The Solitude, Philadelphia, Philadelphia County

Two weeks ago, I promised my Facebook followers that whichever of two post subjects they did not select would be the focus of this week's update. Having given my attention to the heavily requested David Tannenberg, I now take us back to Philadelphia to visit a mansion in the middle of the zoo.

I visited the Philadelphia Zoo with my husband last summer, and wrote about it on a very cold day when I was in need of some sunshine. At the time, I didn't give too much focus to the beautiful Colonial mansion in the middle of the grounds, because it has its own marker and I knew I'd be telling you all about it in another post. And here we are.

The marker is located along the
walking path which passes directly
in front of the house

I remember visiting the zoo as a child with my family and wondering why in the world there was a big house. There was, at that time, no historical marker present, nor do I remember seeing any of the other signage which now exists to provide context for the presence of the mansion. It amuses me that I have my question answered a good quarter-century after I first asked it.

If you're reading this blog, I'm quite sure that you know at least enough about Pennsylvania history to not need me to explain who William Penn is. "Penn's Woods" is named for his family, after all. The Solitude was part of the property belonging to his family - specifically, it was built by one of his grandsons, John Penn. He had two grandsons of the same name, so it's necessary to give a little explanation so they don't get mixed up.

William Penn was married twice, and fathered sixteen children, fewer than half of whom survived to adulthood. Two of his sons by his second wife were Thomas and Richard, each of whom had a son named John. Richard's son John was the last governor of colonial Pennsylvania, so he's usually referenced in history as "John Penn the governor." (Makes sense.) Thomas's son John, meanwhile, was the one who built The Solitude, and he's not so easily pigeonholed. He's sometimes called "John Penn of Stoke," which is the name of the place where he grew up, or "John Penn the writer." The marker identifies him as "John Penn, Jr.," and this is because he was named after his father's older brother, who had no children.

He was born in London on February 22, 1760, and had two noteworthy grandfathers. One, of course, was William Penn; the other was his mother's father, Thomas Fermor, the first Earl of Pomfret. This means that through his mother he was British aristocracy, and through his father he was as close to such a thing as we tend to get in this part of the world. John's mother, Lady Juliana, was almost thirty years younger than her husband; they had eight children, of whom John was the first son to survive childhood, and he and his brother Granville were still fairly young when their father died. Because of Thomas's declining health, Lady Juliana actually filled in for a lot of her husband's work in maintaining the proprietorship of Pennsylvania, and corresponded with many well-known figures of the day including John Jay, Henry Laurens, and John Adams, as well as her nephew the governor.

Thomas died in 1775. As he was William Penn's eldest surviving son, he was the one who held the proprietorship of Pennsylvania; he left three-quarters of this to his son John, and the remaining one-quarter to his nephew John. (Confused yet? I know I was.) Along came the American Revolution, however, and the proprietorship was taken from the Penn family; but the documents which stripped them of their claim promised financial restitution. After John the writer finished his education at Eton College and Clare College, Cambridge, he made his way to Pennsylvania to collect his inheritance. He arrived in 1783 and stayed in Philadelphia with his cousin, John the (now former) governor, in a house which would later be a residence of President George Washington.

The Solitude through the trees

Exactly what went on between the cousins is not really known. John the former governor was the older of the two by nearly thirty years, and until John the writer was born, he had been his uncle Thomas's heir apparent. So maybe there was some resentment on that front. Or maybe the older John tried to be more of a father to the younger John than the younger John would have liked. Or maybe they just didn't like each other. Whatever the case, the younger John decided he needed to get out of his cousin's house;  not helping matters was a strong anti-Penn sentiment among Philadelphians. Eager to escape both his cousin and his neighbors, he bought fifteen acres of beautiful property overlooking the Schuylkill River. (For those of you not familiar with that hard-to-spell word, it's pronounced SKOO-kill.) It was here that he built his house, The Solitude.

I don't think it was named The Solitude because of that anti-Penn attitude, but then again, it might have been. The official explanation is that it's named after Castle Solitude in Stuttgart, Germany. The mansion is built in the Federal style, which is characterized by the use of flat panels, bald eagle motifs, and Roman elements. The Solitude is an almost perfect cube if the roof is not included - just about 29 feet high, 29 feet wide, and 29 feet deep - and had a detached kitchen. As far as anyone can tell, John Penn himself was the architect, and one of the signs which has been erected outside the building includes a replica of the blueprint. He drew the preliminary plans in his "Commonplace Book," which is still kept in the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, and was known for his love of architecture. Thinking fondly of his youth in England, he chose a lot of elements for his house which resembled those in English buildings. As a result, The Solitude became one of the first neo-classical houses in America.

Entrance hall and staircase,
viewed through a window

The layout of the grounds, meanwhile, was inspired by John's childhood home in Stoke Park, Buckinghamshire. Noted landscape designer Humphrey Repton was recruited to bring John's ideas to life. He wanted trails in the 'wilderness,' and flower gardens, and open views of the river from the house. Another detail to be included was something called a "ha-ha," which was a very cutting edge bit of gardening technology to keep livestock from getting into the gardens. Funny.

In 1789, after living at The Solitude for five years, John received his compensation of 130,000 pounds - that's the equivalent of more than $20 million in today's money. He put this in his pocket and headed back to England, where he rebuilt the family mansion in Stoke Park. Parliament granted him an additional 4,000 pounds a year in compensation for his losses in the former colony, so he was pretty well settled. Nobody knows if he ever intended to return to Pennsylvania, but he never did; instead, in 1798, he accepted the appointment of High Sheriff of Buckinghamshire. He also served as a member of Parliament from 1802 to 1805, and then in 1805 became governor of the Isle of Portland, where he built structures called Pennsylvania Castle and John Penn's Bath. He did a lot of writing during these years as well (I did say he was sometimes called "John Penn the writer"), including poetry, a tragedy called The Battle of Eddington, or British Liberty, and an essay on the writings of Virgil. He died at the family home in Stoke Park on June 21, 1834, having never married and leaving no children.

One of the main rooms of The Solitude,
with a Penn portrait over the fireplace,
viewed through a window

John's properties, including The Solitude, then passed to his younger brother Granville, who was something of a pioneer in British veterinary practices. Granville died in 1844, and everything then went to his eldest son, Granville John Penn, who is known to have been to Philadelphia at least twice and did spend some time at The Solitude. In 1867, he died and left everything to his younger brother, Rev. Thomas Gordon Penn, who was the last direct male descendant of William Penn. The Solitude remained his until he died two years later, at which time it was purchased by Fairmount Park. In 1874, the Zoological Society of Philadelphia was able to lease the land and house. The zoo, which opened to the public that same year, has been somewhat built around The Solitude; it actually served as the zoo's executive offices for several years.

The Solitude remains a treasure of the zoo, being the only surviving house left in the entire country which was once the property of the Penn family. (Pennsbury Manor, known as the home of William Penn, is actually a reconstruction and not the original building in which Penn lived.) The Friends of The Solitude, established in 1991, are the ones who maintain the building and have researched its unusual history. Regular zoo visitors can admire the exterior of the building and the beautifully maintained grounds, but the house itself is only open on special occasions. However, there's nothing keeping you from walking up to the windows and taking a look inside, which is exactly what I did, and the interior is kept as true to the original as possible. Plaster ceilings, period furnishings, and a gorgeous staircase are all very much as they looked more than 200 years ago. Signage outside the house gives it a humorous detail: George Washington did not sleep here. But William Penn's family did.

Edit 8/13/2022: A while ago, I received a comment from a sharp-eyed reader asking me about the strange carving over the front door of the Solitude, which I admit I hadn't even noticed. I did some investigating, but never found an answer. Today, a commenter left the explanation, which is that the odd symbol was proof that John Penn had purchased fire insurance! This fact, along with many others, can be learned by watching a video tour of the house which I have now added to the sources on this post. Thank you, anonymous benefactor!

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Sources and Further Reading:

Video tour of The Solitude created by the Philadelphia Zoo (added August 13, 2022)

The Philadelphia Zoo website - the pages relating to The Solitude no longer exist with the information I used, but I was able to access them courtesy of the Wayback Machine (and you can too)

The Solitude at philadelphiabuildings.org

PhillyHistory.org

Jenkins, Howard Malcolm. The Family of William Penn: Founder of Pennsylvania, Ancestry and Descendants. Published by the author, 1899.

The Solitude at the Historical Marker Database

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Except where indicated, all writing and photography on this blog is the intellectual property of Laura Klotz. This blog is written with permission of the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission. I am not employed by the PHMC. All rights reserved.