Corker Hill

National Historic Register of Historic Places

Architectural Significance

Among the complex of buildings associated with the Corker Hill farmstead, the mansion house and barn most clearly reflect the status of the farm’s historic owners.  The size and refinement of the mansion house, constructed c.1810 and among the oldest brick farmhouses in Franklin County, indicates that its builder, John Thompson, had a substantial degree of wealth and sophistication.  However, changes made to the building complex in the early 20^th century by Thaddeus Mahon, also a man of considerable wealth, signified a change in the status of the farm complex.  The flamboyant architectural elements added to the mansion house transformed the high-styled farming complex into a gentleman’s farm, a retreat for its wealthy owner which displayed his wealth for all to see.  Their lavishness and distinctive appearance represent exceptional expressions of the early Colonial Revival period in rural Franklin County. 

Tax and estate records show that the Corker Hill farm was actively cultivated in grains and orchard products through the 19^th and early 20^th century.  The barn and associated buildings, including the frame wagon shed/corn crib and c.1870s tenant house are representative of the architectural components of an active farming operation.  Although gentlemen’s farms are often associated with ‘progressive’ farming or leisure activities (particularly horses), Mahon’s estate appears to have been maintained as a tenant farm attached to his summer retreat.  The farm building complex appears to have been maintained to a higher degree than is often associated with a tenant farm reflecting its close association with the adjoining mansion house complex.

While the character-defining features of the Corker Hill mansion house are dominated by the c.1905 Colonial Revival cupola, bay window, and porch additions, most of the building’s original c.1810 exterior and interior features (structure, plan, form, woodwork, hardware and trim) remain intact.  The list of c.1810 features still intact at Corker Hill are also significant because the building exhibits a rare retention of original detail despite its documented ownership by wealthy resident families capable of making dramatic changes.  The changes that were made c.1905 represent an elaborate expression of the architectural fashion of the day, however it is significant that the changes were in fact limited to the surface of the building.  Perhaps intended more to make an exterior statement of the owner’s wealth, the interior was essentially untouched, its original elegance remained in keeping with the gentleman’s lifestyle.

Corker Hill was built prior to the prominent use of bricks for construction of farmhouses and represents an early use of brick for farmhouse construction in Franklin County.[1]  Brick farmhouse construction in the Cumberland Valley region prior to 1830 has been shown to be primarily limited to landowners demonstrating greater wealth.[2]  In addition to the significance of the early use of brick construction, Corker Hill retains a significant number of original Federal style architectural features, most prominently the central entrance on the front elevation with a distinctive fanlight transom and pedimented door surround.  The building retains the classic symmetrical five-bay, central door fenestration, with the regional vernacular adaptation of the two-story recessed porch on the service wing. 

Character-defining Federal period details on the interior of the main house include all original mantelpieces, moldings with pegged joints, recessed paneled cupboards, and raised panel doors.  The front entrance doors are hung on original strap iron hinges and retain their original lock hardware.  The main central stairs with its decorative detailing dates also to the c.1810 construction of the house.  The arched opening between the front and back formal parlors is a significant architectural detail associated with the Federal period.  The attention paid to stylistic detail in this early farm mansion house is a rare and significant expression of the wealth of the building’s owners.

The architectural features added to the house at Corker Hill c.1905 are dominant and significant expressions of wealth applied prominently to the existing high-styled building.  During the late 19^th and early 20^th century many wealthy families of the mid-Atlantic region were building large fashionable houses at rail-accessible mountain retreats such as Pen-Mar on the Maryland/Pennsylvania border.  Generally designed in an ornate High Victorian style or early Colonial Revival style, these summer retreats were large, often ostentatious, and always with a wide porch indicative of the leisure time available to the wealthy.  The Corker Hill alterations, while retaining its early 19^th century elegance, made the necessary statement of expendable wealth as well as adding basic elements for summer leisure. 

The wide wrap-around veranda/porch was one such basic element.  The projecting bay window would have provided additional airflow in the master bedroom, however the tall ogee roof was an extraordinary feature.  The prominent cupola with ogee roof, which replaced an earlier simple square balustrade, was perhaps the most dramatic statement of the gentleman owner’s wealth.  Both the cupola and bay window were unusual and flamboyant in their design and certainly must have been noted by the surrounding rural population.

Since Corker Hill had been established and continually owned by families of relative wealth, the associated outbuildings of the farm complex already represented significant expressions of the “gentleman farm” ideal and apparently required little alteration during Mahon’s ownership.  Although outbuildings are difficult to date, the frame carriage house/garage and chicken house appear to date to the period just prior to or during the Mahon ownership.  The stone “wash house” was reportedly constructed c.1905 to house the coal oil furnace installed to heat the main house.[3] The stone root cellar, an unusually large structure, is otherwise a common feature of 19^th century farms in the Cumberland Valley region and dates from an earlier ownership.

The Pennsylvania barn, although typical in design of similar closed forebay barns, is unusual in the use of sandstone for the construction of the stone ends and the rear foundation in limestone-rich Greene Township.  However, a sandstone quarry was reportedly located four miles east of Scotland.[4] The use of the quarried sandstone may represent another expression of wealth by the owner who constructed it, probably John Thompson in the 1820s, shortly after he finished the house.  The stone construction, ventilation slits, and closed forebay are all building techniques shown by Ensminger to be in use as early as 1790, although the date-spread of barns can be quite wide.  Certainly the frame forebay shows late 19^th century stylistic details, particularly the architraves surrounding the tall, narrow ventilation openings, suggesting a renovation during that time period.  Hardware associated with the 20^th century used on the forebay doors and the type of pointing in the masonry also suggests work on the barn during Mahon’s tenure or later.

A frame and concrete block warehouse associated with the post-1920 Mont Alto Orchard Company ownership is considered non-contributing as an architectural element.

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