Main Line Antiques Show To Feature Architecture Lectures

The Main Line Antiques Show is celebrating its sixth year and will be held at the Radnor Valley Country Club in Villanova November 11 through November 13.

As part of the show, there will be three lectures from historians on architecture and Main Line mansions.

The lectures are:

More English Than England

Saturday, Nov. 12 at 1 p.m.
by Jeff Groff, local historian and Director of Public Programs at Winterthur Museum, Garden & Library

A British visitor to the Main Line in the 1930s commented on how the area seemed even more English than England itself. This talk will look at some of the great houses, gardens and estates. It will focus on the period from 1870 to 1940 using many photographs from that time. It will also look at country life and sports in the area and how they were modeled on the British. By 1900 cricket clubs, hunt clubs, lawn tennis, and golf clubs dominated the area.

Even today as you look around you will see all the allusions to England, Wales and Scotland. Town names like Bryn Mawr or Bala Cynwyd. High gothic churches and Elizabethan college campuses such as Bryn Mawr. Turreted castles in the Scottish baronial style still survive, as do many Tudor mansions in stone or half-timbering. Even if a wealthy estate builder preferred French or Italian or Colonial American for their architecture the patterns of living and entertaining, and often the associated gentlemen's farms, all echo British precedent.

Some of the houses and families that will be the subjects of the talk may be quite familiar; others are really just a memory of a past era.

Wilson Eyre – Artist and Architect

Saturday, Nov. 12 at 3 p.m.
by James B. Garrison, AIA, noted author and architect in the firm Frens & Frens.

Wilson Eyre combined an exceptional artistic talent with his prodigious skills as an architectural planner and designer. A master of monochromatic pen and ink, watercolor and pastel, he applied these talents to his design process from beginning sketches to finished presentation drawings. In rendering styles that became more personalized and mannered as he matured, his drawings took on an almost a primitive quality, which ideally complimented the vernacular sources of his architectural design. While fully engaged in a busy practice, Eyre continued to paint and sketch on his travels, which greatly nourished his ability as an architect. By the turn of the century, twenty years into a very long career, he had established himself as a unique personality in the profession, propelled by an aesthetic vision coupled with an extraordinary expressive talent.

It is evident from Eyre's earliest surviving drawings that he possessed a natural artistic talent and, like his slightly older peer, Stanford White, had largely bypassed a full course academic study. Also like White, Eyre had been directed towards architecture by his parents who saw it as a more stable profession than painting.

For its fifty year existence, Wilson Eyre's architectural practice remained largely centered on the country house, and his design style remained remarkably consistent. He developed several themes in his designs and drawings that remained constant and identifiable throughout his career. Although he was influential and had many who followed his lead in exploring the Arts & Crafts and vernacular styles, few attempted to imitate his distinctive handling of country house design. Eyre's vision was formed in concert with the emergence of the Arts and Crafts Movement and found its outlet in numerous domestic commissions. His involvement with the founding of the T Square Club in Philadelphia to promote the art of architecture and the "shelter magazine" movement represented by House & Garden, were two new strands that grew from his creative impulse. Throughout an achievement-filled career, Wilson Eyre drew constant inspiration from his personal vision which he so clearly expressed in his exquisite renderings.

Radnor Valley Farm and its Neighbors, 1890-1970

Sunday, Nov. 13, 1 p.m.
By Jeff Groff

The south side of Villanova, Rosemont and Bryn Mawr had the largest number of notable country places on the Main Line with sizable acreage, gentlemen's farms, and estates that had extensive gardens and facilities for country sports. It was a very small world of families connected by wealth, social prominence and in many cases by marriage. Radnor Valley Farm designed by architects Cope & Stewardson c.1907 for cotton broker J. Franklin McFadden epitomized these estates with its large Colonial Revival style house, its terraced gardens, and then its picturesque farm beyond.

This talk will examine the history of the Radnor Valley Farm as well as neighboring estates including George McFadden's Barclay Farm, Robert Cassatt's Beaupre also by Cope & Stewardson, Robert Montgomery's Ardrossan by Horace Trumbauer--the last surviving great country place on the Main Line, W. Hinckle Smith's Timberline by New York architect Charles Platt with landscape by the Olmsted Brothers, Clarence Geist's Launfal by Paul Philippe Cret, Craig Biddle's Laurento by Peabody & Stearns, and many others.

Finally, the talk will look at the changes after WWII as most of these estates were sold, became schools, clubs, or retirement communities, were subdivided for suburban houses, or in many cases demolished.