We ended our day in Doylestown with a tour of Henry Mercer's castle/home. His house, like his museum and his pottery works, is constructed of rebar reinforced, poured concrete. When the house was finished, Mercer built a bonfire on the roof to prove to that the building was fireproof. The house is a crazy collection of levels with thirty two narrow staircases. There are 44 rooms and ten bathrooms. Mercer's tiles are embedded in the walls. ceilings, and floors. Some of the furniture is built-in, made of concrete, of course. We weren't allowed to photograph the interior, but there is a link at the end of this post to another blog. That lucky blogger was able to take pictures inside.
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| A beautiful, tree lined lane leads to the house. |
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| Henry Mercer was a life long bachelor, so why did he need such a big house? Our guide told us that Mr. Mercer entertained a lot. They didn't just drop by for cocktails. They stayed for days. |
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| Another View. |
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| This is the carriage house. |
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| Bird houses are built into the carriage house roof. |
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| The house has several terraces. We were allowed to take pictures from this terrace. |
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| This is the spring house as viewed from the terrace. The estate was named Fonthill because of the spring on the property. |
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| The ceiling on the terrace porch enclosure is the only bit of tile work that I could photograph. Imagine this to the nth degree inside the house. |
The Moravian Tile and Pottery Works sits behind the house. Artisans still work there making tile from Mercer's molds.
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| The Factory. |
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A Huge Assortment of Tiles.
If a whole back splash of this stuff is not your style, you can always purchase a tile to use as a trivet. |
Here's a link to
Big Old Houses blog. There are pictures of the interior of the house.
http://bigoldhouses.blogspot.com/2014/02/something-completely-different.html
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