Henry Chapman Mercer was one of a kind, and that’s also true for nearly every aspect of his life and work as an archaeologist, historian, collector, ceramicist, businessman and more.
So, no surprise that Fonthill Castle, the home he built himself, is also an absolute one-off, reflecting his admittedly eccentric ideas and tastes, including his love for poured-in-place concrete walls, barely decorated except for thousands of the tiles he made and collected.
Like his other two essays in architecture, the Mercer Museum and the Moravian Pottery and Tile Works, Fonthill is in Doylestown, Pennsylvania; in fact, it’s a next-door neighbor to his tile factory. Like the Museum, it’s operated by the Bucks County Historical Society. Together, the three constitute a National Historic Landmark District.
Chapman built his home over a four-year period starting in 1908, sometimes working directly with his crew of eight to a dozen workers. They had no formal training in concrete work, and Mercer had no formal training in architecture, but he did have nearly unlimited faith in his ability.
The amazing vaulted ceilings in the house, for instance, were constructed by a method he called earth-vaulting, at least partly adapted from ideas he had encountered in archaeological work. First a wooden temporary ceiling would be built, a rough dome or vault shape of piled boxes would be placed on it, then covered with earth and then a layer of sand.
Mercer would then place, face-down, the tiles he wanted in the ceiling, and cover the array with mesh and then the concrete. When the concrete was dry, the wooden ceiling and the boxes, dirt and sand would be removed, leaving the tiled and vaulted ceiling.
Despite his addiction to colorful tiles, Mercer made no excuse for leaving large areas of raw concrete: he believed in its beauty and ‘raw vitality’ and that it suggested natural stone. “One thing remains,” he said, “namely color, and our contribution to that is in the form of applying lintels, medallions, corbels, bands, corners and capitals…”
Even the floors and some of the furniture are concrete or tile or both. He made an exception to the concrete floors by adding small wooden areas in each bedroom so he and guests would have a warmer place to stand on getting out of bed. At some points, some of the walls got pastel coloring, but he eventually abandoned that idea.
But he had plenty of places to show off his collected and self-made or self-designed tiles. There are 44 rooms, some of them quite large, over 200 windows (with tiles set in many of their cases), 18 fireplaces to surround with tiles, 10 bathrooms and quite a few staircases.
An eclectic assortment: ancient writings, folk art and a pair of tiles illustrating scenes from Dickens’ Pickwick Papers
Chapman was fond of placing tiles, often with mottoes, on the risers of staircases. One small set of steps was set aside for his beloved dog, Rollo.
Mercer lived at Fonthill until his death in 1930. He had never married, and had no remaining relatives, or at least none he cared to leave his estate to. During his years at Fonthill, the only other residents, besides Rollo, were Frank Swain, who had been Mercer’s assistant since the 1890s and his wife Laura, who was the housekeeper.
When Mercer died in 1930, he left Frank Swain in charge of the Moravian Pottery, which he ran until his death in 1930. He left Fonthill to be operated as a museum focused on its tile decorations, under control of the Bucks County Historical Society. The Swains had life rights to live at Fonthill—provided Lucy gave occasional tours of the house, which she did until her own death in 1975.
Each time I’ve written about Mercer, I’ve found myself with far too many pictures to include, and far too many regrets about any I omit; it’s a failure of will, editing cowardice if you will. You may, by now, have seen all you want, but if not, the slideshow below contains those that didn’t make it into the blog.
I hear tell that Rollo was his true love. Excellent photos capturing the story in detailed images.
Fantastic.