Fonthill, Mercer Museum and Moravian Pottery and Tile Works

Three reinforced-concrete sites in Doylestown, Pennsylvania, were built by Henry Chapman Mercer between 1907 and 1916: his house Fonthill, the Mercer Museum, and the Moravian Pottery and Tile Works. Fonthill was loosely modelled on medieval castles and was built with hand-mixed concrete and reinforcing iron pipe. The Mercer Museum has over 30,000 artifacts displayed in an open well with a continuous balcony, and it was dedicated on June 17, 1916. The tile works is a U-shaped building with an arcaded courtyard, and it produced handcrafted decorative tiles that Mercer sold widely. Mercer is regarded as one of the first designers to use reinforced concrete in American buildings, and as a collector of early American tools and folk art. The sites are treated together because Mercer conceived them as one body of work.