A house in a most singular style: John Penn's The Solitude
Date
2002
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
University of Delaware
Abstract
The Solitude embodies the efforts of a young aesthete who sought to construct a late Georgian villa on the periphery of British culture. Returning from the obligatory grand tour, twenty-four year old John Penn would have likely preferred carrying out this experiment in architecture at the family estate at Stoke Poges, Buckingham shire, but politics and profit called him to Philadelphia. ☐ The Solitude has long been recognized for its importance in the spread of neo-classicism to America. Nonetheless, the house has never been the subject of an in depth study. The craftsmen who labored to produce Penn’s vision have until this work escaped identification. Using a previously unexplored list of drafts, recorded on Penn’s behalf by attorney Tench Francis, this thesis identifies the craftsmen and cabinetmakers patronized by Penn between 1784 and 1785. This work also draws on the 1774 accounts of the building of Lansdowne, the country house of Penn’s older cousin, former governor John Penn. The two John Penns patronized many of the same craftsmen, but the younger Penn deviated in certain respects to ensure the Solitude’s neo-classical character. ☐ The house and garden created along the Schuylkill River outside Philadelphia was Penn’s attempt to exert some control over his physical surroundings in the midst of a n unfriendly political climate. Though built with the self-serving motive of providing him solace, the Solitude wielded an enormous influence on the spread of neo-classicism to America. Penn provided an initial demand for the talents of several English immigrant craftsmen, allowing them to work in the newest style and alerting other Philadelphians of this shift in fashion. He also forced an older generation of provincial craftsmen to step up to his demands, in effect helping them to keep competitive in the years to follow. Finally, the Solitude directly influenced an important group of Federal-era neo-classical villas built outside Philadelphia. But for Penn, who departed for England in 1788, never to return to America, the Solitude served as an early experiment for a patron who went on to collaborate with some of England’s most significant architects and landscapers.