Graeme Park

This is the weirdest park in Pennsylvania, I think. I really don't understand it. The garden is cool, and they refuse to grow anything that doesn't seem period-appropriate. But then they painted the house with bright teal shutters. Idk. Maybe they did that back then but I've never seen it anywhere else. I wandered around for a while because it seemed like I was missing something but I wasn't. It's just an odd blip on a map.

Graeme Park is a tough one. As much as I'm a sucker for anything historical in nature especially colonial history, Jeanne P to me is far more on point with her three star assessment of things versus Dan F's review which makes things out to be far more interesting here than they really are.

Let me start by saying that the grounds themselves are beautiful. The house and the barn are indeed set far enough off the main thoroughfare that you can't hear any nearby traffic or noise. I get why this place must do very well as a wedding venue which at this point in time I would imagine is the site's main purpose/money maker/reason for being.

Permanent tent set up behind the barn.
Portable toilet set up also behind the barn.
A large field or two which is perfect for overflow parking for the guests.

With that said, we weren't here for that.
As part of PA's Trails of History we were here for a tour of the 1722 Keith House.

The tour started in the summer kitchen which is next to the Keith House. The kitchen is not original but was supposedly constructed on top of the foundation of the original. They still use it on occasion for programs and you can see/smell that as soon as you walk in.

After that you led into the Keith House. The rooms you are shown are either unfurnished or sparingly furnished with period pieces as nothing is original past a few tiles which are on the ground inside one of the fireplaces. Arguably the most interesting part of the house is that a few of the rooms have original molding, paneling and paint from the 18th century.

Let me pivot and mention that while Dan F. brings up the best parts of the house's history (aside of that brief period of time the house either sat abandoned for large periods of time, is occupied by squatting farmers who deface the building with graffiti like the name/words that are carved into the one fireplace mantel and partially painted over from the late 19th century or is neglected which is why it's eventually given to the PHMC by the Strawbridge family who owned it in the 1950's) in his review, for us none of that is mentioned on our tour.

While in the barn before the tour we watched a short video about the history of the house and we learned most of what he mentioned there. On the tour our guide was quite honestly very flat. She for the most part did not connect any of the dots past leading us into a room and saying this would have been the XX room and then just stood there unless I asked about something to try and learn more or simply to end the awkward silence. Not terribly thrilling to be honest.

A great place for some unique pictures? Sure
Maybe even a little bit of trail walking? Certainly
A nice picnic area since visiting the grounds are free? You bet
A solid tour about colonial history? Not so much. It was more like Ben Stein on a bottle of NyQuil reading the phone book.

One and done.

If you go:

The website lists their hours as Friday-Saturday 10am to 4pm with the last tour starting at 3pm and Sunday Noon to 4pm with the last tour starting at 3pm. That would imply hourly tours but nowhere does it say that specifically on their website nor at the actual site itself.

They do accept cash or credit for the tour cost or if you decide to buy anything in their small gift shop inside the barn. Our tour lasted a little more than thirty minutes. You are taken inside the summer kitchen which is not original and then inside the Keith House.

Regular Admission - $6
Senior (65+) - $5
Ages 3-11 - $3
Ages 2 and under - FREE

Also worth mentioning is that when we got there we had no idea what to do. The barn area where tours start was deserted without any kind of signage mentioning something like "Back in Five" or "Out on a Tour in the House", etc for almost thirty minutes. Eventually we put two and two together that one person there was showing a wedding couple around and the other person was out doing a tour of the house.

Visited Graeme Park today for the first time. Very clean beautiful park. August 2019

We had our Wedding here at Graeme Park last November. It was the perfect place to have our special day! Graeme Park is beautiful and Beth who takes care of all the Wedding Scheduling who might as well be a Personal Wedding Planner was awesome! Seeing her was like seeing an old friend or family member! The tent was the perfect place for how we wanted our wedding reception and the grounds were beautiful for our ceremony! If you get married here or have an event, please take advantage of their "preferred vendor" list! We used Catering by Rich and Rich is the most amazing chef! Lastly, on top of being an amazing host at Graeme Park, Beth is also an amazing baker and baked our Wedding Cake and it was SIMPLY AMAZING!! Can't wait to eat our tipper on our Anniversary! Highly Recommend Graeme Park for any event!! Gorgeous!

Graeme Park isn't the type of place that you'd go for nature excursions or any of that jazz. It's more of a historical point of interest. I came here during off hours just to check what it was hitting for. There's a little wandering around you can accomplish with some grass trails. It's definitely quiet and serene. The estate is quite beautiful and I'm interested in visiting it for a tour at some point, in which I'll gladly change my rating after doing so. I can speak on its behalf for being a quiet place to go if you need to relax. Upon leaving, I did notice someone else that came there to simply enjoy their lunch.

This is no ordinary park.

Not only is Graeme Park green and beautiful, with nice places to walk, a pretty pond, and quacky ducks, it is also immensely entertaining for anyone with a pulse and penchant for stories of people who misbehave.

Graeme Park was the home of Elizabeth Graeme Fergusson, once named "the most learned woman in America."

Born in the early 1700s in an age where virtually everyone was illiterate and women were denied higher education, Fergusson gave 'em all the F U and taught herself everything. She became famous for her writing and poetry and hosted America's first evening literary salons which meant people had to put aside the butter churns, lace up and head over for a lit and poetry jam.

Her story has some crazy twists and turns including Just Saying No to marrying Ben Franklin's boy, to secretly marrying a penniless dickbag Brit loyalist who chowed down on her cash and ran for exile when they lost the war, leaving her with no dollars and no cents, just her property ... but since the husband was a Brit licking traitor, it was confiscated. One can only imagine what her poems became then.

Anyway she hustled the property back into her hands and spent her remaining days selling off pieces of it to survive. At some point the guilts got ahold of her about her secret marriage so she girded her loins to tell her dad. While you are touring her original home ($6 -- worth every nickle), you will be in the same room she was, by the same window sill she sat in, gazing out the same window she did at her father coming down the stone path toward the house, carrying a cup of tea, when boom he keels over and dies just like that and she never gets to tell him she was bad. Talk about guilt! Shame! It's a great story, and it keeps getting better.

Not to mention the tour guide -- he is solid gold! Tremendously entertaining in his own right, our retired microbiology professor turned tour guide knew EVERYTHING about her, her family, and the house. It was by turns dishy and deep and really gave me the chills - a true sense of what it meant to live in colonial and revolutionary America, and how so many aspects of the human experience transcend time.

TIP: Before you take the house tour, take a few minutes to read the story boards, and absolutely watch the video. It's a little weird, filmed in VHS and oddly narrated, it's also a fabulous orientation to what you're about to see.