Lemon Hill

See also: The Hills, Robert Morris

Lemon Hill (1799–1800) is one of the nation's finest examples of Federal-style architecture. Situated on a spectacular site overlooking the Schuylkill River in Philadelphia's Fairmount Park, it is a fitting testament to Philadelphia's apogee as a cultural and political center in the post-revolutionary era.

Overview

Alternate Names: Pratt's Gardens
Site Dates: 1799–1855
Site Owner(s): Henry Pratt (1761–1838)
Associated People: John McAran (landscape gardener), Robert Buist (1805–1880; gardener), Peter Mackenzie (gardener)
Location: Philadelphia, PA
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History

The site of Lemon Hill was originally part of Springettsbury, a proprietary manor owned by William Penn and his descendants. Robert Morris purchased 80 acres of this tract in 1770, expanding it to encompass 300 acres, naming it "The Hills." He lived there from 1770 to 1779. He constructed the greenhouses, hot houses, gardener's quarters, vaults, and root cellars on the property.

Henry Pratt, a wealthy Philadelphia merchant, purchased the land at a sheriff’s sale in 1799. Included in the sale were 43 acres of ground, a large and elegant greenhouse, hot houses and "pleasure gardens.” Construction of Lemon Hill was completed in 1800. Pratt named his showplace after the median lemon, a variety of citrus grown in the greenhouse. He transformed Lemon Hill into one of the finest country estates of the colonial era. He opened the greenhouse and surrounding pleasure gardens to the public by "ticket of admission." The flower gardens were written up in numerous gardening publications and attracted visitors from all over the world. Pratt sold Lemon Hill in 1836. His plants were sold at auction on June 5, 1838. The catalog, published by the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society, offered for sale over 2,700 individual plants of 700 varieties, all properly described with both botanical and common names.

Lemon Hill's famous gardens fell into disarray after Pratt's death in 1838. Nevertheless, visitors continued to flock to Lemon Hill in the mid-1850s when it served as a recreational site for participants in German singing festivals, known as "Sangerfests." Lemon Hill was leased to various concessionaires, who ran a restaurant, candy shop and ice cream parlor on the premises. The mansion and surrounding grounds were in such disrepair by the beginning of the twentieth century that it was hardly recognizable as a mansion in the Federal-style. Lemon Hill became part of Fairmount Park in 1855.

Texts

• Oldschool, Oliver, August 1813, describing Lemon Hill (quoted in Oldschool 1813: 166)

"Lemon Hill...is the seat of Henry Pratt, esq. of Philadelphia; it is situated on a beautiful part of the river Schuylkill, about two and a half miles from the city. The prospect from it is elegant and extensive; the grounds are in the highest state of cultivation; the hot-house is admirably stored, and the picturesque and ornamental improvements, are highly creditable to the taste of the present liberal proprietor."

• Watson, Joshua Rowley, July 7, 1816, describing Lemon Hill (quoted in Foster 1997: 298)

"We drove over the Upper Bridge to Mr Pratts who has a large collection of plants and extensive Greenhouses & ca. His grounds are too much after the French manner of pleasure gardens. The view looking up the Schuylkill and over towards Eaglesfield is pretty."

• Bernhard, Karl, Duke of Saxe-Weimar, 1825, describing Lemon Hill (1828: 140–41)

"A merchant, Mr. Halbach, to whom I was introduced, took a walk with me to two gardens adjoining the city. One of these belongs to a rich merchant, Mr. Pratt, and is situated upon a rocky peninsula, formed by the Schuylkill, immediately above the water-works. The soil consists mostly of quartz and clay. The owner seldom comes there, and this is easy to be perceived, for instead of handsome grass-plots you see potatoes and turnips planted in the garden. The trees, however, are very handsome, mostly chestnut, and some hickory. I also observed particularly two large and strong tulip trees; the circumference of one was fifteen feet. In the hot-houses was a fine collection of orange trees, and a handsome collection of exotic plants, some of the order Euphorbia from South America; also a few palm trees. The gardener, an Englishman by birth, seemed to be well acquainted with his plants. Through a hydraulic machine the water is brought up from the river into several basins, and thence forced into the hot-houses. There was also in the garden a mineral spring of a ferruginous quality. From several spots in the garden there are fine views of the Schuylkill, whose banks, covered with trees, now in the fall of the year, have a striking and pleasant effect from the various hues of foliage."

• Wailes, Benjamin L.C., December 29, 1829, describing Lemon Hill (quoted in Moore 1954: 359–60)

"But the most enchanting prospect is towards the grand pleasure grove & green house of a Mr. Prat[t], a gentleman of fortune, and to this we next proceeded by a circutous rout, passing in view of the fish ponds, bowers, rustic retreats, summer houses, fountains, grotto, &c., &c. The grotto is dug in a bank [and] is of a circular form, the side built up of rock and arched over head, and a number of Shells [?]. A dog of natural size carved out of marble sits just within the entrance, the guardian of the place. A narrow aperture lined with a hedge of arbor vitae leads to it. Next is a round fish pond with a small fountain playing in the pond. An Oval & several oblong fish ponds of larger size follow, & between the two last is an artificial cascade. Several summer houses in rustic style are made by nailing bark on the outside & thaching the roof. There is also a rustic seat built in the branches of a tree, & to which a flight of steps ascend. In one of the summer houses is a Spring with seats around it. The houses are all embelished with marble busts of Venus, Appollo, Diana and a Bacanti. One sits on an Island on the fish pond. All the ponds filled with handsome coloured fish.

"The grounds are planted with a great variety of shrubbery & evergreens of various kinds of the pine & fir, and the hot house is said to be the largest in the US. It is filled to overflowing with the choicest Exotics: the Chaddock Orange of different kinds & the Lemon loaded with fruit. There are two coffee trees with their berries. Some few shrubs were in flower & others seeded, & I was politely furnished with a few seed of 2 varieties of flowers (Myrtle & an accacia). In front of the hot house, one at each end, is a Lion of marble, well executed, & a dog in front. On the roof is a range of marble busts."

• Committee of the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society, 1830, describing Lemon Hill (quoted in Boyd 1929: 431–33)

"This beautiful garden, so creditable to the owner, and even to the city of Philadelphia, is kept in perfect order at great expense. Few strangers omit paying it a visit, a gratification which is afforded to them in the most liberal manner by the proprietor. Nor can any person of taste contemplate the various charms of this highly improved spot, without being in rapture with the loveliness of nature—everywhere around him, so chastely adorned by the hand of man.

"Undoubtedly this is the best kept garden in Pennsylvania, and when associated with the green and hot house department, may be pronounced unrivalled in the Union. The gravel walks, espaliers, plants, shrubs, mounds, and grass plats, are dressed periodically and minutely. . . .

"Along the walks, the flower borders are interspersed with Thunbergias, Eccremocarpus, Chelonias, Mimosas, &c. The Laurustinus, sweet Bay, English Laurel, Rosemary, Chinese privet, Myrtle, Tree Sage and South Sea Tea, stand among them, and bear the winter with a little straw covering. Even the Verbena triphylla, or Aloysia Citriodora, has survived through our cold season in Mr. Pratt’s city garden; seven of these plants are evergreens, and if they become inured to our climate, they will add greatly to our ornamental shrubs.

"The treasures contained in the hot and green houses are numerous. Besides a very fine collection of Orange, Lemon, Lime, Citron, Shaddock, Bergamot, Pomgranate and Fig trees in excellent condition and full of fruit, we notice with admiration the many thousand of exotics to which Mr. Pratt is annually adding. The most conspicuous among these, are the tea tree; the coffee tree——loaded with fruit; the sugar cane; the pepper tree; Banana, Plantain, Guva, Cherimona, Ficus, Mango, the Cacti in great splendour, some 14 feet high, and a gigantic Euphorbia Trigonia—19 years old, and 13 feet high. The green houses are 220 feet long by 16 broad; exhibiting the finest range of glass for the preservation of plants, on this continent.

"Colonel Perkins, near Boston, has it is true, a grapery and peach Espalier, protected by 330 feet of glass, yet as there are neither flues not foreign plants in them, they cannot properly be called green houses, whereas Mr. Pratt's are furnished with the rarest productions of every clime, so that the committee place the conservatory of Lemon Hill at the very head of all similar establishments in this country.

"There are some pretty bowers, summer houses, grottos and fish ponds in this garden—the latter well stored with gold and silver fish. The mansion house is capacious and modern, and the prospects, on all sides, extremely beautiful. In landscape gardening, water and wood are indispensable for picturesque effect; and here they are found distributed in just proportions with hill and lawn and buildings of architectural beauty, the whole scene is cheerfully animated by the brisk commerce of the river, and constant movement in the busy neighborhood of Fairmount.

"An engine for raising water to the plant houses, is sometimes put in operation. Mr. Pratt placed it here at a cost of three thousand dollars. The vegetable garden is well kept and is of suitable size. For many years the chief gardener was assisted by eleven or twelve labourers, he now employs only six; probably owing to the finished condition to which the proprietor has brought his grounds. The whole plot may contain about 20 acres; Mr. Pratt has owned it 30 years or more. The superintendent aided by the liberal spirit of that gentleman, conducts his business with skill and neatness, and may challenge any garden for minute excellence or general effect."

• Downing, A. J., January 1837, "Notices on the State and Progress of Horticulture in the United States," describing Lemon Hill (January 1837: 4)

"For a long time the grounds of Mr. Pratt, at Lemon Hill, near Philadelphia, have been considered the show-garden of that city: and the proprietor, with a praiseworthy spirit, opening his long-shaded walks, cool grottoes, jets d’eau, and the superb range of hot-houses, to the inspection of the citizens, contributed in a wonderful degree to improve the taste of the inhabitants, and to inspire them with a desire to possess the more beautiful and delicate productions of nature."

• Downing, A. J., 1849, describing Lemon Hill (1849: 43)

"Lemon Hill, half a mile above the Fairmount water-works 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."

• Loudon, J. C., 1850, describing Lemon Hill (1850: 331)

"850. Lemon Hill, near Philadelphia. . . . [Downing observes:] '. . . An extensive range of hothouses, curious grottoes and spring-houses, as well as every other gardenesque structure, gave variety and interest to this celebrated spot, which we regret the rapidly extending trees, and the mania for improvement there, as in some of our other cities, have now nearly destroyed and obliterated.' (Downing's Landscape Gardening adapted to North America.)"

Images

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  William Groombridge, View of Lemon Hill, c. 1800.

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  John Archibald Woodside, Lemon Hill, 1807.

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  Thomas Birch, Fairmount Water Works, 1821.

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  Frederick Graff, Plan of Lemon Hill and Sedgley Park, Fairmount and Adjoining Property, 1851.

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  Benjamin R. Evans, Lemon Hill, 1852.

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  Benjamin R. Evans, Lemon Hill, c. 1880.

Other Resources

Lemon Hill Official Website