Special Tour: Laurel Hill Cemetery

Designing for the Dead: Art and Architecture at Laurel Hill

The birth of the rural or garden cemetery, with its spacious lots and bucolic landscapes, created a unique marketing opportunity for 19th century designers. Noted architects like John Notman, William Strickland, Frank Furness, and John J. McArthur, competed fiercely for the chance to design for the dead. Wealthy Philadelphians strolling through Laurel Hill would admire these monuments and seek out their designers, often forging cradle-to-grave relationships. On the “Designing for the Dead” walking tour of Laurel Hill Cemetery, join tour guide and writer, Thomas H. Keels, on a walk to see monuments created by these architects, as well as artists such as Alexander Milne Calder, his son Alexander Stirling Calder, and Harriet Frishmuth. We’ll also see the final resting places of John Notman, Frank Furness, and Thomas U. Walter, among others. Finally, we’ll review changing tastes in grave markers, from the classical obelisks and urns of the Federal period, to the decorated crosses of the Gothic Revival, to the massive mausoleums of the Gilded Age.

Thomas H. Keels is a lecturer, writer, and commentator specializing in Philadelphia history and architecture. He is the author or co-author of seven published books, including Philadelphia Graveyards and Cemeteries; Wicked Philadelphia: Sin in the City of Brotherly Love; and Forgotten Philadelphia: Lost Architecture of the Quaker City. Tom’s latest book, Sesqui!  Greed, Graft, and The Forgotten World’s Fair of 1926, was published in 2017. 

A confirmed taphophile (Greek for “lover of graves”), Tom has been a tour guide at Laurel Hill Cemetery, Philadelphia’s premier Victorian necropolis, for over 25 years. Recently, Tom was featured on the PBS program World’s Greatest Cemeteries, showing host Roberto Mighty the high points of Laurel Hill Cemetery. 

Explore outstanding examples of late 19th century and early 20th century architecture influenced by the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris. From intimate residences in Rittenhouse Square to meticulously designed public spaces, see why Philadelphia is often described as the “Paris of the US.”

Society Hill received its name from the “Free Society of Traders” who were granted a strip of land in this area by William Penn in 1683. Take a leisurely walk through this country’s largest, intact collection of original colonial and post-colonial residential architecture. Learn about this neighborhood’s mid 20th century renewal efforts and its contribution to establishing Philadelphia as a “livable” city.

Bella Vista (“beautiful view”) is a vibrant, historic residential neighborhood and home to the famous Ninth Street Market, AKA the Italian Market, one of the nation’s oldest continuously operating open-air markets. The tour will highlight the lively neighborhood’s architecture, diverse ethnic mix, and social changes.

Trace the history of this South Philadelphia neighborhood from its origin as a colonial farm to the early 20th century planned development of “Ideal City Homes.” See outstanding examples of Bungalow, Colonial Revival and Spanish Revival residential styles.

Ashton Tourison, Sr. was born in Mt. Airy in 1851 to a former captain in the Civil War. Beginning in the 1870s, he had a grand vision for and confidence in the future of Mt. Airy. In approximately 1904, he purchased 125 acres between Chew and Stenton Avenues, from E. Durham Street to Meehan Avenue, and advertised his plan for Sedgwick Farms as “stone-built homes, planned on an architectural idea that makes each different from the other, yet in perfect harmony with all.” Along with creating timeless beauty, he provided “practical houses incorporating core values of space, air, light, comfort and good taste.”  With these core values in mind, this walking tour will tell the story of Ye Sedgwick Farms Company comprised of Tourison, together with his four sons, and reminds us to ask ourselves how we feel about the importance of incorporating these values in our built environment today.  This singular family’s vision provided us with a legacy of beautiful, enduring architecture, comprised of a variety of designs mostly in the form of Tudor Revival, Colonial Revival, Neo-Georgian and Victorian.

This tour was created and researched by Elise Rivers, Esq., who worked in the field of historic preservation in the 1990’s as Assistant Director of Preservation Worcester in Massachusetts and Executive Director of Landmark West, an historic preservation non-profit advocating for the upper west side of Manhattan. Her passion for beauty in architecture has never waned, and she was inspired to put together this walking tour, a

After living in, and loving her own Tourison home.  She is grateful for the extensive archives of Historic Germantown, without which this tour would not exist.

Awbury Arboretum offers 55 acres of green space in dense East Germantown. Originally created as a country estate for the family of Quaker shipping magnate, politician, and philanthropist, Thomas Pym Cope, successive generations of that family engaged important local architects to design their houses, including Thomas Ustick Walter, Addison Hutton, Cope & Stewardson, and Duhring Okie & Ziegler. To adapt the surrounding farmland into picturesque English gardens, they engaged a succession of noted local landscape designers. That surrounding landscape was entrusted to the public in 1915 with the founding of the Arboretum.  The tour will feature both architecture and landscape history, and end at the Farm at Awbury, an active community hub for non-profits that focus on urban agriculture, including the Philly Goat Project, the Philadelphia Beekeepers Guild, and Food Moxie.

Explore this worker’s neighborhood and be amazed by its history because it predates William Penn. Queen Village was developed in the 1630s, first as a Dutch settlement, later becoming home to a large influx of Swedish settlers. Visit one of the few remaining 17th century structures in Philadelphia today, Gloria Dei Church.

Explore the city’s Judaic heritage and learn about its importance in the growth and architectural development of Philadelphia. Hear about Nathan Levy’s connection to the Liberty Bell and the Jewish connection to Christ Church.

Contrast the many generations of high-rise apartment building architecture on the Square – representing every decade of the 20th century – with the smaller scale of the grand houses on nearby streets while walking past some of Philadelphia’s most fashionable brownstones.

William Penn stipulated that 10,000 acres north of the original city become “liberty lands.” Once home to many of the city’s breweries, this funky, culturally diverse neighborhood today is the home of many artists and writers. See the old and the new and make note of the many little neighborhood eateries along the way.

Situated to the northeast of Center City, Fishtown figured prominently in Philadelphia’s great industrial age of the late 19th/early 20th century when it was developed to house many of the workers who were employed by the major industries that built factories in this part of the city. Discover how Fishtown’s residences are going through restoration as it becomes a sought after location in which to live.

This city neighborhood, dating to colonial times, underwent industrial development with the arrival of the Philadelphia, Germantown & Norristown Railroad in 1832 and this development continued rapidly with the arrival of the Pennsylvania Railroad in the 1880s. Learn more about this transportation impact and see some of Philadelphia’s finest examples of Victorian eclecticism.

This tour will conclude with an in-depth interior tour of Ebenezer Maxwell Mansion. Immerse yourself in an elaborate Victorian era setting in the beautifully maintained mansion. 

Awbury Arboretum offers 55 acres of green space in dense East Germantown. Originally created as a country estate for the family of Quaker shipping magnate, politician, and philanthropist, Thomas Pym Cope, successive generations of that family engaged important local architects to design their houses, including Thomas Ustick Walter, Addison Hutton, Cope & Stewardson, and Duhring Okie & Ziegler. To adapt the surrounding farmland into picturesque English gardens, they engaged a succession of noted local landscape designers. That surrounding landscape was entrusted to the public in 1915 with the founding of the Arboretum.  The tour will feature both architecture and landscape history, and end at the Farm at Awbury, an active community hub for non-profits that focus on urban agriculture, including the Philly Goat Project, the Philadelphia Beekeepers Guild, and Food Moxie.

Relive the Philadelphia experience of Eastern European Jews who settled, at the turn of the 20th century, in the area from 2nd to 6th Streets and Spruce Street south to Christian Street. Explore their synagogues and homes and learn about their thriving marketplaces that became prominent businesses.

In the early years of the new Republic, Philadelphia was the nation’s financial capital, home to the first stock exchange (1790), the Bank of the United States, the US Mint, the first securities exchange, the first commodities exchange, and other early banking and insurance institutions. The epicenter of this activity was Chestnut Street in Old City, where important early institutions were housed in architectural treasures, ranging from Greek Revival “temples” to later brick and limestone buildings such as The Bourse Building and the US Customs House. Explore the history of this important part of Philadelphia by visiting notable architectural landmarks, visible evidence of Philadelphia’s early financial prominence.

Experience yet another intimate neighborhood within Center City, just southwest of Rittenhouse Square west of Broad Street. Learn about the early Irish settlers and other immigrants who first settled here and about their industrial ties to the nearby Schuylkill River.

Discover the Philadelphia Plan which gave us two Art Deco masterpieces, the monumental 30th Street Station and Suburban Station, the first all-underground rail terminal. The tour starts at 30th Street Station and proceeds via trolley to 19th St. From the Comcast tower lobby descend into an underground concourse network to the site of The Fashion District (formerly known as the Gallery), before ending at Reading Terminal and the Marriott Hotel. Along the way, lament the loss of Broad St. Station and learn about the 1905-mid-50s trolley and subway lines, the Broad Street subway (1928), the Commuter Rail Tunnel (1984), and the former Reading Terminal, now part of the Pennsylvania Convention Center.