Idlewild (Media, Pennsylvania) facts for kids
Quick facts for kids |
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Idlewild
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Frank Furness's summer cottage from the front
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| Location | 110 Idlewild Circle, Media, Pennsylvania |
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| Area | less than one acre |
| Built | c. 1890 |
| Architectural style | Queen Anne, Shingle Style |
| NRHP reference No. | 13000255 |
| Added to NRHP | May 8, 2013 |
Idlewild is a historic house near Media, Pennsylvania. A famous architect named Frank Furness designed it. He built it as a summer home for his family around 1890. Frank Furness loved spending his summers here until he passed away in 1912.
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A Home with History
This special house was built around 1890. It was located on the land of the Idlewild Hotel. Frank Furness had designed that hotel a few years earlier. Instead of money, Furness received this house as payment for his hotel design. In May 2013, Idlewild was added to the National Register of Historic Places. This means it's a very important historical building!
The Furness family lived in Philadelphia during the cold winter months. But they enjoyed their summers in more relaxed cottages. Before building Idlewild, they spent summers in Cape May, New Jersey. Frank Furness died at Idlewild in 1912.
How Idlewild Was Built
Idlewild has a strong stone basement. The first floor is made of brick. The upper parts of the house are built with wood. They are covered with cedar shingles, which are thin pieces of wood.
The house has a cool porch that wraps all the way around it. The rooms inside have high ceilings. The roof looks interesting with many different shapes. It also has unique windows and "eyebrow dormers." These are small windows that stick out from the roof.
Furness put the service rooms and stairs at the front of the house. This made the other rooms more private. The different parts of the house fit together in a lively way. One expert said Furness "shrank the plan" of a library he designed. He then built this house using stone, brick, and shingles.
Design Ideas from a Library
The basic shape of Idlewild is like a large, round section connected to a main block. The entrance is where these two parts meet. This design is very similar to a library Furness designed in 1888. That library is now called the Fisher Fine Arts Library at the University of Pennsylvania.
In the library, Furness put the main staircase in a tower at the front. This separated the stairs from the reading rooms. The library also has a large, oval-shaped reading room. Idlewild's porch wraps around its oval-shaped parlor. Furness used similar shapes in his design for the Bryn Mawr Hotel too. The library has been described as "a collision between a cathedral and a train station."
Gallery
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Front entrance and porch
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Apse-end w/ wrap-around porch
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Idlewild window detail
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South (rear) facade
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Window detail
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2nd floor bedroom
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Furness' floor plan of the U.Penn library(1891), which he used for Idlewild's design.
Other Buildings by Frank Furness
Idlewild is located on Gayley Hill. This is in Upper Providence Township. It is just south of the town of Media.
This location was about a mile west of "Lindenshade." That was the summer house of Frank's brother, Horace Howard Furness. Horace was a scholar who studied Shakespeare. Idlewild was also a short walk to the Moylan-Rose Valley train station. This made it easy for Frank to travel to his architecture office in Philadelphia.
Here are some other projects Frank Furness completed around the same time as Idlewild (1888-1891):
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University of Pennsylvania Library (1888–91)
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Rowan Hall at Williamson College of the Trades (1890), in nearby Middletown.
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Furness summer cottage in Cape May, NJ
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Bryn Mawr Hotel (1890–91) (now Baldwin School), Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania.
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Lindenshade (1873), the Wallingford house of Franks's brother, Horace Howard Furness
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The Idlewild Hotel (c.1897), Media, PA
