{"nrhp_refnum":"90001414","name":"Phillips, Joseph and Esther, Plantation","other_names":["The Old Ritter Farm"],"category":"building","location":{"address":"Bailey's Crossroads, S of Glen Run Rd.","address_restricted":false,"city":"Atglen","county":"Chester County","state":"PA","lat":39.926666210000064,"lon":-75.97317703099998,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1990-09-05","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Architecture"],"significance_levels":["local"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A Chester County farmstead at Bailey's Crossroads in West Fallowfield township, near Atglen, consisting of a stone farmhouse built in 1813, two bank barns, a stone octagonal smokehouse, a wood-frame carriage house and workshop, and a two-story stone springhouse. It occupies 7.8 acres of a former 307-acre plantation.","why_significant":"The nomination argues the plantation typifies a successful, self-sufficient early 19th-century family farm in the Octoraro Valley, with a farmhouse that follows the regional five-bay I-house plan with Federal and vernacular Gothic Revival detailing. It also cites the bank barns as good examples of German or Swiss bank-barn types adapted by settlers, and the Gothic Revival carriage house and workshop as the work of Isaac Philips, a local wheelwright and coachmaker. The property is said to retain outstanding architectural integrity because it passed through only three family owners.","narrative":"Built in 1813 by Joseph and Esther Philips at Bailey's Crossroads in West Fallowfield township, Chester County, the plantation centres on a stone farmhouse of two and a half stories that follows the regional five-bay I-house plan. Its interior woodwork is unusually fancy for a rural house, and the front porch carries vernacular Gothic Revival brackets added in the 1850s. The property includes two bank barns, the larger built in 1826, a stone octagonal smokehouse, a wood-frame carriage house and workshop, and a stone springhouse dating from the 1790s. Isaac Philips, a wheelwright and coachmaker who inherited the farm in 1852, worked in the carriage house, and his jigsawn gingerbread motifs are associated with several nearby farmhouses. The property is valued for its surviving buildings and landscape, which the nomination says remain largely intact because only three families have owned it.","period_of_significance":"1793-1860","architect_builder":null,"architectural_style":"Federal; Gothic Revival","criteria":["C"],"status_note":"All structures are described as surviving in good condition; the carriage house was being restored and the springhouse had been rehabilitated within the last two or three years.","vacant_flag":null,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-haiku-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.1-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 17:11:37.173476-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/lz/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_PA/90001414.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/90001414/7a482840fe-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/90001414/7a482840fe-1600.webp","licence":"CC0","author":"Smallbones","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Phillips_Plantation_Chesco.JPG\" rel=\"noopener\">Smallbones</a>, <a href=\"http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/deed.en\" rel=\"license noopener\">CC0</a>, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Phillips_Plantation_Chesco.JPG"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/71998685","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_and_Esther_Phillips_Plantation","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q6288159"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/pennsylvania/chester-county/phillips-joseph-and-esther-plantation-90001414/"}