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Mercer Museum and Fonthill Castle
Eccentric concrete mansion and museum designed and built by hand from the inside out
Category Eccentric Homes, Outsider Architecture
Henry Chapman Mercer, a renowned archaeologist, tile maker, and collector of Pennsylvanian pre-industrial household utensils wrote of his home, Fonthill:
"The house was planned by me, room by room, entirely, from the interior, the exterior not being considered until all the rooms had been imagined and sketched, after which blocks of clay representing the rooms were piled on a table, set together and modeled into a general outline. After a good many changes in the profile of the tower, roofs, etc., a plaster of Paris model was made to scale, and used until the building was completed."
Finished to Mercer’s exact specifications in 1912, Fonthill remains an ornate, architecturally unclassifiable mansion constructed entirely out of poured concrete.
Besides being an archaeologist, Mercer was a self styled anthropologist, ethnographer, and perhaps most importantly, collector. When Mercer began to collect artifacts for his museum, his aunt informed him that she had a vast collection of medieval armor. Mercer was delighted, as he wanted the Mercer Museum to contain not only relics of American history, but world history as well. The armor was kept in storage in Boston while Mercer continued to collect. But the storage building was made of wood, in the year 1872, the Great Boston Fire destroyed much of the city, and all of Mercer’s armor.
Devastated, Mercer realized that he could not risk fire erasing his collected Americana before future generations could learn from them, and concrete was his answer. The people of Doylestown thought he was crazy, spending years immersed in building his concrete castles, but Mercer had the last -- possibly crazed -- laugh when, years later at the completion of Fonthill, he climbed to the very top terrace and built a huge bonfire, high enough for all of Doylestown to see. Fireproof.
Today Fonthill displays evidence, both inside and out, of a reason to Mercer’s madness (including a professed “unbending hostility to ugliness and false taste “), although the architectural rhyme and reason - dormer placement and roof pitch, 32 staircases balanced by only eight bedrooms -- are only fully understood by Mercer himself. Ornamentally the same holds true: vaulted ceilings are decorated with glittering inlaid tiles taken from Mercer's factory and personal ceramics collection, despite the walls remaining untouched by paint.
Among Mercer's collection held in at the Mercer Museum (located close to but separate from Fonthill), are the everyday life of the average American in the 18th and 19th centuries, from a watchmaker’s gears, to the shop of a tortoiseshell comb maker, butcher’s instruments, even a whaler’s boat. Keep your eyes out for the fake, but neat looking, vampire hunting kit.
The often mentioned haunting of Fonthill’s woods adds a bit of paranormal flair to an already eccentric establishment, though Mercer no doubt would have found it gauche to have the former housekeeper terrorizing his evening guests.
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- Hours Mon-Sat 10am - 5pm; Sun noon-5pm; Closed Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year's Day; Guided tours only, Last tour at 4 pm. Reservations are strongly advised!
- Website The Bucks County Historical Society
- Address 525 E Court St & Route 313, Doylestown, Pennsylvania, United States
- Cost Adult $10; Students $9; Senior (62+) $9; Youth (5-17) $4; Members & Under 5 Free
Comments
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This is a wonderful place, as is the Mercer Museum which is located close to Fonthill. I have spend many hours walking through both places and just being in awe of Mercer's passion for collecting, his creativity and vision. When visiting the Mercer Museum, take time to see his Moravian Tile Works which is located on the same property.
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This place inspired me. It is highly ornamented. You can feel a sole of creativity in this castle. They did not show us that big room that you can see on these pictures on this page. Note: No Interior Photography.
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Anonymous
June 17, 2011
When I went to the Ripley's Believe It or Not Museum on the Ocean City, Maryland boardwalk, I saw the same exact vampire kit that the Mercer Museum has on display! -
Anonymous
April 20, 2011
Henry Mercer was an amazing character. I loved it when I found out that he doted on his labrador retriever dogs. here is an interesting article about the mercer museum as it was fund raising to renovate in 1993. I found an article online about the renovations needed for the Museum in the 90s. I thought it was an interesting look back. here is a glimpse of the article and a link. Creeping Elements Slowly Eating Away Mercer's Museum. A Fund-raising Effort To Upgrade And Repair 2 Facilities Has Entered The Second Phase. The Goal: $3 Million. February 28, 1993| By Shaun Stanert, INQUIRER CORRESPONDENT When it rains, the concrete walls inside the Mercer Museum weep. From the outside, the massive, castlelike structure appears to be an indestructible fortress. But, just as a mighty mountain range is eventually worn down by the elements, the museum and its precious contents are slowly being ravaged by moisture and sunlight. Enter the Bucks County Historical Society, whose trustees are determined to stop further deterioration through a two-phase $4 million fund-raising campaign called "Celebrating An American Original." ... The seven-story building, with its rising towers, gables and parapets, is made entirely of reinforced concrete. It is one of the earliest applications of reinforced concrete on this scale in the United States, Amsler said. http://articles.philly.com/1993-02-28/news/25954407_1_mercer-museum-fund-raising-fonthill-museum
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