Pine Forge Mansion and Industrial Site

Built as part of an early 18th-century iron plantation beside Manatawny Creek in Douglass Township, Berks County, the Pine Forge complex centers on a sprawling stone mansion. Its earliest section, the two-story center block, dates to about 1730, and a south wing was added around 1800 in Georgian style. Thomas Rutter acquired the land in 1714 and 1715 and established a bloomery forge, and by 1720 his finery forge, later called Pine Forge, was operating on the site. Over the following century the property passed to the Potts and Rutter families and then to Joseph Bailey, who converted the forge to a rolling mill in 1845. Early 20th-century Colonial Revival work by architect R. Brognard Okie added a north wing about 1918. The surviving stone mansion, outbuildings, and millrace remains show the site's industrial and architectural history and are the basis for its listing.