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The Inn

The House

Our beautiful limestone mansion with slate roof was built in 1750. There are 15 acres of farm and wood land. The stream, called Willow Run, that runs by our pond originates from the spring-house on the property. 

We believe the occupancy of the estate went through five phases. 

 

Phase One:

The first homestead was the two story spring-house on the property.  In the lower section of the spring-house you can see the origin of the Willow Run Stream.  The spring comes in through the one wall, at approximately 300 gal/min, and runs out the other side and under our bridge.  The first floor has a historic fireplace.  It is an open room with a wooden floor.  In the back corner next to the fireplace behind a small door is a curved small staircase leading to the second floor.  Unfortunately, because the access to the second floor is so small it is almost impossible to move furniture up there.  

 

Phase Two:

The second home built started the formation of what is now the main building. This much smaller section would most likely have been what we are presently using as the dining room, the bar, and the White Pine room.  During renovations we found evidence of an old fireplace and staircases.  The stones were charred on one side.  We also found evidence of an old stairway.  In the stone wall we found a hidden doorway with two very worn stair treads that over the years have been closed off.  The wood work in these sections is in a different, simpler style from the other rooms in the house. 

 

Phase Three:

The largest part of the house in the front.  Dating the wood work in this section places it approximately in the early 1800’s.  On the first floor the rooms added would have been the entrance-way, stairs, living room and the ‘Hazelnut’ room.  On the second floor the Magnolia and Copper Beech Suites were added. And finally, the entire third floor. 

 

Phase Four:

Building the kitchen and additional servant’s quarters.  Historically the kitchen was kept separate from the house because of worries about possible fire.

 

Phase Five:

The final section was built in 1948 by the previous owners.  They added the wing that branches off the kitchen section at an angle.  It was used as a casual living room and for large parties. 

 

The house has a total of over 7500 square feet of living space (not including the full basement or the unheated attics) that was completely renovated by us and finished in January of 2007 after three years of sweat and labor.  Where possible we maintained the original layouts,  woodwork and flooring. We recycled as much as possible and had wood moldings remade to match if needed. Modern and fully equipped bathrooms were added to ensure each room had it's own private bathroom. All utilities were renewed and brought up to code. New geothermal heating and cooling was installed and state of the art security, phone & networking systems and whole house sound systems added.  Behind the scenes computer controls to manage these systems was installed. Despite of all these improvements the house is still over 95% original giving it that real old and historic house feel that we didn't want to destroy.  In late 2006 we added the beautiful board-and-batten barn and new driveway.

 

The History

Located in the heart of Lancaster County’s Amish Country, was built in 1750 by Thomas Evans whose father received a land grant directly from William Penn.  
When we purchased the estate it existed of the limestone house, a spring house, a four car garage, large barn, tobacco barn, tenant house, in-ground pool and a pond on a total of 56 farmable acres.  

After the purchase we subdivided the property and kept 10.5 acres of farm and woodland with the main building, spring house, pond, pool and the garage.
The previous owners, Verna and Arthur Morgan had two children.  Arthur Morgan was an executive at New Holland Machine company.  Arthur Morgan passed away approximately in 1986.  Verna Morgan continued to live on the premise for two more years and then had to be admitted to a nursing home where she passed away around 2000.  The property sat almost abandoned for twelve years prior to our purchase in 2002.  The roof was leaking, the heating system leaked, the ceilings in the servant’s quarters had fallen down and there was much water damage as the plumbing had frozen and burst.  When we purchased the house there was no heating on the second and third floor and there was no plumbing, the water pipes had been cut off in the basement to prevent further damage.

The house has over 7500 square feet of living space.  That does not include the full basement or the two unheated attics.  The 19 room house was renovated to include nine bedrooms, two suites, ten bathrooms, one powder room, three laundry rooms, the bar, two living rooms, two dining rooms, entertainment room, an office and two kitchens.  We also added a brand new barn for our farm related activities.

 

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