last Penn at Solitude.
Coming to Philadelphia in middle life about 1851 he was lionized by
society and in acknowledgment gave a grand "Fete Champetre" and
collation. Following his death in 1867, Solitude and its grounds were
made part of Fairmount Park, and after several years without tenancy the
house in its original condition was made the administration building of
the Zoological Society.

The fine old plastered stone houses of Philadelphia comprise one of the
distinctive and most admired types of its Colonial architecture. Those
with pebble-dashed walls which seek to simulate no other building
material or form of construction possess the added charm of frank
sincerity. Fire-proof in character, pleasing in appearance, and readily
adaptable to varied home requirements, they point the way wherever
rubble stone incapable of forming an attractive wall is cheaply
available. Many modern dwellings in the Colonial spirit are being built
in this manner.

CHAPTER VI

HEWN STONE COUNTRY HOUSES

Cost was not an object in building many of the larger old countryseats
about Philadelphia, for their owners were men of wealth and station,
prominent in the affairs of the province and sharing its prosperity.
Influenced by the builders of the Georgian period in England, and often
under their personal supervision, the buildings on numerous great
estates about the early metropolis of the American colonies were
constructed of quarried stone, whether sawed in the form of "brick"
stone or hammered to a relatively smooth surface.

Surfaced stone, however, especially when cut into rectangular blocks, is
to be recommended only for public work or for very large and pretentious
residences of formal character and arrangement. In small buildings, and
unless handled with skill and discretion in larger work, its
psychological effect upon the mind is that of uncompromising and
somewhat repellent austerity; it suggests the prison-like palace rather
than the domestic atmosphere of a true home,--an atmosphere to be had in
stone only by preserving the greater spontaneity of irregular shapes
and rock faces characteristic of Germantown ledge stone.

That the early builders of this vicinity were skilled stone masons and
employed this form of building construction with sympathy and
intelligence is indicated by the splendid old mansions that still remain
as monuments to their genius,--stately, elegant, enduring, yet withal
pleasing, comfortable a