Wyck House

Wyck House
U.S. National Register of Historic Places
U.S. National Historic Landmark
U.S. National Historic Landmark District Contributing Property
Location	6026 Germantown Avenue Germantown, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States
Coordinates
Area
Architect	William Strickland
NRHP Reference #	71000736
Added to NRHP	October 26, 1971

The Wyck House, also called the Haines House and the Hans Millan House, is a historic mansion, museum, garden, and home farm in the Germantown section of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was recognized as a National Historic Landmark in 1971; it is a contributing property of the Colonial Germantown Historic District.

History

Wyck's earliest owner was Hans Milan, a Quaker who came from Germany and was a descendant of a Swiss Mennonite family. His daughter, Margaret, married a Dutch Quaker named Dirk Jansen, a linen weaver who prospered in the first half of the 18th century. By his death, he was listed as a gentleman and had Anglicized his name to Dirk Johnson. Their daughter, Catherine, married Caspar Wistar, a German who became a Quaker and amassed a sizable fortune as a button maker, glassmaker and investor in land.

In the next generation, Margaret Wistar married Reuben Haines I, a brewer and merchant of English descent. Their son Caspar Wistar Haines continued the family businesses and married Hannah Marshall, a member of another Quaker family. Wyck passed to Reuben and Jane Bowne Haines and then to their youngest daughter, Jane Reuben Haines, who lived here until 1911, carefully preserving the house, furnishings and gardens.

In the eighth generation, Jane B. Haines founded the first school of horticulture for women, the Pennsylvania School of Horticulture for Women, which is now Temple Ambler, and one brother, Caspar, helped design the Mexican railway system; while another, Robert, invented a gauge for measuring steel in rolling mills.

The last owners, Robert and Mary Haines, were fruit growers; Robert patented a device to press apples for a more natural tasting juice. Wyck's family descendants are still very involved in the life of their home and community.

File:WTP B33 Audrey 3.jpg

Wyck house in 2009

Today, Wyck is maintained as a house museum. The gardens are known for their collection of old roses, including 30 varieties, and the home farm has become a staple of the community.

Architecture

Wyck is an architecturally innovative house with an old-fashioned skin. From the outside it appears colonial in plan and design with some fashionable accents such as the late 18th-century whitewashed stucco.

The house is actually an accumulation of 18th-century parts: the hall (c. 1700–20), the front parlor (1736) and the library and dining room from (1771–73, which replaced a c. 1690 log structure.)

The house has been little altered since 1824, when Philadelphia architect William Strickland dramatically rearranged its interior spaces to create an open plan, allowing light to flood each room and bringing the pleasures of the garden inside.

Education at Wyck

Wyck offers a variety of educational programs for school groups, including environmental education, programs that focus on history of Quakerism, Native Americans, Colonial life, and Philadelphia. These programs foster literacy and writing while offering children activities such as arts and crafts and gardening.

Home farm

For more than 250 years, Wyck existed as a working farm, a legacy that continues today with Wyck's Home Farm, established in 2007. There are large vegetable and herb gardens, strawberry and raspberry beds, gooseberries and blueberries, along with fruit trees, an asparagus bed, a cutting garden, and a large grape arbor. Wyck is also home to several beehives. The various gardens are managed using traditional gardening techniques, with no synthetic chemicals used. Produce from the farm is sold at a seasonal, on-site weekly farmers' market.

See also

• List of the oldest buildings in Pennsylvania

External links

• Wyck House at the Historic American Buildings Survey
• Listing at Philadelphia Architects and Buildings