Eastern Shore of Virginia in Ladies’ Home Journal

1963:  Ladies’ Home Journal, “Eastern Shore of Virginia”, by Richard Pratt.  April 1963, Page 77.

In this magazine article we get the first taste of Richard Pratt’s prose regarding Wharton Place which was subsequently recycled in his book The Golden Treasury of Early American Houses (referenced separately herein).  On page 77 Pratt offers the following:

Every early American community is enlivened by certain deviations from the prevailing indigenous house-types of the period.  And almost every coastal community contained at least one house that was sworn to be the headquarters of a notorious smuggler, with underground caverns for contraband and secret tunnels down to the water.  In the community of The Shore, Wharton, at right, holds the double honor of being both an extraordinary deviation from local design traditions and a smuggler’s residence deluxe.  An expatriate from Philadelphia in the 18th century, John Wharton, by his subversive skills and great successes, was able to build 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 a fascinating a house as you’ll find anywhere, superbly maintained with appropriate esteem by its devoted owners.

The dining room, above, with its Adam mantel in black enamel, opens into the great drawing room, at the right, and due ahead, into the great hall with its extraordinary three-story staircase.