Hollybush is unique among South Jersey structures,
incorporating local materials with an Italian-type design.
The Architecture of
Hollybush Mansion
Hollybush is an Italian-style villa, or, as the theorists
of the mid-19th century might have said, “an irregular
villa in the Italian mode.”
The mansion is an 18th-century, central
hall-type home, with the formal parlor and library, both boasting
trompe l’oeil artwork, to the left of the hall and a
more informal sitting room/dining room combination to the
right. A kitchen service wing is behind the dining room.
The right front section is pushed forward so that the main
hall can turn at a right angle, locating the staircase between
the sitting room and the dining room. The house is constructed
of South Jersey ironstone, from a local quarry along the Chestnut
Branch. It ranges in color from ochre to orange to deep red
and purple. The mansion's surface is enlivened by a coarse
aggregate of tan pebbles. The stone is laid as random rubble.
There also are small cast-iron balconies, with railings of
the same grapevine pattern, on three sides of Holllybush’s
tower.
The mansion's two-level/three-level combination
under the same horizontal cornice line is a peculiarity of
the Delaware Valley region and may have originated with the
Philadelphia architect John Notman, who designed a number
of suburban villas in the Philadelphia area in the mid-19th
century. The architect of Hollybush has not yet been identified,
but he was obviously familiar with the Notman designs, as
well as with the writings of landscape/architect/horticulturist
Andrew Jackson Downing. Hollybush incorporates almost all
of the aesthetic and practical suggestions which Downing had
made in his popular book Rural Residences (1842), including
the irregular massing; the wide, overhanging roof planes;
the dark, reddish-brown paint that originally matched the
stone on the exterior; the internal chimneys to conserve heat;
the campanile, or tower, that rises above the front entrance;
the hydraulic pump that originally raised water from a nearby
pond to a tank in the attic; and the winding drives and irregularly
planted trees and shrubs which created the beautiful, park-like
setting in which the house was situated.
