Lindenshade (Wallingford, Pennsylvania)
[2] The property ran along the north side of the West Chester and Philadelphia Railroad line, adjacent to Wallingford Station.
39 "'Lindenshade' began as a modest clapboard summer cottage overlaid with a stick-style frame in the manner of Richard Morris Hunt, but enlivened by the Furness wit—chimneys rose in front of dormers and tiny windows vied with oversized sashes in adjacent openings.
"[2]: 175 Some of its architectural features – the stickwork,[5] the bracketed dormers, the hooded jerkin-head gable – had been used by Furness a year earlier for "Fairlawn" (c. 1872), Fairman Rogers's summer cottage in Newport, Rhode Island.[2]: 171, cat.
He lived at "Lindenshade" from mid-May to November,[8]: 175 returning to his late father-in-law's city house at 222 Washington Square for the winter social season.
He compared variations in the texts over the known editions; annotated the playwright's many thousands of references; surveyed the commentary of three centuries of critics (in multiple languages); and examined the performance histories and the interpretations of Shakespearean actors.
Here were the spirits of all Shakespeare-lovers the world over, humble and mighty alike, and with all these, swelling the number to a legion, were all the characters from all the plays — "ancient Greeks and ancient Romans and ancient Britons, kings and dukes and lords and lords of France, and kings and dukes and lords of England; soldiers, sailors, doctors, and lawyers, sages of profound wisdom and clowns of profound stupidity, venerable priests and horrid cut-throats; hoary age and prattling infancy; learned magicians and drunken tinkers; women of every rank and every station — women who make the world fairer for their ideal lives, and women who should be palled in the dunnest smoke of hell";[12] and in the midst of all this ghostly throng sat the deaf, white-haired, kindly editor after all the house was hushed, save for the jarring of the clock, bending over his page, turning now and again to consult some volume at his side, but always working, working on silently into the night with that full-sensed enjoyment of his task that only the devoted labourer can know.
[13]: xxxi–xxxii Frank Furness designed the University of Pennsylvania Library (1888–91), making the building fireproof with brick-and-stone walls, cement floors, iron stairs, and iron-and-glass book stacks.[2]: 290–94, cat.
Most of its second floor was dedicated to a single two-story room, with wide one-and-a-half-story windows on the east, south and west walls.
Architect Robert Rodes McGoodwin designed the addition to be the first step toward encasing the entire library building in sedate Collegiate Gothic brick and stone (which never happened).
On the other side of the house is his remarkable Japanese garden, which was laid out for him by a man of letters from Japan, who came to see Dr. Furness and learn Shakespeare from him.
[17] "I like to lean on the bridge in the Japanese garden and watch the fishes in the water and the birds as they come to drink—Yesterday I stood there so motionless that a dear blessed wood-robin came within less than two feet of me & gathered up some mud and straws for her nest.
[18] Visitors to "Lindenshade" arriving by train entered through the English garden: "Our house is directly in front of the station; you will dismount on land that was clipped from my lawn.
[19] HHF's eldest son, Walter Rogers Furness, built a summer house for his family on the Lindenshade property.
Following HHF's 1894 move to "Lindenshade" year-round, his daughter Carrie and son-in-law Horace Jayne built a Shingle Style summer house on the east side of the property, overlooking the Japanese garden.
468 Following Carrie Jayne's untimely death in 1909 at age 35,[21] her husband, daughter Kate and son Horace moved year-round to "Sub Rosa."
Dr. Jayne died suddenly at "Sub Rosa" in July 1913,[22]: 631 and his teenaged children moved into "Lindenshade" with Carrie's brother, William Henry Furness III.
An association, formed with the goal of honoring Horace Howard Furness with a public library named for him, was founded in October 1902.
[24] Staffed by volunteers, the library association's books initially were housed in a small room at the local elementary school.
[22]: 671 In 1913, William Henry Furness III, donated an acre of "Lindenshade" fronting on Providence Road, for the library building.
[24] The Helen Kate Furness Free Library was designed by architect Frank Miles Day,[25] and opened on November 4, 1916.
