Tag Archives: #NewYorkl

Fonthill Castle celebrated its centennial in 2012. Constructed by Henry Chapman Mercer, archaeologist, ceramist, anthropologist, scholar and antiquarian, as a home and museum for his collection of tiles and prints, most famously the Moravian tiles, it features 44 rooms, 32 stairwells, 18 fireplaces and 21 chimneys, all hewn from hand-mixed reinforced concrete in a blend of medieval, Byzantine and Gothic styles. Thousands of handcrafted ceramic tiles were inset throughout, including Mercer’s own Moravian-style tiles plus Persian, Chinese, Spanish, and Dutch productions he collected. Today the Bucks County estate serves as a museum with 900 American and European prints. An adjacent building, the Mercer Museum, houses a multitude of artifacts, including a Conestoga wagon and a whale boat.