This house was built on eighty-five acres by merchant Joseph Waln Ryerss in 1859, overlooking Burholme Park, one of the highest vistas in Philadelphia.

Ryerss was president of the Tioga Railroad and followed the family business of trading with China, Japan, and England.

Less than a year before he died at the age of sixty-five, Robert Ryerss married his longtime housekeeper, Mary Ann Reed, who inherited a comfortable annuity and the house when he died.

She remarried three years later to the Reverend John G. Bawn and they continued the family avocations of traveling and art collecting.

The Reverend Bawn then returned to Philadelphia and lobbied the city to build more galleries to house a larger collection.