supply. Philadelphia purchased Lemon Hill, a mansion built for Henry Pratt, in 1844, and

dedicated its estate to use by the city's public in 1855. By 1868, the city had acquired

many more estates along the Schuylkill.

The Johnson family petitioned the city to allow them to remain in Chamounix. “A covenant would be made that the place shall be forever occupied only as a private residence and the grounds &c. kept in such good order that it will be no detriment to the

park,” wrote Joseph W. Johnson Jr. “In Regent's Park [London] containing I believe

about 200 acres there are no less than five private enclosures[;] in a Park of more than ten

times the above area one small reserve neatly enclosed would be scarcely noticeable.”7

The appeal fell on deaf ears.

Chamounix served, in the 1890s, as a concession stand for picnickers in the park

and for a year, at least, is said to have served as a boarding house.8 To accommodate

these more public uses, modifications were made to the mansion, including the addition

of two more bathrooms (one with a shower) and a second kitchen.9 Other houses were put

to similar uses, as picnicking spots and eventually as housing for notable city

employees.10 Some of the stately homes which stood on these lots were demolished. Such

was the fate of Sedgely, a mansion designed by Benjamin Latrobe.11

7 Joseph W. Johnson Jr. to the Fairmount Park Commission, no date, cited in Sloop, 15.

8 Sloop, 15.

9 Sloop, 25.

10 This would eventually cause a scandal when investigative reporter Hoag Levins published a week-long series of exposes in the Philadelphia Daily News in 1977.

11 Mikaela Maria, “Southeast View of Sedgeley Mansion” Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia: http://philadelphiaencyclopedia.org/sedgeley_park-2-2/

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