The #Yoasis: Ormiston Mansion
Approaching Ormiston from Boxer’s Trail.
BY JILLY MacDOWELL | Venture off a beaten path in Fairmount Park to find an empty Colonial Georgian home with an adorably shaggy garden and epic backyard river views. Ormiston Mansion is an easily missed diversion off Boxer's Trail, a trail named for Smokin’ Joe Frazier, who famously trained there and set a precedent for athletes ever since. The trail was originally created and used in the late 18th century as a proto-Schuylkill Expressway — for horseback riders.
Once the trail crosses Reservoir Drive and a couple hundred yards after heading into the trees, find a sharp left. It's a steep dirt hill; give it your best sprint and emerge, breathless, into Ormiston's sunny side yard and garden. It's a fairytale portal, aside from the occasional car on the drive nearby.
The home was built in 1798 by Edward Burd, a Revolutionary War major and Pennsylvania Supreme Court prothonotary (chief legal clerk in non-Commonwealth terms). Ormiston gets its name from the Scottish village where Burd's father was born. It was bought by the city from his heirs in 1869, used for various park endeavors through the years, including employee housing and the Fairmount Park Art Association (now the Association for Public Art), and has been managed since 1982 by the Royal Heritage Society of the Delaware Valley, a non-profit dedicated to preserving Pennsylvania's British heritage.
The interiors are peepable from many of the home's 23 windows; original King of Prusssia granite mantels are visible in the enormous drawing room. One can imagine grande dame Lee Annenberg there 40 years ago, holding court with an assemblage of British dignitaries, as was her duty as the Reagan-appointed Chief of Protocol of the United States.
Events were in full swing at Ormiston through 2019, including that year's inception of the Alphabet Garden, funded by the Philadelphia Committee of the Garden Club of America. Restricting events to the grounds meant a much lighter event schedule in recent years. But with a spring outdoor fashion show, the annual celebration of the Queen's Jubilee in June and a recent book discussion by author & RHS president Tom Elsasser, the Ormiston is getting back up to speed.
Tickets will soon be available for a 40-year Ormiston tradition, the Scottish Wassail, which includes a holiday repast, plenty of drink and Christmas caroling with live piano. Ormiston will also be part of the annual holiday house tour that includes Laurel Hill, Woodford and Strawberry mansions and runs Thursday to Sunday through December 18.
And look for the mansion in the upcoming AppleTV series, “Manhunt,” starring Tobias Menzies ("The Crown")! Membership is $50/year; all funds go to the preservation and maintenance of the home. Volunteers are needed! ormistonmansion.org
The #Yoasis is a series of posts on this site that seek to inform the reader of places in an increasingly bustling where one may encounter a sense of calm and tranquility. Philadelphia is full of Places We Can’t Understand, and we have written about those, too; as a counterpoint, a #yoasis is place in Philly that the body and spirit understands intuitively, and feels at peace. If you’ve got a #yoasis you feel comfortable sharing with us, please do by emailing us at tips[at]philebrity[dot]com.
