Lemon Hill

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lemon_Hill

Site dates:

Site Owner(s):
Robert Morris (dates)
Henry Pratt (dates)

Site designer(s):

Alternate Names: The Hills

Associated Sites: Belmont (Pennsylvannia), Clermont, Fairmont

Location:
Philadelphia, PA
View on Google maps

Images

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  John Archibald Sr. Lemon Hill (1807); Courtesy of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania Collection, Atwater Kent Museum of Philadelphia"

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  Frederick Graff, "Plan of Lemon Hill and Sedgley Park, Fairmount and Adjoining Property" (October 15, 1851); Fairmount Park; Library Company of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA

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  William Groombridge, View of Lemon Hill (c. 1800); Schwarz Gallery, Philadelphia, PA; painting

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  B.R. Evans, Lemon Hill (1852); Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA

Bibliography

• Downing, A. J. [Andrew Jackson]. 1849. A Treatise on the Theory and Practice of Landscape Gardening... 4th ed. New York: G. P. Putnam: 42-44

The seat of the late Judge Peters, about five miles from Philadelphia, was, 30 years ago, a noted specimen of the ancient school of landscape gardening. . . . Long and stately avenues, with vistas terminated by obelisks, a garden adorned with marble vases, busts, and statues, and pleasure grounds filled with the rarest trees and shrubs, were conspicuous features here. . . .

Lemon Hill, half a mile above the Fairmount waterworks of Philadelphia, was, 20 years ago, the most perfect specimen of the geometric mode in America, and since its destruction by the extension of the city, a few years since, there is nothing comparable with it, in that style, among us. All the symmetry, uniformity, and high art of the old school, were displayed here in artificial plantations, formal gardens with trellises, grottoes, spring-houses, temples, statues, and vases, with numerous ponds of water, jets-d’eau, and other water-works, parterres and an extensive range of hothouses. The effect of this garden was brilliant and striking; its position, on the lovely banks of the Schuylkill, admirable; and its liberal proprietor, Mr. Pratt, by opening it freely to the public, greatly increased the popular taste in the neighborhood of that city.

On the Hudson, the show place of the last age was the still interesting Clermont, then the residence of Chancellor Livingston. Its level or gently undulating lawn, four or five miles in length, the rich native woods, and the long vistas of planted avenues, added to its fine water view, rendered this a noble place. The mansion, the greenhouses, and the gardens, show something of the French taste in design, which Mr. Livingston’s residence abroad, at the time when that mode was popular, no doubt, led him to adopt. . . .

"Judge Peters’ seat, Lemon Hill, and Clermont, were [the best specimens] of the ancient style, in the earliest period of the history of Landscape Gardening among us.