Grey Towers National Historic Site
Encyclopedia
Grey Towers National Historic Site, also known as Gifford Pinchot House or The Pinchot Institute, is located just off US 6
west of Milford, Pennsylvania
, in Dingman Township
. It is the ancestral home of Gifford Pinchot
, first director of the United States Forest Service
(USFS) and twice elected governor of Pennsylvania
.
The house, built in the style
of a French château
to reflect the Pinchot family's French
origins, was designed by Richard Morris Hunt
with some later work by Henry Edwards-Ficken. Situated on the hills above Milford, it overlooks the Delaware River
. Pinchot grew up there and returned during the summers when his later life took him to Washington
and Harrisburg
. His wife Cornelia made substantial changes to the interior of the home and gardens, in collaboration with several different architects, during that time.
In 1963 his family donated it and the surrounding 102 acres (41 ha) to the Forest Service; it is the only U.S. National Historic Site
managed by that agency. Three years later the Department of the Interior
designated it a National Historic Landmark
. Today it is open to the public for tours and hiking
on its trail
s; it is also home to the Pinchot Institute, which carries on his work in conservation
.
chateau. Conical
roofed towers at three of the corners give the property its name. A service wing juts out from the fourth corner. As originally built it contained 43 rooms, with the first floor featuring a large entrance hall, billiard room
, dining room
, library and sitting room. Bedrooms were located on the second floor, with more on the third floor plus storage spaces and children's playrooms.
The house boasts a number of outbuildings. On the 303 acres (123 ha) of the combined parcels that made up the original estate, there are 48 total buildings, structures and sites, all but eight of which are considered contributing
to its historic value. These include nearby cottages known as the Letter and Bait Boxes, a unique outdoor dining facility called the Finger Bowl, a Forester's Cottage used as a residence by the Pinchot descendants, an open-air theatre, the former Yale School of Forestry
's summer school, and a white pine
plantation
established by Gifford Pinchot.
efforts.
business and moved his family from New York City back to Milford, where he had grown up. He bought 3000 acres (1,214.1 ha) of land overlooking the Delaware in Dingman Township
, just outside the borough. Particularly attractive to him and his family was a small waterfall
on Sawkill Creek.
There, his primary endeavor was planning and designing Grey Towers and the land around it. At first, he developed the land along lines of the ornamental farm
advocated by Andrew Jackson Downing
. The original drive up the hill was meant to show off his orchard
s. In 1884 he retained Hunt, a family friend, to put these ideas for a French-style chateau modeled after the Marquis de Lafayette's LaGrange and reflecting the Pinchot family's national origin, on paper for eventual construction. Two years later it was complete, but not after Pinchot altered the plans slightly to save money. While Hunt was away in Europe, he also had Edwards-Ficken, alter Hunt's design slightly when bedrock
on the site made it difficult to build the raised foundation
Hunt had originally planned. Edwards-Ficken added some of his own decorative
touches to the house, such as the front door, interior paneling and wrought iron
porch
es on the south and east facade
s.
Almost all the materials came from local sources. Hemlock
timbers were floated down the Delaware on raft
s from Lackawaxen, and another river town, Shohola
, provided the bluestone
and windows. Roof
ing slate
came from across the river, in Lafayette
, New Jersey
. All the workers and contractors hired were Milford residents. The total cost was $19,000 for the house itself and $24,000 for furnishings.
In 1906 a design by Frederick Law Olmstead, who had died three years before, was implemented for an old cemetery
on the property. It is not clear what his contribution was since all of it had existed from the early 19th century, from prior to the Pinchot family's ownership of the land. Today it is in poor condition.
James Pinchot had come to regret the environmental damage forest-product industries such as his had done, and he endowed the Yale School of Forestry, the first graduate forestry program in the country. From 1901 to 1926 the Grey Towers estate grounds served as the school's primary summer preparatory fieldwork location. Only ruins of the educational buildings exist today.
split the estate, with Amos taking the half on which a small forester's cabin was the main dwelling and Gifford taking the house. The couple began spending their summers at Grey Towers. She realized that his developing political career, and hers (she ran for Congress
three times), required a residence more suited to entertaining guests than it had originally been intended to be, and set about modernizing the house. At her behest, many alterations were made to the original first-floor plan. The most significant involved merging the dining
and breakfast rooms to create a large sitting room, and similarly enlarging the library
by adding the living room
to it. "The first thing my wife did", Pinchot told the Saturday Evening Post in 1922, "was to break down the partition walls and let in light and air ... [O]f course, it's a vast improvement."
An avid gardener
, she turned her attention to the grounds. Chester Holmes Aldrich
first designed a swimming pool
for the property, a raised structure enclosed on three sides by a pergola
of stone piers and wooden trellis
es. After that came the Bait Box, a playhouse
for the couple's son, Gifford Bryce Pinchot. Elliptical
openings in the stone walls around the courtyard
provide views over the surrounding landscape. Next, in the late 1920s, when her husband was serving his first term as governor, came the Letter Box, a small cottage intended both as an archive
for his papers and an office for his political staff when he was in residence. In their last collaboration, Aldrich and Cornelia Pinchot added a moat
, which finally gave the house the raised effect Hunt had originally intended. In building it became necessary to lengthen the east lawn
and build a new stone wall to support the moat.
In the early 1930s, she hired William Lawrence Bottomley to create a unique addition known as the Finger Bowl, an outdoor dining area consisting of a raised pool surrounded by a flat ledge. Chairs were pulled up to the ledge and food was served from bowls floating on the water. It was sheltered by a wisteria
-covered arbor
supported by 12 stone piers. In the late 1930s, Gifford Pinchot started the White Pine
Plantation
to reforest
some old farmland near the mansion. He was particularly interested in that species since it was the dominant tree in the forests of Pike County
and had been heavily harvested during the previous century.
and water
damage. Various other rooms in the wing and second floor were converted to storage or office use, and the swimming pool was filled in in 1979 when it became a safety and maintenance problem. A parking lot
was built to the northwest.
The Pinchot Institute, which also has a role in administering the site, was dedicated by President
John F. Kennedy
on September 24, 1963. That same year Grey Towers was one of the first sites declared a National Historic Landmark
by the Secretary of the Interior
.
In 1980, the USFS realized how much its renovations had damaged an architecturally significant structure and began trying to undo some of the changes it had made. It developed a plan to restore the house and estate to a condition similar to the way it had been in Pinchot's era, in consultation with the Park Service's Harper's Ferry Center, and hired staff with expertise in landscape
and architecture
. After a brief closing for this renovation, it reopened on August 11, 2001, Gifford Pinchot's birthday. The state of Pennsylvania's Department of Natural Resources also made a $2 million grant available for renovations to the entrance, entry road and parking facilities. In 2007 the USFS restored the swimming pool.
weekend through early November. Guided tours home and gardens start every hour on the hour from 10 a.m.-4 p.m.; there is a fee except for July 4 (Independence Day
) and September 22 (U.S. Public Lands Day). Self-guided interpretive trails devoted to the history of the Pinchot family, forestry and the bluebird
s nesting in the woods are available on the grounds. There is also a gift shop.
The Pinchot Institute also hosts conferences related to conservation matters. They are held either in the upper floors of the mansion or in the Letter Box.
U.S. Route 6 in Pennsylvania
U.S. Route 6 travels east–west near the north edge of the U.S. state of Pennsylvania from the Ohio state line near Pymatuning Reservoir east to the Mid-Delaware Bridge over the Delaware River into Port Jervis, New York. It is the longest highway segment in the Commonwealth. Most of it is a...
west of Milford, Pennsylvania
Milford, Pennsylvania
Milford is a borough in Pike County, Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat. Its population was 1,021 at the 2010 census. It was founded in 1796 by Judge John Biddis, one of the state's first four circuit judges, who named the settlement after his ancestral home in Wales.Milford has a...
, in Dingman Township
Dingman Township, Pennsylvania
Dingman Township is a township in Pike County, Pennsylvania, United States. The population was 11,926 at the 2010 census. The Township was created in 1832 and named in honor of Judge Daniel Westbrook Dingman.-Geography:...
. It is the ancestral home of Gifford Pinchot
Gifford Pinchot
Gifford Pinchot was the first Chief of the United States Forest Service and the 28th Governor of Pennsylvania...
, first director of the United States Forest Service
United States Forest Service
The United States Forest Service is an agency of the United States Department of Agriculture that administers the nation's 155 national forests and 20 national grasslands, which encompass...
(USFS) and twice elected governor of Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania
The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...
.
The house, built in the style
Architectural style
Architectural styles classify architecture in terms of the use of form, techniques, materials, time period, region and other stylistic influences. It overlaps with, and emerges from the study of the evolution and history of architecture...
of a French château
Château
A château is a manor house or residence of the lord of the manor or a country house of nobility or gentry, with or without fortifications, originally—and still most frequently—in French-speaking regions...
to reflect the Pinchot family's French
French American
French Americans or Franco-Americans are Americans of French or French Canadian descent. About 11.8 million U.S. residents are of this descent, and about 1.6 million speak French at home.An additional 450,000 U.S...
origins, was designed by Richard Morris Hunt
Richard Morris Hunt
Richard Morris Hunt was an American architect of the nineteenth century and a preeminent figure in the history of American architecture...
with some later work by Henry Edwards-Ficken. Situated on the hills above Milford, it overlooks the Delaware River
Delaware River
The Delaware River is a major river on the Atlantic coast of the United States.A Dutch expedition led by Henry Hudson in 1609 first mapped the river. The river was christened the South River in the New Netherland colony that followed, in contrast to the North River, as the Hudson River was then...
. Pinchot grew up there and returned during the summers when his later life took him to Washington
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
and Harrisburg
Harrisburg, Pennsylvania
Harrisburg is the capital of Pennsylvania. As of the 2010 census, the city had a population of 49,528, making it the ninth largest city in Pennsylvania...
. His wife Cornelia made substantial changes to the interior of the home and gardens, in collaboration with several different architects, during that time.
In 1963 his family donated it and the surrounding 102 acres (41 ha) to the Forest Service; it is the only U.S. National Historic Site
National Historic Sites (United States)
National Historic Sites are protected areas of national historic significance in the United States. A National Historic Site usually contains a single historical feature directly associated with its subject...
managed by that agency. Three years later the Department of the Interior
United States Department of the Interior
The United States Department of the Interior is the United States federal executive department of the U.S. government responsible for the management and conservation of most federal land and natural resources, and the administration of programs relating to Native Americans, Alaska Natives, Native...
designated it a National Historic Landmark
National Historic Landmark
A National Historic Landmark is a building, site, structure, object, or district, that is officially recognized by the United States government for its historical significance...
. Today it is open to the public for tours and hiking
Hiking
Hiking is an outdoor activity which consists of walking in natural environments, often in mountainous or other scenic terrain. People often hike on hiking trails. It is such a popular activity that there are numerous hiking organizations worldwide. The health benefits of different types of hiking...
on its trail
Trail
A trail is a path with a rough beaten or dirt/stone surface used for travel. Trails may be for use only by walkers and in some places are the main access route to remote settlements...
s; it is also home to the Pinchot Institute, which carries on his work in conservation
Conservation movement
The conservation movement, also known as nature conservation, is a political, environmental and a social movement that seeks to protect natural resources including animal, fungus and plant species as well as their habitat for the future....
.
Building and grounds
The mansion itself is a three-story L-shaped fieldstoneFieldstone
Fieldstone is a building construction material. Strictly speaking, it is stone collected from the surface of fields where it occurs naturally...
chateau. Conical
Cone (geometry)
A cone is an n-dimensional geometric shape that tapers smoothly from a base to a point called the apex or vertex. Formally, it is the solid figure formed by the locus of all straight line segments that join the apex to the base...
roofed towers at three of the corners give the property its name. A service wing juts out from the fourth corner. As originally built it contained 43 rooms, with the first floor featuring a large entrance hall, billiard room
Billiard room
A billiard room is a recreation room, such as in a house or recreation center, with a billiards, pool or snooker table...
, dining room
Dining room
A dining room is a room for consuming food. In modern times it is usually adjacent to the kitchen for convenience in serving, although in medieval times it was often on an entirely different floor level...
, library and sitting room. Bedrooms were located on the second floor, with more on the third floor plus storage spaces and children's playrooms.
The house boasts a number of outbuildings. On the 303 acres (123 ha) of the combined parcels that made up the original estate, there are 48 total buildings, structures and sites, all but eight of which are considered contributing
Contributing property
In the law regulating historic districts in the United States, a contributing resource or contributing property is any building, structure, or object which adds to the historical integrity or architectural qualities that make the historic district, listed locally or federally, significant...
to its historic value. These include nearby cottages known as the Letter and Bait Boxes, a unique outdoor dining facility called the Finger Bowl, a Forester's Cottage used as a residence by the Pinchot descendants, an open-air theatre, the former Yale School of Forestry
Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies
The Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies is one of the graduate professional schools of Yale University. Founded to train foresters, it now trains leaders and creates new knowledge that will sustain and restore the health of the biosphere and the well-being of its people...
's summer school, and a white pine
Eastern White Pine
Pinus strobus, commonly known as the eastern white pine, is a large pine native to eastern North America, occurring from Newfoundland west to Minnesota and southeastern Manitoba, and south along the Appalachian Mountains to the northern edge of Georgia.It is occasionally known as simply white pine,...
plantation
Plantation
A plantation is a long artificially established forest, farm or estate, where crops are grown for sale, often in distant markets rather than for local on-site consumption...
established by Gifford Pinchot.
History
There are four distinct periods in the history of Grey Towers: its initial construction under James Pinchot and his ownership, Gifford and Cornelia Pinchot's years, the early years with the Forest Service, and a more recent period of historic preservationHistoric preservation
Historic preservation is an endeavor that seeks to preserve, conserve and protect buildings, objects, landscapes or other artifacts of historical significance...
efforts.
James Pinchot
In 1875, Gifford's father James retired after a successful career in the wallpaperWallpaper
Wallpaper is a kind of material used to cover and decorate the interior walls of homes, offices, and other buildings; it is one aspect of interior decoration. It is usually sold in rolls and is put onto a wall using wallpaper paste...
business and moved his family from New York City back to Milford, where he had grown up. He bought 3000 acres (1,214.1 ha) of land overlooking the Delaware in Dingman Township
Dingman Township, Pennsylvania
Dingman Township is a township in Pike County, Pennsylvania, United States. The population was 11,926 at the 2010 census. The Township was created in 1832 and named in honor of Judge Daniel Westbrook Dingman.-Geography:...
, just outside the borough. Particularly attractive to him and his family was a small waterfall
Waterfall
A waterfall is a place where flowing water rapidly drops in elevation as it flows over a steep region or a cliff.-Formation:Waterfalls are commonly formed when a river is young. At these times the channel is often narrow and deep. When the river courses over resistant bedrock, erosion happens...
on Sawkill Creek.
There, his primary endeavor was planning and designing Grey Towers and the land around it. At first, he developed the land along lines of the ornamental farm
Ferme ornée
The term ferme ornée as used in English garden history derives from Stephen Switzer's term for 'ornamented farm'. It describes a country estate laid out partly according to aesthetic principles and partly for farming. During the eighteenth century the original ferme ornée was Woburn Farm, made by...
advocated by Andrew Jackson Downing
Andrew Jackson Downing
Andrew Jackson Downing was an American landscape designer, horticulturalist, and writer, a prominent advocate of the Gothic Revival style in the United States, and editor of The Horticulturist magazine...
. The original drive up the hill was meant to show off his orchard
Orchard
An orchard is an intentional planting of trees or shrubs that is maintained for food production. Orchards comprise fruit or nut-producing trees which are grown for commercial production. Orchards are also sometimes a feature of large gardens, where they serve an aesthetic as well as a productive...
s. In 1884 he retained Hunt, a family friend, to put these ideas for a French-style chateau modeled after the Marquis de Lafayette's LaGrange and reflecting the Pinchot family's national origin, on paper for eventual construction. Two years later it was complete, but not after Pinchot altered the plans slightly to save money. While Hunt was away in Europe, he also had Edwards-Ficken, alter Hunt's design slightly when bedrock
Bedrock
In stratigraphy, bedrock is the native consolidated rock underlying the surface of a terrestrial planet, usually the Earth. Above the bedrock is usually an area of broken and weathered unconsolidated rock in the basal subsoil...
on the site made it difficult to build the raised foundation
Foundation (architecture)
A foundation is the lowest and supporting layer of a structure. Foundations are generally divided into two categories: shallow foundations and deep foundations.-Shallow foundations:...
Hunt had originally planned. Edwards-Ficken added some of his own decorative
Ornament (architecture)
In architecture and decorative art, ornament is a decoration used to embellish parts of a building or object. Large figurative elements such as monumental sculpture and their equivalents in decorative art are excluded from the term; most ornament does not include human figures, and if present they...
touches to the house, such as the front door, interior paneling and wrought iron
Ironwork
Ironwork is any weapon, artwork, utensil or architectural feature made of iron especially used for decoration. There are two main types of ironwork wrought iron and cast iron. While the use of iron dates as far back as 4000BC, it was the Hittites who first knew how to extract it and develop weapons...
porch
Porch
A porch is external to the walls of the main building proper, but may be enclosed by screen, latticework, broad windows, or other light frame walls extending from the main structure.There are various styles of porches, all of which depend on the architectural tradition of its location...
es on the south and east facade
Facade
A facade or façade is generally one exterior side of a building, usually, but not always, the front. The word comes from the French language, literally meaning "frontage" or "face"....
s.
Almost all the materials came from local sources. Hemlock
Eastern Hemlock
Tsuga canadensis, also known as eastern or Canadian hemlock, and in the French-speaking regions of Canada as pruche du Canada, is a coniferous tree native to eastern North America. It ranges from northeastern Minnesota eastward through southern Quebec to Nova Scotia, and south in the Appalachian...
timbers were floated down the Delaware on raft
Raft
A raft is any flat structure for support or transportation over water. It is the most basic of boat design, characterized by the absence of a hull...
s from Lackawaxen, and another river town, Shohola
Shohola Township, Pennsylvania
Shohola Township is a township in Pike County, Pennsylvania, United States. The population was 2,475 at the 2010 census.Within Shohola Township there are a number of summer camps, including Lake Owego Camp for Boys and Camp Shohola for Boys.-Geography:...
, provided the bluestone
Bluestone
Bluestone is a cultural or commercial name for a number of dimension or building stone varieties, including:*a feldspathic sandstone in the U.S. and Canada;*limestone in the Shenandoah Valley in the U.S...
and windows. Roof
Roof
A roof is the covering on the uppermost part of a building. A roof protects the building and its contents from the effects of weather. Structures that require roofs range from a letter box to a cathedral or stadium, dwellings being the most numerous....
ing slate
Slate
Slate is a fine-grained, foliated, homogeneous metamorphic rock derived from an original shale-type sedimentary rock composed of clay or volcanic ash through low-grade regional metamorphism. The result is a foliated rock in which the foliation may not correspond to the original sedimentary layering...
came from across the river, in Lafayette
Lafayette Township, New Jersey
Lafayette Township is a Township located in the Skylands Region of Sussex County, New Jersey. As of the 2000 United States Census, the township population was 2,300....
, New Jersey
New Jersey
New Jersey is a state in the Northeastern and Middle Atlantic regions of the United States. , its population was 8,791,894. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York, on the southeast and south by the Atlantic Ocean, on the west by Pennsylvania and on the southwest by Delaware...
. All the workers and contractors hired were Milford residents. The total cost was $19,000 for the house itself and $24,000 for furnishings.
In 1906 a design by Frederick Law Olmstead, who had died three years before, was implemented for an old cemetery
Cemetery
A cemetery is a place in which dead bodies and cremated remains are buried. The term "cemetery" implies that the land is specifically designated as a burying ground. Cemeteries in the Western world are where the final ceremonies of death are observed...
on the property. It is not clear what his contribution was since all of it had existed from the early 19th century, from prior to the Pinchot family's ownership of the land. Today it is in poor condition.
James Pinchot had come to regret the environmental damage forest-product industries such as his had done, and he endowed the Yale School of Forestry, the first graduate forestry program in the country. From 1901 to 1926 the Grey Towers estate grounds served as the school's primary summer preparatory fieldwork location. Only ruins of the educational buildings exist today.
Gifford and Cornelia
James Pinchot died in 1908, and his wife, Mary, passed on three days after Gifford married Cornelia Bryce in August 1914. He and his brother AmosAmos Pinchot
Amos Richards Eno Pinchot was an American reformist. He never held public office but managed to exert considerable influence in reformist circles and did much to keep progressive ideas alive in the 1920s....
split the estate, with Amos taking the half on which a small forester's cabin was the main dwelling and Gifford taking the house. The couple began spending their summers at Grey Towers. She realized that his developing political career, and hers (she ran for Congress
United States House of Representatives
The United States House of Representatives is one of the two Houses of the United States Congress, the bicameral legislature which also includes the Senate.The composition and powers of the House are established in Article One of the Constitution...
three times), required a residence more suited to entertaining guests than it had originally been intended to be, and set about modernizing the house. At her behest, many alterations were made to the original first-floor plan. The most significant involved merging the dining
Dining room
A dining room is a room for consuming food. In modern times it is usually adjacent to the kitchen for convenience in serving, although in medieval times it was often on an entirely different floor level...
and breakfast rooms to create a large sitting room, and similarly enlarging the library
Library
In a traditional sense, a library is a large collection of books, and can refer to the place in which the collection is housed. Today, the term can refer to any collection, including digital sources, resources, and services...
by adding the living room
Living room
A living room, also known as sitting room, lounge room or lounge , is a room for entertaining adult guests, reading, or other activities...
to it. "The first thing my wife did", Pinchot told the Saturday Evening Post in 1922, "was to break down the partition walls and let in light and air ... [O]f course, it's a vast improvement."
An avid gardener
Gardening
Gardening is the practice of growing and cultivating plants. Ornamental plants are normally grown for their flowers, foliage, or overall appearance; useful plants are grown for consumption , for their dyes, or for medicinal or cosmetic use...
, she turned her attention to the grounds. Chester Holmes Aldrich
Chester Holmes Aldrich
Chester Holmes Aldrich was an American architect and director of the American Academy in Rome from 1935 until his death in 1940.-Early life:...
first designed a swimming pool
Swimming pool
A swimming pool, swimming bath, wading pool, or simply a pool, is a container filled with water intended for swimming or water-based recreation. There are many standard sizes; the largest is the Olympic-size swimming pool...
for the property, a raised structure enclosed on three sides by a pergola
Pergola
A pergola, arbor or arbour is a garden feature forming a shaded walkway, passageway or sitting area of vertical posts or pillars that usually support cross-beams and a sturdy open lattice, often upon which woody vines are trained...
of stone piers and wooden trellis
Trellis
Trellis may refer to:* Trellis Drainage System* Trellis , an architectural structure often used to support plants* Trellis , a special kind of graph, often used in coding...
es. After that came the Bait Box, a playhouse
Playhouse
Playhouse is a common Elizabethan term for a theatre, especially those built in London such as The Globe and The Rose.It is also used as the name for theatres today:- Australia :* Dunstan Playhouse, Adelaide Festival Centre...
for the couple's son, Gifford Bryce Pinchot. Elliptical
Ellipse
In geometry, an ellipse is a plane curve that results from the intersection of a cone by a plane in a way that produces a closed curve. Circles are special cases of ellipses, obtained when the cutting plane is orthogonal to the cone's axis...
openings in the stone walls around the courtyard
Courtyard
A court or courtyard is an enclosed area, often a space enclosed by a building that is open to the sky. These areas in inns and public buildings were often the primary meeting places for some purposes, leading to the other meanings of court....
provide views over the surrounding landscape. Next, in the late 1920s, when her husband was serving his first term as governor, came the Letter Box, a small cottage intended both as an archive
Archive
An archive is a collection of historical records, or the physical place they are located. Archives contain primary source documents that have accumulated over the course of an individual or organization's lifetime, and are kept to show the function of an organization...
for his papers and an office for his political staff when he was in residence. In their last collaboration, Aldrich and Cornelia Pinchot added a moat
Moat
A moat is a deep, broad ditch, either dry or filled with water, that surrounds a castle, other building or town, historically to provide it with a preliminary line of defence. In some places moats evolved into more extensive water defences, including natural or artificial lakes, dams and sluices...
, which finally gave the house the raised effect Hunt had originally intended. In building it became necessary to lengthen the east lawn
Lawn
A lawn is an area of aesthetic and recreational land planted with grasses or other durable plants, which usually are maintained at a low and consistent height. Low ornamental meadows in natural landscaping styles are a contemporary option of a lawn...
and build a new stone wall to support the moat.
Wisteria
Wisteria is a genus of flowering plants in the pea family, Fabaceae, that includes ten species of woody climbing vines native to the eastern United States and to China, Korea, and Japan. Aquarists refer to the species Hygrophila difformis, in the family Acanthaceae, as Water Wisteria...
-covered arbor
Arbor
Arbor or arbour may refer to:*Arbor , a landscape structure*Arbor or mandrel*Arbor, California*Arbor, a counterweight-carrying device found in theater fly systems...
supported by 12 stone piers. In the late 1930s, Gifford Pinchot started the White Pine
Eastern White Pine
Pinus strobus, commonly known as the eastern white pine, is a large pine native to eastern North America, occurring from Newfoundland west to Minnesota and southeastern Manitoba, and south along the Appalachian Mountains to the northern edge of Georgia.It is occasionally known as simply white pine,...
Plantation
Plantation
A plantation is a long artificially established forest, farm or estate, where crops are grown for sale, often in distant markets rather than for local on-site consumption...
to reforest
Reforestation
Reforestation is the natural or intentional restocking of existing forests and woodlands that have been depleted, usually through deforestation....
some old farmland near the mansion. He was particularly interested in that species since it was the dominant tree in the forests of Pike County
Pike County, Pennsylvania
-National protected areas:* Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area * Middle Delaware National Scenic River * Upper Delaware Scenic and Recreational River -Demographics:...
and had been heavily harvested during the previous century.
Forest Service
After his mother died in 1960, Pinchot donated the building to the Forest Service, as the family had planned. The agency intended to use the house as a conference center, and had to replace some interior walls that had suffered insectInsect
Insects are a class of living creatures within the arthropods that have a chitinous exoskeleton, a three-part body , three pairs of jointed legs, compound eyes, and two antennae...
and water
Water
Water is a chemical substance with the chemical formula H2O. A water molecule contains one oxygen and two hydrogen atoms connected by covalent bonds. Water is a liquid at ambient conditions, but it often co-exists on Earth with its solid state, ice, and gaseous state . Water also exists in a...
damage. Various other rooms in the wing and second floor were converted to storage or office use, and the swimming pool was filled in in 1979 when it became a safety and maintenance problem. A parking lot
Parking lot
A parking lot , also known as car lot, is a cleared area that is intended for parking vehicles. Usually, the term refers to a dedicated area that has been provided with a durable or semi-durable surface....
was built to the northwest.
The Pinchot Institute, which also has a role in administering the site, was dedicated by President
President of the United States
The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....
John F. Kennedy
John F. Kennedy
John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy , often referred to by his initials JFK, was the 35th President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963....
on September 24, 1963. That same year Grey Towers was one of the first sites declared a National Historic Landmark
National Historic Landmark
A National Historic Landmark is a building, site, structure, object, or district, that is officially recognized by the United States government for its historical significance...
by the Secretary of the Interior
United States Secretary of the Interior
The United States Secretary of the Interior is the head of the United States Department of the Interior.The US Department of the Interior should not be confused with the concept of Ministries of the Interior as used in other countries...
.
In 1980, the USFS realized how much its renovations had damaged an architecturally significant structure and began trying to undo some of the changes it had made. It developed a plan to restore the house and estate to a condition similar to the way it had been in Pinchot's era, in consultation with the Park Service's Harper's Ferry Center, and hired staff with expertise in landscape
Landscape architecture
Landscape architecture is the design of outdoor and public spaces to achieve environmental, socio-behavioral, or aesthetic outcomes. It involves the systematic investigation of existing social, ecological, and geological conditions and processes in the landscape, and the design of interventions...
and architecture
Architecture
Architecture is both the process and product of planning, designing and construction. Architectural works, in the material form of buildings, are often perceived as cultural and political symbols and as works of art...
. After a brief closing for this renovation, it reopened on August 11, 2001, Gifford Pinchot's birthday. The state of Pennsylvania's Department of Natural Resources also made a $2 million grant available for renovations to the entrance, entry road and parking facilities. In 2007 the USFS restored the swimming pool.
Today
The grounds are open daily from 9 a.m.-5 p.m. from Memorial DayMemorial Day
Memorial Day is a United States federal holiday observed on the last Monday of May. Formerly known as Decoration Day, it originated after the American Civil War to commemorate the fallen Union soldiers of the Civil War...
weekend through early November. Guided tours home and gardens start every hour on the hour from 10 a.m.-4 p.m.; there is a fee except for July 4 (Independence Day
Independence Day (United States)
Independence Day, commonly known as the Fourth of July, is a federal holiday in the United States commemorating the adoption of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, declaring independence from the Kingdom of Great Britain...
) and September 22 (U.S. Public Lands Day). Self-guided interpretive trails devoted to the history of the Pinchot family, forestry and the bluebird
Bluebird
The bluebirds are a group of medium-sized, mostly insectivorous or omnivorous birds in the genus Sialia of the thrush family . Bluebirds are one of the few thrush genera in the Americas. They have blue, or blue and red, plumage...
s nesting in the woods are available on the grounds. There is also a gift shop.
The Pinchot Institute also hosts conferences related to conservation matters. They are held either in the upper floors of the mansion or in the Letter Box.
External links
- Official website
- Pinchot Institute
- Grey Towers History (Forest History SocietyForest History SocietyThe Forest History Society is an American non-profit organization dedicated to the preservation of forest and conservation history. The society was established in 1946 and incorporated in 1955....
)