The Golden Treasury of Early American Houses

1967:  The Golden Treasury of Early American Houses, by Richard Pratt.  Hawthorn Books, Inc., New York, 1967, Pages 60 and 61.

This coffee table book offers only the briefest of descriptions, and inaccurate ones at that, to accompany interior and exterior photographs of Wharton Place.  On page 60 Pratt writes:

Wharton [sic] near Modest Town

Wharton [sic] holds the double honor of having been both an extraordinary deviation from local design traditions, and a smuggler’s residence deluxe.  An eighteenth-century expatriate from Philadelphia, John Wharton, by his subversive skills and great successes, was able to build for himself a noble Philadelphia mansion in one of the best locations on the ocean side of the Shore.  It survived many decades of squatter tenancy without a blemish to become the monumental pride of the peninsula.  It’s as fascinating a house as will be found anywhere, superbly maintained with appropriate esteem by its devoted owners.