An 1897 Italianate manor on forty-two acres at the bend of the Brandywine.
The manor was built in 1897 by Andrew Ashforth, a Philadelphia lawyer, who commissioned the architect Wilson Eyre to design it in the Italianate style. Three generations of Ashforths lived here. By 1958 the family was gone, the estate was in disrepair, and the property was scheduled for demolition by a developer who intended to subdivide the forty-two acres into a residential cul-de-sac.
In 1962 my grandfather Henry Foster bought it at courthouse auction for forty-six hundred dollars. He had no plan beyond keeping it from being torn down. My parents began the restoration in 1981 — roof, walls, the boxwood parterre, the carriage house. It took them seventeen years and most of their savings. I took over operations in 2002 and opened the estate as a private wedding venue. We host twenty-two weddings a year, never two on the same weekend, with full property exclusivity for every couple.
The estate sits in the Brandywine Valley near the site of the 1777 Brandywine Battlefield. Andrew Wyeth painted half a mile from here for sixty years. The Longwood Gardens are thirty minutes north. The Brandywine River runs along the eastern edge of the property — you can walk from the south lawn down to the bank in under two minutes.
The Conservatory.
The conservatory is the 1925 addition — a glass-walled west-facing room added by Andrew Ashforth's son after a trip to Cornwall. The walls are nine-over-six iron-framed sash. The floor is checkerboard Carrara and slate, original. The ceiling is twelve feet, with a working clerestory at the center. In late afternoon the west sun throws the boxwood shadow across the marble for about forty minutes — couples who marry indoors in autumn time their ceremony for this.
The conservatory is the ceremony space when the weather turns. We have hosted twelve indoor ceremonies in the last six years. None of them felt like a compromise. The conservatory does not pretend to be the outdoors. It is its own room with its own atmosphere — cooler in summer, candlelit in winter, glass-walled to whatever weather is outside it.
Capacity is eighty seated. Climate control was installed in 2014; it is quiet enough that musicians have never complained.
The Boxwood Parterre.
The parterre was installed in 1902 to plans drawn by the firm of Frederick Law Olmsted — the same office that designed Central Park, the Biltmore grounds, and the Capitol grounds in Washington. It is symmetric, knee-high European boxwood enclosing geometric beds of perennial roses, lavender, and dwarf hydrangea. The diagonal allées are crushed bluestone. The whole parterre is just over a half acre.
This is the outdoor ceremony space. We seat up to two hundred guests on white wooden ceremony chairs in a curved configuration around a simple white wooden arbor at the head of the central allée. South-facing — the light at four PM in October is the reason couples choose this site nine months out of twelve.
The boxwood is on a rotating restoration schedule. Roughly fifteen percent of the hedge is replaced each year with material grown from cuttings of the originals, kept alive in a nursery bed at the back of the property.
The Library.
The library is original to the 1897 build. The paneling is American walnut, hand-cut, full-height. The bookshelves still hold the Ashforth family's collection — about eleven hundred volumes, principally nineteenth-century literature, law reports, and Pennsylvania local history. The fireplace works; the cast iron andirons are inscribed "A.A. 1897."
The library serves two purposes. In good weather it is the cocktail-hour space for guests between the parterre ceremony and the south-lawn reception. In poor weather it is the rain-plan reception venue itself — sixty seated at long oak tables, which we move in from storage. In November and December, when the fireplace is lit and the candles are out, the library at full occupancy is the closest the estate gets to feeling like a private dinner party.
The South Lawn.
The south lawn is one-and-four-tenths acres of mown grass running from the back of the manor to the Brandywine River. There is a wisteria walk along the east edge — planted in 1934, now a tunnel of vines about forty feet long, in bloom mid-May through early June. The grass slopes gently toward the river; you can see the water from the manor's south terrace.
This is the reception space. Most couples tent the lawn — a 60-by-100 white canvas tent with clear sides will seat up to two hundred at fourteen farm tables, with room for a dance floor, a band, and a bar. Tent permitting and installation we handle through three preferred tent providers; the lead time is forty-five days. In May, September, and October we have had couples skip the tent and dine open-air. That has worked beautifully five times. Twice it has been ruined by weather. Tent.
The Carriage House.
The carriage house is original 1897, restored 1985 with the slate roof re-laid panel-by-panel by my father. The upper floor is split between a bridal suite (south-facing, three tall windows, a four-mirror dressing wall, an en-suite bath with a clawfoot tub) and a groom's suite (north-facing, smaller, two windows, leather chairs and a low oak bar). The ground floor has a full prep kitchen, two restrooms, a sitting room for parents, and a private courtyard with a wisteria-draped pergola.
The carriage house is where the day begins. Twelve people can comfortably get ready here — your wedding party, your immediate family, your photographer and HMUA. Ben and I live in the secondary cottage behind the carriage house; we are out of sight during the day but five minutes away if anything is needed.
Walk through the estate in person.
Tours are Wednesday and Saturday afternoons, by appointment. About ninety minutes. Eliza or Ben walks you through.
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