Portal:Philadelphia/Selected picture archive/19

Mount Pleasant, 2017

Mount Pleasant is a historic mansion in east Fairmount Park, situated atop a hill overlooking the Schuylkill River. The mansion was built around 1761–62 in what was then the countryside outside the city. The owner was John Macpherson, a Scottish privateer who named the house Clunie. The architect was Thomas Nevell (1721–1797), an apprentice of Edmund Woolley who had built Independence Hall. Later owners included Benedict Arnold and finally Jonathan Williams, who was Benjamin Franklin's grandnephew and the first superintendent of West Point. The house is administered by the Philadelphia Museum of Art and has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places since 1966. Mount Pleasant was also designated a National Historic Landmark in 1974.