Historic Quaker Houses of Bucks County, PA

Pennsbury Manor
The Home of William Penn
Reconstructed in the 1930s.

Pennsbury Manor is the recreated country estate of William Penn on the Delaware River. Much is unknown about the appearance of Penn’s earlier house on this property. This house is a Colonial Revival interpretation, based on archaeology and historical research.
Historians confirmed the house had a brick front and clapboard back, as reported by Penn in 1685 when he directed “what you can do with bricks, do, what you cant, doe it with good timbers … and we can brick it afterwards.”

Pennsbury Manor’s Front Court:

William Penn’s Quaker Architectural Aesthetic
Plain as may be, ‘tis well enough for us.

William Penn’s Plain Aesthetic
The Quaker Testimony of Simplicity:

William Penn’s instructions regarding the construction of Pennsbury’s wainscot paneling are a statement of Quaker plain aesthetics. Penn explained the simple interior woodwork he wanted for his home. He preferred simplified wainscoting, instead of the deeply molded raised-panel wainscoting common in elite English homes.
Penn instructed his carpenters to use flat vertical boards sealed with basic wooden strips. This was a simple board-and-batten design with no ornate moldings. By restricting this woodwork strictly to the rooms’ exterior walls, Penn treated the paneling as a practical insulation solution rather than a decorative status symbol.
His preference for plain wainscot at Pennsbury captures the core of the Quaker testimony of simplicity. Quaker plain style favors utility over display, and historic Quaker architecture emphasizes restraint over ornament.

The Architect: R. Brognard Okie
A Master of Colonial Revival Design:

Architect Okie’s Interpretation
of William Penn’s Quaker Aesthetic:

Okie’s Design for Pennsbury
Borrowed from Other Quaker Houses:

Okie assumed that later houses in the Philadelphia area were influenced by Pennsbury Manor.
Numerous wealthy Quakers of Colonial Pennsylvania built country houses away from the summer heat of Philadelphia. Design elements of some of those houses, such as Stenton and Hope Lodge, may have been influenced by William Penn’s house at Pennsbury Manor. Brognard Okie borrowed design elements from surviving Quaker houses to reconstruct Penn’s home. Image source: Lee J. Stoltzfus.

Okie Recreated William Penn’s Townhouse
For the 1926 Sesquicentennial Expo:

Before reconstruction began at Pennsbury Manor, state archaeologist Donald Cadzow led an archaeological dig at the site. The excavation exposed the house’s original brick foundations. The project also recovered clay tiles, including the distinct English peg tiles used for the 17th-century roof.
In 1688, five years after construction began, the house was reroofed with wood shingles, apparently to reduce the weight of the roof. Image source: Lee J. Stoltzfus.

Floorplan Similar to the Norris House:

Pennsbury Manor and Isaac Norris's Fairhill share a similar floorplan. A wide central hall anchors each layout.
A manuscript inventory of Pennsbury Manor survives from 1687. The rooms listed on the inventory include two parlors, two halls, a passage room, four chambers, a nursery, closets, attics, and cellars. This inventory, though, does not reveal an exact floorplan for the house.

Alternative Floorplan
Based on the Archaeology:

In a 2007 article, historians Mark Reinberger and Elizabeth P. McLean presented their hypothesis that Pennsbury’s archaeological evidence indicates that the house’s original design was a T-shaped plan, not its current double-pile (two-row) plan. Okie assumed that the 1933 excavations could support the double-pile design that he eventually constructed.

Brognard Okie’s Vision of Pennsbury Manor:

William Penn’s Goals for Pennsylvania:
Fairness, Religious Tolerance,
Acceptance, and Representative Government:

Philadelphia Birthright Quakers
Who Left the Friends
And Moved Away from Simplicity:

Above: These Philadelphia townhouses were homes of 18th-century Quakers who became Anglican or Episcopalian. The lavish interiors were not constrained by Quaker ideals of architectural simplicity and restraint.
Left to right: The Powel House, The Cadwalader House, The Hill-Physick House, The Todd House. Image sources: Lee J. Stoltzfus

From Swords to Plowshares
William Penn’s Farm & Garden Books:

William Penn, Peacemaker
No War, No Violence:

William Penn, early in life, turned his back on his military career to join the Quakers. He took off the armor of an English soldier, and put on, instead, the spiritual cloak of a Quaker peacemaker.
After Penn became a Friend, he rejected violence and embraced the belief that Christianity required nonviolence and conscientious objection to war. When he founded Pennsylvania, he imagined it as a “Holy Experiment,” a place where people of different faiths could live together without persecution, and where relations with Native peoples would be guided by fairness rather than conquest.
Pennsbury Manor was meant to embody that same hope. This rural estate reflects Penn’s desire for a peaceable kingdom rooted in simplicity. At Pennsbury, William Penn chose the life of a farmer and gardener rather than choosing the world of warfare.