocal.com/entertainmentlife/20200102/crane-estate-in-ipswich-
serves-as-setting-for-little-women.
117
Lessons from Castle Hill and Actionable Items for Ardrossan
The first years of Castle Hill’s transition from a private summer home to a
property for public use were characterized by uncertainty and seemingly endless
possibilities for the property’s future. Not only did the new legal owners, the Trustees,
debate the best use for the Great House and its surrounding land amongst themselves,
but the original owners’ descendants also played an active role in shaping what the
house would become. Perhaps the most significant lesson or warning from Castle
Hill’s formative moments as a public site is the loss of the property’s original
assemblage of material culture. As argued in chapter 3, Ardrossan’s significance as a
historic site is primarily connected to the survival of the house’s collections from the
1910s into the twenty-first century and keeping these objects together is the main
priority for the Montgomerys’ descendants. While Castle Hill continues to interpret
the social history of the house through objects that have been returned to the house as
well as other period-accurate pieces, this decision to sell and separate collections
would undermine the family’s mission as well as significantly jeopardize the urgency
to preserve the property’s first-floor interiors for future generations.
As seen in the examples of Winterthur and Biltmore, Ardrossan has the
potential to provide both educational and entertainment value to the public and Castle
Hill’s transitional period provides insight on how Ardrossan could potentially balance
these two guiding principles as it becomes a more public-facing property. Castle Hill’s
first uses as an art center and concert venue were both profitable endeavors and
118
successfully generated the funds to cover the house’s maintenance costs and
eventually financed re-furnishing the house’s interiors, which finally allowed the
Trustees to provide educational content about the site’s historical significance to the
public. Drawing from this example, those managing Ardrossan must first find ways to
generate revenue that would not only offset the substantial costs required by the house
but would also serve as the basis of a future foundation’s funds to maintain the public-
facing aspects of the property. It is a large possibility that without securing reliable
streams of revenue to keep the house open and operatable, the site’s potential to
educate the public on the Montgomery family, Gilded Age Philadelphia, and the
American decorative arts will never be achieved or sustainable.
The use of the Crane Estate as a filming location for several movies provides a
helpful model for how Ardrossan can initially raise funds to support its future as an
independent foundation. The Montgomerys’ descendants took the opportunity to
experiment with Ardrossan serving as a filming location for movies, television shows,
photoshoots, or commercials in 2018 when the family agreed for the house to serve as
several sets in a local filmmaker’s production entitled, A Call to Spy (2019), which
focused on the story of female spies during World War II. This film generated positive
reviews and Ardrossan’s key role in the film did not go unnoticed. The Main Line
Today reported that when the film was released in England, “a positive review in The
Guardian praised the…‘considerable effort that has clearly gone into re-creating
119
period interiors and ephemera.’”266 Of course, these interiors were not, in fact,
recreations but the well-preserved interiors of Ardrossan as the director used every
room on the first floor throughout the film. Joanie Mackie, the family liaison for the
property, relayed the positive experience she had while overseeing the crew’s use of
the interiors, including their care and respect of the rooms and furnishings, but stated
that a larger-scale project would be infeasible to film within the house as it would
ultimately risk the safety of the collections. Instead, the family is open to offering the
exterior of the house as a potential filming location and is considering listing it on
industry websites, such as LocationsHub.267 This strategy would not only create a
potential source of revenue for the eventual non-profit managing Ardrossan, but would
also enhance the public’s exposure to the site through increased publicity, as was the
case for Little Women at Castle Hill.
Finally, the Trustees of Reservations’ model of land conservation, which
extends to the management of Castle Hill, also provides a potential strategy for
Ardrossan as maintaining a majority of the estate’s open land is another priority for
the family. While several acres of the Ardrossan estate have been sold and developed,
the sale has been managed extremely well and preserves much of Ardrossan’s open
spaces as well as the acres immediately surrounding the Big House. The open land
266J.F. Pirro, “Ardrossan Makes It to the Big Screen in the New Film A Call to Spy.”
Main Line Today, February 3, 2021, https://mainlinetoday.com/life-style/ardrossan-
new-film-a-call-to-spy/.
267 Relayed in interview with Joanie Mackie conducted by the author, March 19, 2021.
120
managed by Radnor Township presents an opportunity to parallel Castle Hill’s model
of utilizing the acres surrounding the estate’s main house as a draw for potential
visitors. For instance, Castle Hill hosts frequent hiking events called “The Castle Hill
Hike” as well as the “Castle Hill Fire Pit Adventure,” wherein children participate in a
treasure hunt around the estate.268 Similarly, those managing Ardrossan could
potentially partner with Radnor Township to sponsor “hikes” or “nature walks” around
the area, which would further inform the public about Ardrossan and perhaps ignite an
interest in coming back to the property for a tour or visit.
Ultimately, the strategies and ideas inspired by Castle Hill’s model and
transition into a public site outlined above all share the benefits of increasing public
access to Ardrossan, providing additional streams of revenue, and spreading
awareness of the property. As an American country house that effectively balances the
guiding principles of education, land conservation, and entertainment (in both
programs and rental opportunities), examining the decisions made during the period in
which Castle Hill’s fate and future use were unclear and debated provide further
clarity to the similar conservations and deliberations over potential uses currently
surrounding Ardrossan.
268See the “Events” page on Castle Hill’s website for more information on the site’s
events. https://thetrustees.org/place/castle-hill-on-the-crane-estate/.
121
Chapter 7
CONCLUSION
The future of Ardrossan and its material collections has been a persistent and
lingering unanswered question for the Montgomerys’ descendants for over two
decades. When visiting Ardrossan for the first time, Scott Cooper, the current
President and C.E.O of the Academy of Natural Sciences, informed Joanie Mackie
that due to the assemblage of material culture and family memorabilia within its
interiors, he could truly sense the essence of the people who lived there and insisted
that saving Ardrossan “was not just important, but essential.”269 While the architecture
of the house is significant, it is the assemblage of objects—originally installed in the
1910s and enhanced by the family’s personal additions throughout the years—that
elevate the house’s value as a historic site that should be preserved for future
generations. Of course, remaining in the family’s private ownership is unsustainable,
forcing the Montgomerys’ descendants to learn from and potentially emulate the
examples of several English and American country houses that remodeled their
ownership and use into more public-facing, profitable ventures in order to fund these
houses’ upkeep and ensure their sustainability into the future.
269 Relayed by Joanie Mackie in an interview with the author, March 19, 2021.
122
From various informal conversations with local museum professionals and
preservationists to a four-day workshop dedicated to assessing the estate and
suggesting feasible solutions, discussions surrounding future uses and management
models for Ardrossan have identified several possibilities that would not only preserve
the house and its ensemble of material culture but also enhance the public’s
accessibility to this significant site. However, as feasibility studies continue to be
conducted and the best path forward continues to be debated, Ardrossan remains a
country house at a crossroads. Questions about the financial sustainability of
establishing the house and its contents as a non-profit entity or the potential risks of
converting portions of the house for adaptive reuse have repeatedly impeded the site’s
transition into a public-facing property. Progress on determining Ardrossan’s next
chapter may be slow but making a rushed decision regarding the future of the house,
especially one without a sustainable model and plan, would risk the survival of the
house and its history for future generations, an outcome that the family is determined
to avoid. Therefore, considering the examples set by the country houses in each of the
case studies provides valuable information that can be used to further inform and
support Ardrossan’s eventual transition into a public-facing site, as well as providing
more general lessons that can be applied to other historic houses that may be
struggling to survive.
While uncertainty continues to surround the Ardrossan estate, the American
country houses featured in this project all faced a similar critical period and each
property has a chapter in its history wherein those tasked with managing the house had
123
to create a new public identity for the property and experiment with ways to efficiently
function as a public-facing property. Winterthur, Biltmore, and Castle Hill can all be
considered as successful and sustainable institutions in the current day, but each
property’s management model and guiding principles had to first be determined and
tested as they navigated their new status as a public, rather than private, country house.
The decisions made at these sites during their formative moments in the mid-twentieth
century provide entry points and actionable items that Ardrossan can begin to take in
the near future, whether initiated by the family members or a museum professional if a
non-profit foundation is established. First, it is necessary to restate the plan and model
that the family is currently considering and hoping to achieve in order to evaluate how
lessons from the case studies may be applied to further support or enhance this
possible alteration of the house’s use.
Of the numerous ideas for Ardrossan’s future use, the most feasible and
sustainable option appears to a plan that requires two major changes. First, a not-for-
profit foundation would be established, and the ownership of the house would be
transferred to this organization. Joanie Mackie stated that this action would be ideal as
managing the costs of the property—especially paying its substantial taxes—would be
out of the hands of the family. This foundation would also be tasked with conserving
and interpreting the first floor of the house and its materials contents, including
creating and offering tours and public programs. The second aspect of this new use
plan, which would help generate necessary funds, involves converting the second and
third floors of Ardrossan (which do not contain original furnishings) into
124
condominiums. After conducting a primary feasibility study on this project, a second
study—this time with a contractor and potential architect who are interested in seeing
this plan through—is currently underway. Interestingly, the architect involved in the
study suggested that the ability for renters to utilize the front, main entrance of the
building would increase the value and asking price of these condominiums, suggesting
the sustained appeal of the lifestyle that these grand industrial mansions evoke. Of
course, this arrangement would necessitate prohibiting access to the first-floor
interiors for security purposes, but Mackie suggested the effective solution of
installing glass doors that would lock these rooms from potential renters. While the
logistics and practicalities of creating these condos have not been determined, the
family is hopeful that this project, if successful, would effectively lessen the financial
burden of the house’s maintenance costs as well as contribute to the non-profit’s
operational budget.270
As outlined in each of their respective chapters, all of the American country
houses included in this project provide lessons and actions that can be applied to
Ardrossan. Winterthur is a helpful model for Ardrossan’s probable future operation as
a non-profit foundation that is focused on displaying and interpreting decorative arts
and the social history of its founder and his family. Meanwhile, the Biltmore estate’s
“unconventional” approach to managing a historic house reinforces the need for these
270The information in this paragraph was all relayed by Joanie Mackie in an interview
with the author, March 19, 2021.
125
sites to be self-sustainable and self-reliant rather than dependent on government
funding, as is the case for several house museums.271 Biltmore primarily achieved this
success by capitalizing on its association with a “blue-blood family” as a way to create
various sources of revenue and this strategy can also be implemented at Ardrossan.
Along with emphasizing the Montgomerys’ role in Philadelphia’s elite society, its
connection to the classical Hollywood film, The Philadelphia Story, can be used to
attract visitors and potential renters for large corporate events, creating profit that will
further support the foundation’s operations. Castle Hill’s balance of educational, not-
for-profit activities and profitable events strictly focused on entertainment, such as
their concert series, provides another model for generating revenue as a non-profit
foundation. The most feasible option, as the family has already considered it, is the use
of the property as a filming location for small-scale projects. Of course, paid tours of
the house, such as those offered on a limited basis prior to the COVID-19 pandemic,
would provide another important stream of revenue for the foundation.
In her work, New Solutions for House Museums, historic preservationist Donna
Ann Harris explores several case studies of house museums throughout North America
that were struggling to survive in the twenty-first century and attempted to adapt their
practices for long-term sustainability. She praises the “breadth of innovation being
undertaken by…well-known and distinguished organizations” as they are “confronting
271 Donna Ann Harris, New Solutions for House Museums, 13.
126
the future of their house museums and…[taking] action.”272 The family’s proposed
plan for Ardrossan, as well as additional possible actions inspired by the case studies,
would create a unique, seemingly eccentric model for a historic house, but those
tasked with managing these properties are often forced to consider new and alternative
approaches to preserving these houses due to the increasingly unsustainable model of
a traditional non-profit museum reliant on an endowment and federal funding.
Along with the vision workshop and other conversations that the
Montgomerys’ descendants have had about the property’s future, the findings in this
thesis can serve as a foundation for a future project that takes direct and concrete
action to establish Ardrossan’s new use, increased public accessibility, and
revitalization as a public-facing property. While this study focused primarily on
addressing Ardrossan’s situation and survival, the examination of the public origins of
three established country houses nevertheless offers valuable insights and further
examples of possible sustainable models for historic houses facing a similar
situation—whether being unable to remain in private ownership or struggling to
function as a sustainable museum or public site in the twenty-first century. Attempting
to ensure the protection and preservation of the narratives contained within these
properties and told through the assemblage of material culture displayed within them
was just as prevalent of a challenge in the twentieth century as it is today. However,
considering how a selection of country houses successfully faced uncertainty during
272 Donna Ann Harris, New Solutions for House Museums, 229.
127
their transitions into public sites may help prevent the loss of other historic houses by
offering suggestions on how historic sites can enhance their sustainability, reassess
their management model, or alter their use in order to ultimately ensure their survival
as windows into the past and significant repositories of architectural, material, and
social history for future generations.
128
FIGURES
Figure 1. The Lynnewood Estate in Elkins, Pennsylvania serves as an example of a

“lost” American country house. This Trumbauer-designed country house
is devoid of furnishings and has passed through several owners. It
remains unoccupied and in disrepair to the current day. Image courtesy of
James Kelleher.
129
Figure 2. Graph tracking the number of English country houses demolished since
1800. The 1930s to 1960s is clearly identified as a critical period in
which hundreds of English country houses were “lost” each decade.
Image courtesy of Matthew Beckett / Lost Heritage
(www.lostheritage.org.uk).
130
Figure 3. The front facade of the Ardrossan Estate. Photograph by Steve Gunther and
published in Ardrossan: The Last Great Estate on the Philadelphia Main
Line. Image courtesy of Bauer and Dean Publishing.
131
Figure 4. Ardenrun Place, the English country house that inspired Ardrossan. Image
published in Country Life. This image is in the Public Domain.
132
Figure 5. The dining room of Ardrossan, featuring Grinling Gibbons-inspired
woodwork approve the fireplace. Photograph by Steve Gunther and
published in Ardrossan: The Last Great Estate on the Philadelphia Main
Line. Image courtesy of Bauer and Dean Publishing.
133
Figure 6. The rear wall of Ardrossan's sitting room, featuring the Montgomery's
familial coat of arms above the doorway. Photograph by Steve Gunther
and published in Ardrossan: The Last Great Estate on the Philadelphia
Main Line. Image courtesy of Bauer and Dean Publishing.
134
Figure 7. Ardrossan's "ballroom," which features several portraits of family members.
Photograph taken by the author in 2021.
135
Figure 8. The Meet at Ardrossan, Christmas Day, 1925 by Charles Morris Young.
Photograph by Tom Crane and published in Ardrossan: The Last Great
Estate on the Philadelphia Main Line. Image courtesy of Bauer and Dean
Publishing.
136
Figure 9. Examples of Charlotte Montgomery's needlepoint works that feature
Ardrossan's interiors. Photograph by Tom Crane and published in
Ardrossan: The Last Great Estate on the Philadelphia Main Line. Image
courtesy of Bauer and Dean Publishing.
137
Figure 10. Exterior of the Winterthur Museum in the current day. Image courtesy of
Wikimedia Commons. This image is in the Public Domain.
138
Figure 11. Front and back of the applications used to visit Winterthur prior to its
opening as a museum in 1951. Courtesy, Winterthur Library: Winterthur
Archives.
139
Figure 12. Cover of the November 1951 Winterthur issue of the Magazine Antiques.
Vol. LXI, No. 5. Photograph taken by the author in 2021.
140
Figure 13. A group of four guests participating in the first iteration of tours at the
Winterthur Museum. “Winterthur, Adventure in the Past,” 1963.
Courtesy, Winterthur Library: Winterthur Archives.
141
Figure 14. Photograph of visitors in the mid-twentieth century viewing the spiral
staircase in the courtyard of the Château de Blois in the Loire Valley,
France. This building served as partial inspiration for Biltmore’s
architectural design. Image courtesy of Granger Academic.
142
Figure 15. Front Façade of the Biltmore House, the main house on the Biltmore Estate
designed by Richard Morris Hunt for George Washington Biltmore II.
Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, Detroit Publishing
Company Collection. This image is in the public domain.
143
Figure 16. Pages from the Biltmore House Guide, 1930. Courtesy of the Biltmore
Estate Archives. Used with permission from The Biltmore Company,
Asheville, North Carolina.
144
Figure 17. Plaque depicting the deed between Maskonomett and John Winthrop Jr.,
which is mounted on the southeast side of the Great House. Photograph
taken by the author in 2020.
145
Figure 18. Front view of Castle Hill, which was inspired by the Belton House
(Lincolnshire). Photograph taken by the author in 2020.
146
Figure 19. Rear view of Castle Hill, which was inspired by the Ham House (Surrey).
Castle Hill on the Crane Estate Stewardship Files. Image courtesy of The
Trustees of Reservations, Archives and Research Center.
147
Figure 20. One of the two Griffin Statues created by Paul Manship in the Art Deco-
style and gifted to Richard Crane by Crane Company Employees in 1928.
Photograph taken by the author in 2020.
148
Figure 21. First page of a document sent to the Trustees by Crane’s son, Cornelius
Crane, entitled, “Some Non-impossible Uses of the Crane Reservation.”
David C. Crockett Papers (CH.MS.Coll.5). Image courtesy of Trustees of
149
Figure 22. “Important English Furniture, Other Valuable Art Property from the Estate
of the Late Florence H. Crane on the Premises of Castle Hill at Ipswich,
Mass.” Parke-Bernet Galleries, New York 1950. Image courtesy of
Trustees of Reservations Archives and Research Center.
150
REFERENCES
Primary Sources
Bartlett, K.S. “Reservation Trustees Have a $1,000,000 Problem in What to do with

Castle Hill.” The Boston Sunday Globe. August 14, 1949. Newspapers.com
Biltmore House Guide. 1930. Biltmore Estate Archives.
“Castle Hill Concerts, 1953.” Program. Castle Hill Foundation Archive

(CH.MS.Coll.3). Box 1. Folder 1. The Trustees of Reservations, Archives &
Research Center. Sharon, Massachusetts.
“Castle Hill Foundation, Inc. Articles of Organization.” The Commonwealth of

Massachusetts: Department of Corporations and Taxation.” Crane Family
Collection (CH.MS.Coll.1). Box 16. Folder 2. The Trustees of Reservations,
Archives & Research Center. Sharon, Massachusetts.
“Chronology of Major Events.” Crane Family Collection (CH.MS.Coll.1). Box2A.

Deeds. Trustees of Reservations Archive and Research Center. Sharon,
Massachusetts.
Croly, Herbert. “The California Country House.” Sunset Magazine (1906). Reprinted
in Architect and Engineer of California (7). 1906.
Dangelico, Amy. “The Emperor’s Chess Set.” Biltmore. October 23, 2016.
https://www.biltmore.com/blog/the-emperors-chess-set/.
Downs, Joseph. “The Meaning of the Museum.” In Magazine Antiques: The Henry
Francis du Pont Winterthur Museum. November 1951: 407-408.
Harry Nims to John Francis Amherst Cecil. 5 Jan 1930. The Biltmore Company
“I Say There, Chap, Charming Home.” The Morning News (Wilmington, Delaware).
November 3, 1985. Newspapers.com.
151
“Important English Furniture, Other Valuable Art Property from the Estate of the Late
Florence H. Crane on the Premises of Castle Hill at Ipswich, Mass.” Parke-
Bernet Galleries. New York, 1950. The Trustees of Reservations, Archives &
“Impression from a Trip to Castle Hill: Saturday, August 27, 1949.” Charles W. Eliot
II Papers (TTOR.4.Coll.1). Folder 12. The Trustees of Reservations, Archives
& Research Center. Sharon, Massachusetts.
“Ipswich Beach.” Trustees of Reservations Meeting Minutes, 1945. Charles W. Eliot

II Papers (TTOR.4.Coll.1). Folder 12. The Trustees of Reservations, Archives
& Research Center. Sharon, Massachusetts.
John Francis Amherst Cecil to Harry Nims. 12 Sept 1929. The Biltmore Company
Judge Junius Adams to John Francis Amherst Cecil. 11 Dec 1929. The Biltmore
Company Collection. Box 5. Folder 96. Biltmore Estate Archives.
Judge Junius Adams to Harry Nims. 11 Jan 1930. The Biltmore Company Collections.
Judge Adams to Harry Nims. 18 Apr 1930. The Biltmore Company Collection. Box 6.
Folder 100. 3.09/10-100. Biltmore Estate Archives
Letter from Beverley Robinson to Henry Francis du Pont. January 16, 1950. WC14.
ARC46. Winterthur Library: Winterthur Archives. Winterthur, Delaware.
Letter from Beverly Robinson to Henry Francis du Pont. April 24, 1950. WC14.
Letter from Cornelius Crane to Laurence Fletcher. January 10, 1950. The Trustees of
Reservations, Archives & Research Center. Sharon, Massachusetts.
Letter from H.F. to potential Winterthur Corporation Board Members. “Winterthur

Corp. 1949.” 69WC1. WC 14. ARC 46. Winterthur Library: Winterthur
Archives. Winterthur, Delaware.
Letter from Henry Francis du Pont to Beverley Robinson. January 19, 1950. WC14.
“A Main Line Family’s Fortune and Misfortune.” The Philadelphia Inquirer.

September 2, 2019. Newspapers.com.
152
Meeting Minutes of Winterthur Corporation Finance Committee, August 23, 1951.
70WC2. WC30. ARC46. Winterthur Library: Winterthur Archives.
Minutes of Special Meeting of Directors. Winterthur Corporation. September 18,

1951. 70WC2. WC17. ARC46. Winterthur Library: Winterthur Archives.
“Mrs. Florence H. Crane: Chicago Philanthropist.” Daily News (New York, New
York). July 29, 1949. Newspapers.com.
“Museum Applications.” WC6. ARC46. Winterthur Library: Winterthur Archives.

“Opening of Biltmore House to Public Enhances Asheville’s Lure.” Asheville Citizen-

Times. February 16, 1930. Newspapers.com.
Oral History with Charles F. Montgomery. May 16, 1977. ARC36. Winterthur
Library: Winterthur Archives. Winterthur, Delaware.
“Palatial Home Distinctive for Lack of Ornamentation.” The New York Times. January
11, 1914.
“Some Non-impossible Uses of the Crane Reservation.” David C. Crockett Papers

“Speech of David E. Finley.” 1951. WC137. ARC46. Winterthur Library: Winterthur

"A Stronger National Trust." Times. October 20, 1936. The Times Digital Archive.
Accessed December 21, 2020. https://link-gale-
com.udel.idm.oclc.org/apps/doc/CS286076756/TTDA?u=udel_main&sid=TT
DA&xid=a564b4a3.
“To the Executors and Directors under my Will and the Winterthur Corporation.”
74WC3. WC 39. ARC 46. Winterthur Library: Winterthur Archives.
“’Treasure Houses of Britain’ a Royal Display of Pomp, Beauty.” The Morning Call.
November 17, 1985. Newspapers.com.
153
“Vast du Pont Home to Open as Museum.” The New York Times. October 30, 1951.
WC 8. ARC46. Winterthur Library: Winterthur Archives. Winterthur,
Delaware.
“Visit the Vanderbilts—Admission $2.” The Minneapolis Sunday Tribune. May 25,
1930. Newspapers.com.
“A Visit to Biltmore House.” The Robesonian (Lumberton, North Carolina). August

14, 1930. Newspapers.com
“Wide Publicity Given Biltmore House Event.” Asheville Citizen-Times. March 2,

1930. Newspapers.com.
“Winterthur Corporation Meeting Minutes.” January 11, 1950. WC14. ARC46.

Winterthur Library: Winterthur Archives. Winterthur, Delaware.
“Winterthur Museum.” Morristown Gazette Mail. November 19, 1951.

Newspapers.com.
“Winterthur Museum is Inaugurated.” The Museum News. American Association of

Museums. WC 8. ARC46. Winterthur Library: Winterthur Archives.
“Winterthur Opening,” 93WC11. Box 137. ARC46. Winterthur Library: Winterthur

The Magazine Antiques: The Henry Francis du Pont Winterthur Museum. November
1951.
Secondary Sources
Abbott, Gordon, Jr. Saving Special Places. Ipswich, MA: The Ipswich Press, 1993.
“About.” Crane Estate Events. https://www.craneestateevents.com/#about.
“Admissions and Hours.” The Trustees of Reservations.

https://thetrustees.org/place/castle-hill-on-the-crane-estate/.
“American House Museums in the 21st Century.” An Athenæum of Philadelphia

Symposium. 1998. Accessed Novemebr 2, 2020.
http://www.athenaonline.org/hmuseum/index.htm.
Arnold Lewis’ American Country Houses of the Gilded Age (1982),
154
Aslet, Clive. Old Homes, New Lives: The Resurgence of the British Country House.
London: Triglyph Books, 2020.
Aslet, Clive. The American Country House. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990.
Beckett, Matthew. “About Lost Heritage.” Lost Heritage: England’s Lost Country
Houses. Accessed October 10, 2020. http://www.lostheritage.org.uk/about-
lostheritage.html.
“Behind the Scenes at Ardrossan: A Private Tour and Reception.” American Institute
of Architects: Philadelphia Chapter. Accessed October 1, 2020.
https://www.philadelphiacfa.org/events/behind-scenes-ardrossan-private-tour-
and-reception.
Binney, Marcus. “The Future of the Country House.” In The Destruction of the
Country House, edited by Roy Strong, 184-187. London: Thames and Hudson,
1974.
Bryan, John. G.W. Vanderbilt’s Biltmore Estate: The Most Distinguished Private
Place. New York: Rizzoli International Publications, 1994.
Cannadine, David and Jeremy Musson, The Country House: Past, Present, and
Future. London: Rizzoli, 2018.
Cannadine, David. The Decline and Fall of the British Aristocracy. New York:
Vintage Books, 1999.
“Castle Hill Concerts, 1953.” Program. Castle Hill Foundation Archive

The Castle Hill Foundation Archive (1928-2001). Finding Aid. CH.MS.Coll.3.

Trustees of Reservations Archive and Research Center. Sharon, Massachusetts.
“Castle Hill on the Crane Estate: Self-Guided Tour.” Brochure. Trustees of the
Reservations.
“Educational Groups.” Biltmore. Accessed February 5, 2021.

https://www.biltmore.com/groups/educational/.
Cecil, William A.V. Jr. “Biltmore Estate: As the Century Turns.” American House
Museums in the 21st Century. An Athenæum of Philadelphia Symposium. 1998.
http://www.athenaonline.org/hmuseum/cecil/sld001.htm.
Chase, Nan. Asheville: A History. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland & Company, 2007.
155
Covington, Howard E. Jr. Lady on the Hill: How Biltmore Estate Became an
American Icon. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 2006.
Cox, Oliver. “Downton Abbey and the Country House: Exploring New Fictions.” In
The Country House: Past, Present, and Future, edited by David Cannadine
and Jeremy Musson, 413-417. London: Rizzoli, 2018.
Dresser, Madge. “Legacies of British Slave Ownership: Facing a Difficult Past.” In

The Country House: Past, Present, and Future, edited by David Cannadine
and Jeremy Musson, 343-348. London: Rizzoli, 2018.
“Estate History.” Biltmore. Accessed October 15, 2020.

https://www.biltmore.com/our-story/estate-history/.
Eversmann, Pauline. Discover the Winterthur Period Rooms. Winterthur, DE:

Winterthur Museum, 1998.
Ferree, Bar. American Estates and Gardens. New York: Munn and Company, 1904.
Fleming, E. McClung. “History of the Winterthur Estate.” In Winterthur Portfolio 1

(1964): 9-51.
Fodor's Philadelphia & the Pennsylvania Dutch Country. New York: Fodor's Gold
Guides, 2015.
Miles Day, Frank. American Country Houses of Today. New York: Architectural
Book Publishing Co., 1911.
Groff, John. "Green Country Towns: The Development of Philadelphia’s Main Line,
1870-1915." Order No. 1317277. University of Delaware (Winterthur
Program). 1981.
https://login.udel.idm.oclc.org/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/dissertatio
ns-theses/green-country-towns-development-
philadelphias/docview/303201750/se-2?accountid=10457.
Hague, Stephan. “Building Status in the British Atlantic World: The Gentleman’s
House in the English West Country and Pennsylvania.” In Building the British
Atlantic World: Spaces, Places, and Material Culture, 1600-1850, edited by
Daniel Maudlin, 231-252. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press,
2016.
Hansley, Richard. Asheville's Historic Architecture. Archived January 3, 2014: 151–

152. The History Press, 2011.
156
Harrison, Donna Ann. New Solutions for House Museums: Ensuring the Long-Term
Preservation of America’s Historic Houses. Lanham, MD: AltaMira Press,
2007.
Hepp, John. “The Pennsylvania Railroad and the Development of the Main Line.” In
The First 300: The Amazing and Rich History of Lower Merion, edited by Dick
Jones. Collingdale, PA: Diane Publishing Co., 2000.
“Heslington Hall.” National Heritage List for England, Historic England. Accessed
October 17, 2020. https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-
entry/1148497.
Hewitt, Mark Allen. The Architect and the American Country House. New Haven:
Yale University Press, 1990.
Hill Dolan, Susan. “Mr. and Mrs. Richard T. Crane, Jr., House.” In David Adler,
Architect: The Elements of Style, edited by Martha Throne. New Haven: Yale
University Press, 2002.
“History of Chatsworth: 20th Century.” Chatsworth. Accessed October 9, 2020.

https://www.chatsworth.org/about-chatsworth/history-of-chatsworth/20th-
century/.
“History of Concerts at Castle Hill.” Trustees of Reservations. Accessed March 14,,

2021. https://www.ttorevents.org/125/history-of-concerts-at-crane.pdf.
“History of the House.” Waddesdon Manor. Accessed October 12, 2020.

https://waddesdon.org.uk/your-visit/house/history-of-the-house/.
“History of Winterthur.” Winterthur. Accessed December 12, 2020.

http://www.winterthur.org/visit/about-winterthur/history-of-winterthur/.
Huxtable, Sally-Ann. “Interim Report on the Connections between Colonialism and

Properties now in the Care of the National Trust, Including Links with Historic
Slavery.” National Trust. 2020.
https://nt.global.ssl.fastly.net/documents/colionialism-and-historic-slavery-
report.pdf.
157
Internal Revenue Service. 2019. Form 990. Retrieved from GuideStar. Return of
Organization Exempt from Income Tax: Trustees of Reservations.
https://pdf.guidestar.org/PDF_Images/2019/042/105/2019-042105780-
17243691-
9.pdf?_gl=1*oneumm*_ga*MTQ0Njg5ODE3Ni4xNjE2NTQ4NjE1*_ga_0H8
65XH5JK*MTYxNjU0ODYxNS4xLjEuMTYxNjU0ODY1NC4w*_ga_5W8P
XYYGBX*MTYxNjU0ODYxNS4xLjEuMTYxNjU0ODY1NC4w&_ga=2.16
1002493.1373866148.1616548615-1446898176.1616548615.
Kasabian, Anna. Castle Hill on the Crane Estate. Boston: Trustees of Reservations,
2021.
Kavanagh, Gaynor. “Making Histories, Making Memories” In Making Histories in

Museums. London: Leicester University Press, 1996.
Kiernan, Denise. The Last Castle: The Epic Story of Love, Loss, and American
Royalty in the Nation’s Largest Home. New York: Atria, 2017.
Lees-Milne, James. “The Country House in Our Heritage.” In The Destruction of the
Country House. 1875-1975, edited by Roy Strong. London: Thames and
Hudson, 1974.
Linda Young, “Is There a Museum in the House? Historic Houses as a Species of
Museum.” Museum Management and Curatorship. 22:1, 59-77. 2007. DOI:
10.1080/09647770701264952.
Lord, Ruth. Henry F. du Pont and Winterthur: A Daughter’s Portrait. New Haven:
Yale University Press, 1999.
Magnarelli, Elsbeth. “Castle Hill.” National Register of Historic Places Nomination

Form. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park
Service, 1997. Section 8.
https://npgallery.nps.gov/NRHP/GetAsset/NHLS/77000183_text.
Mandler, Peter. The Rise and Fall of the Stately Home. New Haven: Yale University
Press, 1997.
McAlester, Virginia and Lee McAlester. Great American Houses and Their
Architectural Styles. New York: Abbeville Press, 1994.
Minihane, Joe. “The Grim Truth Behind Britain’s Stately Homes.” CNN. 2020.
https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/national-trust-colonialism-
slavery/index.html.
158
“The Mission.” Winterthur Museum. Accessed December 11, 2020.
https://www.winterthur.org/employment/.
Monkhouse, Christopher. “America: The Country House as Museum.” In The

Destruction of the Country House: 1875-1975, edited by Roy Strong, Marcus
Binney, and John Harris, 135-136. London: Thames and Hudson, 1974.
Montgomery, Charles. “The Connoisseurship of Artifacts.” In Material Culture

Studies in America, edited by Thomas J. Schlereth. London: Altamira Press,
1999.
Montgomery, Charles. “The First Ten Years of Winterthur as a Museum.” Winterthur

Portfolio 1 (1964): 52-79.
Moss, Davis. The American Country House. New York: Henry Holt & Co, 1990.
“More than a Mansion is on the Market.” The Philadelphia Inquirer. May 6, 2007.
Newspapers.com.
“Museum Definition.” International Council of Museums. Accessed December 2,

2021. https://icom.museum/en/resources/standards-guidelines/museum-
definition/.
“Museum.” Merriam-Webster. Accessed February 2, 2021. https://www.merriam-

webster.com/dictionary/museum.
“The National Trust Acts 1907-1971.” The National Trust. 2005.

https://nt.global.ssl.fastly.net/documents/download-national-trust-acts-1907-
1971-post-order-2005.pdf.
“National Trust to Scrap its Experts.” The Times. August 21, 2020.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/national-trust-to-scrap-its-experts-
hdmzlqbhd.
“Oxford Heritage Network.” Oxford University. Accessed January 15, 2021.

https://www.heritagenetwork.ox.ac.uk/research-projects-0#/.
Past Designs. Historic Landscape Assessment Report for Castle Hill. 1997.
Perren, Richard. Agriculture in Depression, 1870-1940. Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press, 1995.
Pirro, J.F. “Ardrossan Makes It to the Big Screen in the New Film A Call to Spy.”
Main Line Today. February 3, 2021. https://mainlinetoday.com/life-
style/ardrossan-new-film-a-call-to-spy/.
159
Workshop” 2005.
“The Preservation of Portions of Ardrossan: Executive Summary.” Radnor Township,

2018. https://www.radnor.com/DocumentCenter/View/13871/The-
Preservation-of-Portions-of-Ardrossan---Executive-Summary.
Prown, Jules. “Mind in Matter.” Winterthur Portfolio 17 (1982): 1-19
Robinson, John Martin. Requisitioned: The British Country House in the Second
World War. London: Aurum Press, 2014.
Rooks, Timothy. “The Business of Owning America’s Biggest Home.” DW. October
5, 2019. https://www.dw.com/en/the-business-of-owning-americas-biggest-
home/a-48647671.
Salguero, Brenda. “Defining the Museum: Struggling with a New Identity.” Curator:
The Museum Journal. May 2020, https://curatorjournal.org/virtual-
issues/defining-the-museum/.
Sayer, Michael. The Disintegration of Heritage. Norwich: Michael Russell Publishing,

1993.
Sidney Perley, Sidney. The Indian Land Titles of Essex County, Massachusetts. Salem,
M.A.: Essex Book and Print Club, 1912.
Sims, Nick. Tales from the Towers: The Story Behind Alton Towers, Britain's Most
Popular Theme Park. London: Theme Park Tourist, 2014.
Smith, Laurajane. The Uses of Heritage. London: Routledge, 2006.
Stuart, Amanda. Consuelo and Alva Vanderbilt: The Story of a Daughter and Mother
in the Gilded Age. New York: HarperPress, 2005.
“Tickets & Pricing.” Biltmore Estate. Accessed October 1, 2020.

https://www.biltmore.com/visit/tickets-pricing/.
Timpane, John. “Estate’s Fate: Ardrossan, the Main Line’s ‘Philadelphia Story’
Manse, Faces an Uncertain Fate.” The Philadelphia Inquirer. February 16,
2018.
Tinniswood, Adrian. The Long Weekend: Life in the English Country House, 1918-
1939. New York: Basic Books Publishing, 2016.
160
Tinniswood, Adrian. The Polite Tourist: Four Centuries of Country House Visiting.
London: National Trust, 1998.
“The Treasure Houses of Britain: 500 Years of Private Patronage and Art Collecting.”
National Gallery of Art. Accessed October 12, 2020.
https://www.nga.gov/exhibitions/1985/treasure_britain.html.
The Trustees of Reservations, Annual Report for Fiscal Year 2020 (2021), 3,
https://issuu.com/thetrustees/docs/trustees_fy20_annual_report_lr.
Turino, Kenneth and Max Van Balgooy. Reimagining Historic House Museums: New
Approaches and Proven Solutions. New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 2019.
“Undermining Good Intentions.” The Philadelphia Inquirer. February 8, 1999.

Newspapers.com.
West, Patricia. Domesticating History: The Political Origins of America’s House

Museums. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Books, 1999.
Worsley, Giles. “Country Houses: The Lost Legacy.” The Telegraph. 2002.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/art/3578853/Country-houses-the-lost-
legacy.html.
Wren, David Nelson. Ardrossan: The Last Great Estate on the Philadelphia Main
Line. New York: Bauer and Dean Publishers, 2017.
161
Appendix A
IMAGE PERMISSIONS
162
163
164
165
166
167

Private Estates For The Public: The Management and Interpretation of American Country Houses As Public-Facing Properties

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Private Estates For The Public: The Management and Interpretation of American Country Houses As Public-Facing Properties

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

PRIVATE ESTATES FOR THE PUBLIC:

THE MANAGEMENT AND INTERPRETATION OF

AMERICAN COUNTRY HOUSES AS PUBLIC-FACING PROPERTIES

A thesis submitted to the Faculty of the University of Delaware in partial

© 2021 Cara Caputo

THE MANAGEMENT AND INTERPRETATION OF

AMERICAN COUNTRY HOUSES AS PUBLIC-FACING PROPERTIES

LIST OF FIGURES ....................................................................................................... vi

2 THE STATE AND FUTURE OF THE COUNTRY HOUSE ......................... 12

3 ARDROSSAN: THE UNCERTAIN FATE OF A QUINTESSENTIAL

4 THE WINTERTHUR MUSEUM: AN EDUCATIONAL, NON-PROFIT ..... 52

5 THE BILTMORE ESTATE: A PRIVATE, FOR-PROFIT TOURIST

6 CASTLE HILL: A MODEL OF EDUCATION, ENTERTAINMENT, AND

7 CONCLUSION .............................................................................................. 122

FIGURES ................................................................................................................... 129

A IMAGE PERMISSIONS ................................................................................ 162

Figure 1. The Lynnewood Estate in Elkins, Pennsylvania serves as an example of a

Figure 5. The dining room of Ardrossan, featuring Grinling Gibbons-inspired

Figure 7. Ardrossan's "ballroom," which features several portraits of family

Figure 9. Examples of Charlotte Montgomery's needlepoint works that feature

As a distinct category of historic house museums and significant repositories of

In October of 1936, The Times reported on the National Trust’s new

properties to simultaneously exist in both categories. However, when applied to

property is managed and interacts with the public.

The country house is often considered as a unique sub-category of the historic

International Council of Museums (ICOM) provides the following definition for a

value,” and is inclusive of privately-owned entities—whether owned by a family or a

by a public entity or remains in private ownership, these properties nevertheless meet

this criterion as they have consistently acted as significant repositories of material

In her comprehensive survey of historic houses, Linda Young distinguishes the

the country house museum as the “product of multi-generational development of the

house, furnishings, collections, and gardens.”10 Her definition applies to country

these houses’ past and present.

access and interact with them?

continues to be thoroughly studied, the transition of American country houses into

relevance of these houses to twenty-first-century visitors. This thesis ultimately aims

survive or face an uncertain future.

Investigating the transitions and institutional origins of American country

different management models when they transitioned to public-facing institutions in

of objects within a domestic space—is also lost.

13Examples of abandoned American country houses include: Lynnewood Hall (Elkins

Museums: New Approaches and Proven Solutions, encourages museum professionals

accounts of reflective personal experience called memories, encountered during the

been communicated at these properties—whether through informational materials,

Museum in Winterthur, Delaware; the privately owned, for-profit Biltmore Estate in

Massachusetts, which is managed by a private, non-profit land conservation

organization. As well as tracing these properties’ transitions into public-facing

are the future implications and challenges of these decisions?

The assessment of these country houses’ transitions will ultimately provide

Villanova, Pennsylvania. As Ardrossan has become financially unsustainable to

museums into question.17 As a result, it is as critical as ever to consider the

century to a very uncertain twenty-first century.

and guide the possible future of Ardrossan as a sustainable public-facing institution.

property, a thorough examination of the site’s transition into a public-facing property,

public-facing identity of their respective institutions, and finally, lessons, or actionable

items, that can be applied to Ardrossan’s current situation.

THE STATE AND FUTURE OF THE COUNTRY HOUSE

The American country house is inherently connected to its English counterpart

sustained practice of primogeniture and the system of aristocracy in England cemented

many of the houses themselves and their parks transformed out of

of the country house is “deeply connected to the presence of a hereditary aristocracy in

which property inheritance was by primogeniture,” which ultimately made it “difficult

considered to be as vital to the nation’s cultural heritage as their British counterparts.