Lemon Hill

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title: "Lemon Hill" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["historic-house-museums-in-philadelphia", "philadelphia-register-of-historic-places", "houses-completed-in-1801", "federal-architecture-in-pennsylvania", "north-philadelphia", "houses-in-fairmount-park", "houses-on-the-national-register-of-historic-places-in-philadelphia", "historic-american-buildings-survey-in-philadelphia", "east-fairmount-park"] description: "Historic house in Pennsylvania, United States" topic_path: "arts" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lemon_Hill" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary Historic house in Pennsylvania, United States ::

::data[format=table title="Infobox NRHP"]

Field	Value
name	Fairmount Park, Lemon Hill
nrhp_type	cp
designated_other1	Philadelphia Register of Historic Places
designated_other1_name	Lemon Hill
image	A586, Lemon Hill Mansion, Fairmount Park, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States, 2017.jpg
image_size	240
caption	Rear elevation with oval wall
locmapin	Philadelphia#Pennsylvania#USA
map_width	235
coordinates
location	Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
built
architect	Henry Pratt
architecture	Federal
designated_nrhp_type	February 7, 1972
designated_other1_date	June 26, 1956
refnum	72001151
website
designated_other1_num_position	both
designated_other2_num_position	both
designated_other3_num_position	both
::

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Lemon Hill is a Federal-style mansion in Fairmount Park, Philadelphia, built from 1799 to 1800 by Philadelphia merchant Henry Pratt. The house is named after the citrus fruits that Pratt cultivated on the property in the early 19th century.

History and architecture

The mansion is situated on a parcel of land formerly part of Robert Morris's 300 acre estate, "The Hills." In 1799 Pratt purchased 43 acre of "The Hills" and accompanying structures at a sheriff's sale for $14,654 after occupant Morris suffered financial misfortunes and was taken to debtors' prison. Pratt designed the house and supervised its construction, though he did not live year-round at Lemon Hill: his primary residence was in a townhouse on Front Street.

Lemon Hill is located on a bluff overlooking the Schuylkill River and Boathouse Row. Exceptional architectural features include its three oval parlors, stacked one on top of the other, with curved fireplace mantles and doors. Pratt also landscaped the property in the English landscape garden style, extended a greenhouse structure Morris had built, and opened the grounds to the public for an entry fee.

::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0b/Lemon_Hill_Mansion,_Philadelphia,_first_floor,_south_oval_room_from_east_137452pu.tif" caption="Interior of south oval room]]To protect its water supply, the City of Philadelphia began purchasing properties along the [[Schuylkill River]], beginning with Lemon Hill in 1844. The Lemon Hill estate was the first to be incorporated into the new [[Fairmount Park]] in 1855. During the second half of the 19th century, the mansion was used as a restaurant and received substantial modifications to its exterior, including a Victorian cast-iron porch."] ::

From 1926 to 1955, the house was used as a residence by the first director of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Fiske Kimball, and his wife Marie Goebel Kimball. Both architectural historians, the couple restored Lemon Hill to its 1800 appearance. Kimball conjectured that Robert Morris had built the mansion; however, in 2005, Pratt's letterbooks were found at the William L. Clements Library of the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor by an assistant curator of the Art Museum. Tax records indicated that the mansion did not exist at the time Pratt had purchased the land. The records also revealed that Pratt was both the designer and general contractor for his mansion.

The house was added to the National Register of Historic Places on February 7, 1972, as an inventoried contributing structure within Fairmount Park.

Since 1957, Lemon Hill Mansion has been operated as a house museum by the Colonial Dames of America and the Friends of Lemon Hill. Long hidden by dense trees on the sides of the hill, a restoration of the historic views was undertaken in 2007, recreating the original vistas of, and from, the mansion. The Fairmount Park Conservancy has managed the house since 2016.

References

References

1. [https://web.archive.org/web/20160917014914/http://www.lemonhill.org/History.html "200 Years of Splendor in Fairmount Park" (archive)]. ''lemonhill.org''. Colonial Dames of America and the Friends of Lemon Hill. June 14, 2005. Retrieved November 7, 2017.
2. {{NRISref. 2013a
3. [https://www.dot7.state.pa.us/CRGIS_Attachments/SiteResource/H001364_01H.pdf "National Register of Historic Places Inventory - Nomination Form"]. ([https://web.archive.org/web/20171107224808/https://www.dot7.state.pa.us/CRGIS_Attachments/SiteResource/H001364_01H.pdf archive]) by George B. Tatum of the Philadelphia Historical Commission. ''dot7.state.pa.us''. [[National Park Service]] document via the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania's Cultural Resources [[Geographic Information System]], the [[Pennsylvania Department of Transportation. Department of Transportation]] website and the records of the [[Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission]]. January 11, 1972. Retrieved November 7, 2017.
4. [http://www.antiquesandfineart.com/articles/article.cfm?request=198 "Henry Pratt's Account for Lemon Hill"]. by Martha Halpern. ''antiquesandfineart.com''. Antiques and Fine Art Magazine. June 2005. Retrieved November 7, 2017.
5. Tasker Robbins, Owen. (1987). "Toward a Preservation of the Grounds of Lemon Hill in Light of Their Past and Present Significance for Philadelphia". University of Pennsylvania Scholarly Commons.
6. {{usurped
7. (2014-08-01). "Chapter II - Philadelphia, PA".
8. "Lemon Hill —".

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