A family home with family history
Cedar Grove once stood in Philadelphia’s Frankford neighborhood. Built for Elizabeth Coates Paschall in 1746, it was the summer home for five generations of the Coates, Paschall, and Morris families of Philadelphia.
The house was presented as a gift to the city of Philadelphia in 1926. It moved to its current location in West Fairmount Park and opened to the public in 1927.
Inside the house, you will see fine examples of early Pennsylvania furniture, as well as a charming kitchen with an open hearth and bake oven.
History
Built in the northwest Philadelphia neighborhood of Frankford by Elizabeth Coates Paschall in 1746, the original small home of grey Wissahickon Schist received numerous additions over the years, and preserves rooms which illustrate the evolving styles of her descendants over the following century. The Paschall–Morris family enjoyed Cedar Grove until 1888, when increased industrialization made it no longer a peaceful country retreat. They subsequently built a large country home in Chestnut Hill and developed its gardens into what is today the Morris Arboretum. The last of the family to own Cedar Grove, Lydia Thompson Morris, gave the house to the City of Philadelphia in 1926. It was moved to Fairmount Park from Frankford the following year.
Unusually, Cedar Grove has no central hall, and the covered piazza provides access to all the downstairs rooms. The original building consisted of only the present dining room and upper bedchambers. As succeeding generations of the family lived here, additions were made to the home, including the parlor, the kitchen and the third floor. The last of these transformed the original gable roof into what is now a gambrel or “broken pitch” roof. The interior includes innovative domestic details, such as an unusual two-sided wall of closets, an indoor bake oven and a hot-water boiler in the kitchen.
Cedar Grove contains an extensive collection of furniture and the decorative arts, with objects in the home original to the Paschall–Morris family and the house. This provides the rare opportunity for visitors to see these materials displayed in a historic context. The documentation that the family kept includes the medicinal recipe book of the house founder, healer Elizabeth Coates Paschall, and the 1809 wedding dress and trousseau receipts of Lydia Poultney Thompson. Cedar Grove tells the stories of 150 years of day-to-day living – both moments of happiness and of struggle – through these treasured items.
Visit
Closed to visitors in 2024
Please check back for updates. Feel free to contact the Philadelphia Museum of Art with questions and to support the re-opening of this house
Tours for research purposes by appointment only.
Contact: Visitor Services
E-mail: visitorservices@philamuseum.org
Phone: (215) 763-8100
Address:
1 Cedar Grove Drive
Philadelphia, PA 19131
Website:
https://philamuseum.org/visit/locations-hours#historic-houses