The Hess Homestead

The Hess Homestead, in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, is a historic Mennonite farmstead near the town of Lititz.

The property is an ancestral home of the Hess family,[1] who purchased the land from William Penn's sons in 1735.

[2] The homestead structures survive today, on several adjoining properties, as examples of vernacular architecture of the Pennsylvania Germans.

[4] Hans and Magdalena's oldest son Jacob Hess (c. 1706-1741) built the first house on this tract, circa 1730s, with wife Veronica.

[5] Their oldest son Johannes (1730-1778) was the next owner, with wife Susanna Landis Hess.

This Hess house is considered one of the most elaborate surviving examples of Blockstanderbau corner-post design.

These horizontals serve the same function as brick infill or wattle-and-daub filler in other half-timber framing.

At each mortise and tenon is a chiseled-in guide symbol, consisting of a Roman numeral or other directional mark.

[12] Prototypes for Pennsylvania's durchgaengiges floorplans are illustrated in German books as early as the 17th century.

1813, to a full story from the original half-story height, using dove-tailed corner timbering.

Included in the building is a walk-in fireplace, previously used for butchering, making soap, heating laundry water, etc.

The house was enlarged to its present form ca 1800 by Christian's sister Elizabeth and her husband Mennonite Deacon Daniel Burkholder.

This oil and hemp mill, located on the Lititz Run creek, was built by Johannes Hess c. 1769, while he was living in the log farmhouse with wife Susanna.

During that same era the mill was also used for storing whiskey distilled at the Rome Distillery, located a short distance upstream.

Those outbuildings had been threatened with demolition at their previous sites, including a stone spring house, a pig sty with hand-hewn timbers, and a ca.