Home » Visual & Performing Arts » Art Museums » Fonthill, Mercer Museum, Moravian Pottery & Tile Works

Fonthill, Mercer Museum, Moravian Pottery & Tile Works

© Judith Stock

Located among green rolling hills and brick estates, Bucks County, Pennsylvania has more than its share of historic buildings on the National Registry. Mercer Mile, including Mercer Museum, Fonthill Museum and the Moravian Pottery and Tile Works, all created by Henry Chapman Mercer, historian, archaeologist, collector, visionary and acclaimed ceramist.

Fonthill
Built entirely of hand-mixed concrete between 1908 to 1910, the Fonthill Museum is the former Mercer home. The lavish estate features 18 fireplaces, 32 stairwells, well over 200 windows in 44 rooms that display objects d' art collected from throughout the world by Mercer.

The interior of Fonthill is a showcase for Mercer's original decorative tiles, with walls, ceilings, and floors covered in intricate and colorful hand-made tiles. Defying classification, each room is unique and no two columns are alike, as Mercer thought that as no trees were alike, neither would rooms or anything else in the interior of his home. He drew inspiration from great architectural styles like Byzantine churches, Turkish architecture and the paintings of Gerard Dow.

Mercer Museum
Born in 1856, in Doylestown, Bucks County, Pennsylvania, Mercer studied law at the University of Pennsylvania but always retained an abiding interest in pre-historic archaeology. He conducted a number of site excavations to the Yucatan Peninsula and other expeditions that included the Delaware, Ohio, and Tennessee River valleys. He became interested in collecting tools from pre-historic America, which he called 'The Tools of the Nation Maker.' In 1897, Mercer decided to build a museum to house his collected artifacts.

The seven-story building, constructed between 1913 and 1916, is formed from reinforced concrete. The unusual towers, gables, and parapets can only give clues to what the interior holds in store for museum visitors.

The ever-expanding collection houses over 50,000 tools and artifacts and represents the heritage of Bucks County along with early Americana history. Early American trades like woodworking, metalworking, textile and dairy tools are represented in the collection along with an assortment of Native American implements dated around 6,000 BC to 8,000 BC.

Moravian Pottery and Tile Works
Mercer attempted to revitalize the declining interest in the local craft of pottery making, which turned out to be unsuccessful. Undaunted by his failure, he turned his attention to hand-crafted tiles and became a leader of the turn-of-the-century Arts and Crafts movement. Completed in 1912, the Moravian Pottery and Tile Works turned out mosaics and tiles for floors, ceilings and walls. Mercer's fame grew until his tiles adorned rotundas, halls, and buildings throughout the United States and the world.

Fonthill

The copyright of the article Fonthill, Mercer Museum, Moravian Pottery & Tile Works in Art Museums is owned by . Permission to republish Fonthill, Mercer Museum, Moravian Pottery & Tile Works in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.