Join us for an afternoon tour and social at Ardrossan, one of the grandest estates of the old Main Line. Experience the house and its history with Barbara Eberlein of Eberlein Design Consultants, who spent more than a decade restoring the home’s interiors to their original state, Jim Mundy, the Director of Education and Programming of the Abraham Lincoln Foundation of the Union League of Philadelphia, and architect Fred Bissinger who will share full scale copies of the original Trumbauer drawings.
Guests will be able to stroll the entire first floor and terraces of the home from one end to the other, from the beautifully equipped butler’s pantry with original china settings to the elegantly furnished ballroom, and all spaces in between. Valet parking is provided and advanced registration is necessary to attend. Space is limited.
Commissioned in 1911 by Robert Montgomery, a wealthy Philadelphia stockbroker, Ardrossan was designed by architect Horace Trumbauer, who chose 300 acres of rolling pasture in an enclave northwest of the city, called the Main Line, as the site for the estate. The 50-room, 33,000-square-foot Georgian Revival manor home has interior decorations by White, Allom & Co. (who also worked on Buckingham Palace), and houses works of art by Augustus John, Sir John Lavery, Gilbert Stuart, Thomas Sully, John Singleton Copley, and Charles Willson Peale. Members of the Montgomery extended family have lived at Ardrossan from 1912 right up to the present day--Joan Mackie, granddaughter of Robert and Charlotte Montgomery, still lives on the property, as does her cousin Mary Remer.
Though the old Main Line has all but disappeared, Ardrossan stands. According to historian David Nelson Wren, “It’s the best-preserved of the great Main Line ancestral manses. It’s been beautifully maintained. The furniture is exactly where Charlotte Hope Montgomery left it when she died in 1970. And it’s certainly the only old Main Line mansion with family still living there.” We invite you to join us for this unique opportunity to get an insider look at this spectacular estate and its collections, followed by a light cocktail reception.
Barbara Eberlein is a longtime professional member of the American Society of Interior Designers (ASID), and she is certified by the National Council for Interior Design Qualification (NCIDQ). She has extensively pursued further studies in the history of architecture and the decorative arts at Harvard University Graduate School of Design, The Attingham Summer School, University of Pennsylvania, The University of the Arts, The Bard Graduate Center, Sotheby’s Institute of Art, Winterthur Museum, The Philadelphia Museum of Art, The National Gallery, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Institute of Classical Architecture & Art. Barbara’s recent work at Ardrossan won her the 2016 Trumbauer Award for Residential Interior Design.
Jim Mundy is the Director of Education and Programming of the Abraham Lincoln Foundation of the Union League of Philadelphia. He is an alumnus of The Attingham Summer School for the Study of British Houses and Collections and the President of The Woodlands Cemetery Company and the Woodlands Trust for Historic Preservation. Jim has also given architecture tours for the Preservation Alliance.
Fred Bissinger is the principal architect at F.L. Bissinger Inc., an architecture firm that focuses on single family residential architecture and specializes in "Artisan Revival" style houses, which aim not to copy the past, but to create new masterpieces that use the vocabulary of tradition to write original architectural poetry.
1 AIA LU credit will be available for this lecture. Please bring your AIA membership number in order to fill out the necessary paperwork.