A Woodlands Wonderland

As the snow starts to melt, we can't help but share just how beautiful The Woodlands looks after a snow fall. 

All images © Ryan Collerd 2013.

How cute are the neighborhood kids who visited for a snowball fight?

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Ruben even made a few snow angels when he wasn't busy throwing snowballs!

Share your wintery images of visits to The Woodlands with us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram by using the hashtag #woodlandswonderland!

Connecting The Woodlands

Those of us who know and love The Woodlands are familiar with the multitude of activities to which the space plays host. The Woodlands is not only an active cemetery, it’s also a remarkable recreational resource, an exciting community events space, a rich historical landscape, and a bio-diverse urban ecosystem. Over the course of the day, The Woodlands is visited by dog walkers and runners, local history buffs and nature-lovers, community gardeners and many more.

This diversity of users is what makes The Woodlands so special, but it also makes planning for the future of the site particularly complicated. This year, thanks to the generous support of the William Penn Foundation, The Woodlands is embarking on a master planning process. This process will bring together the different constituencies who use the site in order to craft an inclusive and comprehensive plan for the future. The master plan is an exciting opportunity to envision how we want to see The Woodlands develop, and it will guarantee that The Woodlands continues to act as a vibrant cemetery, community green space, and cultural asset well into the coming years.

This year is a particularly crucial time for The Woodlands to initiate a master plan, as institutions all around the site are pursuing new projects. The master plan will capitalize on these exciting plans and allow The Woodlands to align our priorities with those of our neighbors. Particularly relevant are the Bartram’s Mile plan (shown in the rendering below), the new Lower Schuylkill Master Plan, and the city’s Schuylkill River recreation and trail planning initiatives. The Woodlands strategic location means that it sits at the nexus of all of these different plans, which makes the development of our own master plan especially important. Now is an exciting time for green spaces and cultural resources in Philadelphia, and a master planning process will solidify our position as one of the most important natural and historical resources in the city.

Bartram's Mile North, South, and the already-built section of trail in Bartram's Gardens. Image via PlanPhilly.

Currently, The Woodlands is soliciting proposals from a variety of planning, architecture, and landscape architecture firms who will help to create the master plan. Once a firm is hired, the team will analyze the site and consult with staff, board members, and community stakeholders to create a plan for the years ahead.  A particularly exciting opportunity will be a public meeting that will allow all those who use and love The Woodlands to share their ideas.  By including a diversity of voices, the firm will be able to craft a plan that balances the needs and desires of all the different types of people who enjoy The Woodlands. Stay tuned to the blog and website for continued updates and details as we begin this exciting project! 

by Joe Huennekens

Read PennCurrent's student spotlight on Joe here!

A note from Elizabeth Gilbert on her new novel, "The Signature of All Things"

With each passing day, our excitement grows for the release of Elizabeth Gilbert's new novel The Signature of All Things! We've had the pleasure of spending time with Liz during her many recent visits to The Woodlands, the very place that inspired the setting of White Acre in her book. And now we're pleased to share with you a blog post that she's written just for us about her experiences and inspirations at The Woodlands.

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THE SIGNATURE OF ALL THINGS
By Elizabeth Gilbert
Illustrated. 501 pp. Viking. $28.95

My novel, The Signature of All Things, is a big tale of 18th and 19th century botanical explorers, following the fortunes of the fictitious Whittaker family (who make their trade in the early pharmaceutical business.) While the book takes place all over the world, I knew from the start that I wanted to base the Whittakers in Philadelphia, and I dreamt of them living in a vast, palatial estate (graced with gardens and greenhouses) on the Schuylkill River. But I also wanted the novel to be plausible, so I went searching about to see if, in fact, there had ever been any vast palatial estates (graced with gardens and greenhouses) built on the Schuylkill River. To my delight, I stumbled upon The Woodlands, which became the wonderful model for my novel’s fictitious estate, White Acre.

So much of The Woodlands ended up in my novel — providing me with marvelous details which, I believe, help the book spring to life. I was so impressed by the carriage house, for instance, that I gave it a central role in my narrative. (Alma Whittaker, my heroine, has her private botanical study there.) I also loved the basement of The Woodlands — particularly the caged-in butler’s bedroom (which shows up in my novel as the bedroom of the head housekeeper, Hanneke de Groot.) And the tiny little hidden room off the library became, in my book, “the binding closet” — where some of the most important scenes in the story occur.

The Woodlands has now become so intrinsically entwined in my mind with White Acre that I can scarcely tell the two apart. I’ve been so grateful, as well, to the welcome that the curators of this great American treasure have given me — to the grounds, to the rooms, to the history. My hope is that my imagined story will draw very real readers to this very real place, so that The Woodlands will continue to get the appreciation it so richly deserves!

---Elizabeth Gilbert

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The Signature of All Things releases tomorrow (October 1, 2013), and we're sure it will be a bestseller! For those who are familiar with The Woodlands and its magic, we hope Liz's passages with resonate with your experiences of this historic estate. For those just learning of The Woodlands, we can't wait to share it with you! Check out our Visit page to learn more about the grounds, the mansion, and taking a tour.

And--just in case you missed it--take a look at the promotional trailer for The Signature of All Things, filmed at The Woodlands!

Dionaea muscipula

It's #throwbackthursday and The Woodlands has a botanical treat today!

In a letter to William Hamilton dated April 22, 1800, Thomas Jefferson (yes, the Thomas Jefferson of Monticello) wrote, "Among the many botanical curiosities you were so good as to shew me the other day, I forgot to ask if you had the Dionaea muscipula, and whether it produces a seed with you. if it does, I should be very much disposed to trespass on your liberality so far as to ask a few seeds of that..."

Dionaea muscipula is most commonly known as the Venus Flytrap, and it was among one of the thousands of species Hamilton cultivated in his infamous greenhouse at The Woodlands. His friend William Bartram of Bartram's Garden illustrated the plant in what is probably the first known drawing of Dionaea muscipula from 1767 (see it in the lower left corner?). 

Venus flytrap, Dionaea muscipula
William Bartram (1739 - 1823)
Pen and ink on paper, 1767, © Natural History Museum

Paul Philippe Cret

Paul Philippe Cret, the prolific Beaux-Arts architect who designed many structures in and around Philadelphia, was born in Lyon, France in 1876. After studying in his hometown and then in Paris, Cret sailed for America to teach architecture at the University of Pennsylvania in 1903. Although he had established a his own firm in Philadelphia by 1907, Cret served in the French army for the entire span of World War I, and received several military honors. Before returning to Philadelphia in 1919, Cret designed a European memorial at the request of Mrs. Theodore Roosevelt, whose son Quentin had died in combat.

Cret’s architectural firm flourished through the 1920s. After World War I, there was a high demand for monuments to commemorate people who had served. The Frankfort War Memorial at Wakeling and Large Streets was designed by Cret, as was the National Memorial Arch at Valley Forge, and several commemorative structures in France.

Washington Memorial Arch, Valley Forge (Paul Philippe Cret, architect)
Paul Philippe Cret Collection, Architectural Archives, University of Pennsylvania.

Beginning in 1922, Cret designed the Delaware River Bridge (now the Benjamin Franklin Bridge), which at the time of its completion was the longest suspension bridge in the world.

Delaware River Bridge and Plaza (Paul Philippe Cret, architect)
Paul Philippe Cret Collection, Architectural Archives, University of Pennsylvania.

The construction of the bridge was extremely technical and complicated, and required workers to dig to the bedrock at the bottom of the river in chambers so highly pressurized that the laborers could not expel enough air to whistle while they tunneled. The building of the bridge cost $37,103,765.42 (over eight million dollars more than expected) but was employed by 32,000 vehicles over the course of the first day it was opened. Cret subsequently drafted the University Avenue Bridge and the Henry Avenue Bridge. In 2012, Courier Post went behind the scenes of the Ben Franklin Bridge and shared this video.

Rodin Museum
Karl Lutz Collection, Athenaeum of Philadelphia.

Cret began making plans for the Barnes Foundation in Merion, PA in 1923 and competed the project two years later. Not long after, he collaborated with Jacques Greber to design the Rodin Museum, and in 1936,  Cret drafted the plan for the gates to The Woodlands Cemetery.

Woodlands Cemetery Gates
Cret Collection, Athenaeum of Philadelphia.

Throughout his career, Cret advised several major universities including Brown, Harvard, Penn and the University of Texas at Austin on campus architecture.

On September 8, 1945 (68 years ago, yesterday) Paul Cret died of heart disease in Philadelphia, at age 69. He is buried in Section K of The Woodlands, beneath a marker of his own design. Many of his creations still stand today in Philadelphia, and have made an immense impression on the architectural fabric of the city.

by Rive Cadwallader