The Powel House is a historic house museum located at 244 South 3rd Street, between Willings Alley and Spruce Street, in the

Society Hill Society Hill is a historic neighborhood in Center City Philadelphia, with a population of 6,215 . Settled in the early 1680s, Society Hill is one of the oldest residential neighborhoods in Philadelphia.The Center City District dates the Free Soc ...

neighborhood of

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...

. Built in 1765 in the

Georgian style Georgian architecture is the name given in most English-speaking countries to the set of architectural styles current between 1714 and 1830. It is named after the first four Monarchy of the United Kingdom, British monarchs of the House of Hano ...

,, p.46 and embellished by second owner

Samuel Powel Samuel Powel (October 28, 1738 – September 29, 1793) was a colonial and post-revolutionary mayor of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Since Philadelphia's mayoral office had been abolished early in the revolutionary period, Powel was the last colonial ...

(1738–1793), it has been called "the finest Georgian row house in the city." As with other houses of this type, the exterior facade is understated and simple, but the interior was elaborately appointed.

History

The elegant brick city house was built for Charles Stedman, a merchant and shipmaster. Before he occupied it, Stedman fell into financial trouble – eventually winding up in

debtors' prison A debtors' prison is a prison for people who are unable to pay debt. Until the mid-19th century, debtors' prisons (usually similar in form to locked workhouses) were a common way to deal with unpaid debt in Western Europe.Cory, Lucinda"A Historic ...

., p.28 The house was purchased for £3,150 on August 2, 1769, by

, who would become the last

mayor of Philadelphia The mayor of Philadelphia is the chief executive of the government of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, as stipulated by the Charter of the City of Philadelphia. The current mayor of Philadelphia is Jim Kenney. History The first mayor of Philadelphia, ...

under British rule and the city's first mayor following independence. A

Quaker Quakers are people who belong to a historically Protestant Christian set of Christian denomination, denominations known formally as the Religious Society of Friends. Members of these movements ("theFriends") are generally united by a belie ...

who converted to

Anglicanism Anglicanism is a Western Christian tradition that has developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the context of the Protestant Reformation in Europe. It is one of the ...

, he supported the

American Revolution The American Revolution was an ideological and political revolution that occurred in British America between 1765 and 1791. The Americans in the Thirteen Colonies formed independent states that defeated the British in the American Revolut ...

and was dubbed the "Patriot Mayor." Third Street from Spruce Birch's Views Plate 18

Design of the building is attributed to architect/builder Robert Smith. Powel and his wife Elizabeth (née Willing) lavishly redecorated, creating some of the most ornate interiors in the Colonies. The Rococo plastered ceilings are attributed to James Clow, and the architectural woodwork is attributed to carvers Hercules Courtnay and Martin Jugiez.Powel House Room
from Philadelphia Museum of Art. The Powel House shared a party wall with the Governor John Penn house, next door. The governor's house was confiscated during the Revolutionary War, and

George George may refer to: People * George (given name) * George (surname) * George (singer), American-Canadian singer George Nozuka, known by the mononym George * George Washington, First President of the United States * George W. Bush, 43rd Presiden ...

and

Martha Washington Martha Dandridge Custis Washington (June 21, 1731 — May 22, 1802) was the wife of George Washington, the first president of the United States. Although the title was not coined until after her death, Martha Washington served as the inaugural ...

occupied it for several months, following the October 1781 victory at Yorktown. The Powels entertained the Washingtons, and other notable guests, such as

Benjamin Franklin Benjamin Franklin ( April 17, 1790) was an American polymath who was active as a writer, scientist, inventor, statesman, diplomat, printer, publisher, and political philosopher. Encyclopædia Britannica, Wood, 2021 Among the leading inte ...

John Adams John Adams (October 30, 1735 – July 4, 1826) was an American statesman, attorney, diplomat, writer, and Founding Fathers of the United States, Founding Father who served as the second president of the United States from 1797 to 1801. Befor ...

Benjamin Rush Benjamin Rush (April 19, 1813) was a Founding Fathers of the United States, Founding Father of the United States who signed the United States Declaration of Independence, and a civic leader in Philadelphia, where he was a physician, politician, ...

, and the

Marquis de Lafayette Marie-Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de La Fayette (6 September 1757 – 20 May 1834), known in the United States as Lafayette (, ), was a French aristocrat, freemason and military officer who fought in the American Revoluti ...

. Philadelphia served as temporary national capital from 1790 to 1800, and President Washington occupied a house on

Market Street Market Street may refer to: *Market Street, Cambridge, England *Market Street, Fremantle, Western Australia, Australia * Market Street, George Town, Penang, Malaysia *Market Street, Manchester, England *Market Street, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia ...

for more than six years. Prior to moving in, he built a two-story, semicircular "Bow Window" addition to the south wall of the President's House, enlarging the State Dining Room and the State Drawing Room above it. This may have inspired the Powels to build the three-story half-turret addition to their city house. While its exterior was canted (like a

bay window A bay window is a window space projecting outward from the main walls of a building and forming a bay in a room. Types Bay window is a generic term for all protruding window constructions, regardless of whether they are curved or angular, or r ...

), the interior wall seems to have been bowed (curved), enlarging the rear parlors on the first and second floors and the rear bedroom on the third, and adding windows overlooking the garden. The half-turret addition is visible in a 1799 print by William Birch and an 1817 print attributed to William Strickland. Some time in the mid-19th century, the half-turret addition was demolished and the south wall of the Powel House became a party wall shared with a new building. Samuel Powel died in the 1793 yellow fever epidemic that killed about 10% of the city's population. After President-Elect John Adams passed on buying them, Mrs. Powel bought a number of items from soon-to-be-ex-President Washington in early 1797. These included his presidential coach and horses (the coach is now at Mount Vernon), his presidential desk (now at the

Philadelphia History Museum The Philadelphia History Museum was a public history museum located in Center City, Philadelphia from 1938 until 2018. The museum occupied architect John Haviland's landmark Greek Revival structure built in 1824–1826 for the Franklin Institute. ...

), and a pair of

girandole A girandole (; from French, in turn from Italian ''girandola'') is an ornamental branched candlestick or light fixture consisting of several lights, often resembling a small chandelier. Girandoles came into use about the second half of the 17th ce ...

mirrors (now at

Mount Vernon Mount Vernon is an American landmark and former plantation of Founding Father, commander of the Continental Army in the Revolutionary War, and the first president of the United States George Washington and his wife, Martha. The estate is on ...

). Elizabeth Willing Powel sold this house in November 1798, to

William Bingham William Bingham (March 8, 1752February 7, 1804) was an American statesman from Philadelphia. He was a delegate for Pennsylvania to the Continental Congress from 1786 to 1788 and served in the United States Senate from 1795 to 1801. Bingham was o ...

, the husband of her niece

Ann Willing Bingham Ann (or Anne) Willing Bingham (August 1, 1764May 11, 1801) was an American socialite from Philadelphia. Early life She was the eldest daughter of thirteen children born to Anne ( née McCall) Willing and Thomas Willing, the first president of t ...

. The Marquis de Lafayette gave the Powels a set of china that is on display in the Powel House. A 1793 portrait of Mrs. Powel attributed to

Matthew Pratt Matthew Pratt (September 23, 1734 – January 9, 1805) was an American "Colonial Era" artist famous for his portraits of American men and women. He was born in Philadelphia, Province of Pennsylvania to goldsmith Henry Pratt, (1708–1748) and R ...

is on long-term loan from the

Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA) is a museum and private art school in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Early in the 20th century, the house served as a warehouse for a business that imported and exported Russian and Siberian horse hair and bristles. In 1918, the owners sold the second floor rear parlor's architectural woodwork to the

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...

, where it is now a

period room A period room is a display that represents the interior design and decorative art of a particular historical social setting usually in a museum. Though it may incorporate elements of an individual real room that once existed somewhere, it is usuall ...

in the American Wing.Room from the Powel House
from Metropolitan Museum of Art. The ballroom's plaster ceiling and architectural woodwork was sold to the

Philadelphia Museum of Art The Philadelphia Museum of Art (PMoA) is an art museum originally chartered in 1876 for the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. The main museum building was completed in 1928 on Fairmount, a hill located at the northwest end of the Benjamin Fr ...

in 1925. By 1930, the Powel House was slated for demolition, with the property to be converted into a parking lot. Antiquarian Frances Wister saved the house, forming the

Philadelphia Society for the Preservation of Landmarks The Philadelphia Society for the Preservation of Landmarks (aka Landmarks) founded in 1931, maintains and preserves four historic house museums in the region around Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. These are: * Grumblethorpe * Hill-Physick-Keith Hous ...

and raising the funds to purchase the property in 1931. Over the next decade, Wister and the Society bought and demolished the 19th-century building that covered the east end of the walled garden, and hired architect H. Louis Duhring, Jr. to restore the house to its appearance during Powel's residency and re-create its lost interiors. The Society opened the restored house as a museum interpreting the daily lives of wealthy Philadelphians at the time of the American Revolution. Today, the rich history of the Powel House may be seen in its decorative arts collection, its portraits of Powels and Willings, and its formal, walled garden so typical of Colonial Philadelphia. Its beautiful entryway, ballroom with bas-relief plasterwork, and mahogany wainscoting give the house its reputation as perhaps America's finest existing Georgian Colonial townhouse.

Gallery

File:ENTRANCE DETAIL - Samuel Powel House, 244 South Third Street, Philadelphia, Philadelphia County, PA HABS PA,51-PHILA,25-4.tif, Front door. File:HALL AND STAIL, LOOKING WEST FROM ENTRANCE DOOR (1962) - Samuel Powel House, 244 South Third Street, Philadelphia, Philadelphia County, PA HABS PA,51-PHILA,25-6.tif, Entrance hall. File:STAIR DETAIL, LOOKING NORTHEAST (1967) - Samuel Powel House, 244 South Third Street, Philadelphia, Philadelphia County, PA HABS PA,51-PHILA,25-9.tif, Mahogany staircase. File:PARLOR (OR DRAWING ROOM), LOOKING NORTHWEST (1967) - Samuel Powel House, 244 South Third Street, Philadelphia, Philadelphia County, PA HABS PA,51-PHILA,25-7.tif, First floor front parlor.

In popular culture

* The 1986

CBS CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainm ...

miniseries '' George Washington II: The Making of a Nation'' used the Powel House garden as a stand-in for the garden of the President's House in Philadelphia. * In

Harry Turtledove Harry Norman Turtledove (born June 14, 1949) is an American author who is best known for his work in the genres of alternate history, historical fiction, fantasy, science fiction, and mystery fiction. He is a student of history and completed ...

alternate history Alternate history (also alternative history, althist, AH) is a genre of speculative fiction of stories in which one or more historical events occur and are resolved differently than in real life. As conjecture based upon historical fact, altern ...

''Southern Victory'' Series novels, Philadelphia becomes the ''de facto'' capital of the United States in the 1880s and the Powel House, the executive mansion. During a 1942 Confederate bombing raid of Philadelphia, President

Al Smith Alfred Emanuel Smith (December 30, 1873 – October 4, 1944) was an American politician who served four terms as Governor of New York and was the Democratic Party's candidate for president in 1928. The son of an Irish-American mother and a C ...

is killed at the house.

References

Notes Further reading *Eberlein, H.D. and Lippincott, H.M., ''The Colonial Homes of Philadelphia and Its Neighborhoods'', J.B. Lippincott Co., Phila. and London, 1912. *Tatum, George B., ''Philadelphia Georgian: The City House of Samuel Powel and Some of Its 18th Century Neighbors'', Wesleyan, 1976.

External links

*
Room from the Powel House
exhibit at the

* {{Philadelphia, state=collapsed Historic American Buildings Survey in Philadelphia Houses completed in 1765 History of Philadelphia Historic house museums in Philadelphia Georgian architecture in Pennsylvania

History

Gallery

In popular culture

See also

References

External links