Wordless Wednesday - Fell-Van Rensselaer House

Dome, Fell-Van Rensselaer House, April 2011

7. Dome [Part of a set of 10 photographs from the Historic American Buildings Survey in the Library of Congress' Built in America Collection, American Memory Project. http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/hhh.pa0843]

The glass dome pictured above is one of the last surviving original features of the Fell-Van Rensselaer house on Rittenhouse Square, Philadelphia. Built by my great-great grandmother, Sarah Drexel Fell from 1896-1898, following the death of the first husband John Fell in 1895, this was the home of Sarah and her second husband, Alexander Van Rensselaer (1850-1933).

The interior of the house was gutted in October, 1974.

Sources:
[1] Library of Congress. Fell-Van Rensselaer House, Eighteenth & Walnut Streets, Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA. Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS). Online. American Memory Project (http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/hhh.pa0843 : accessed 4 May 2011)

[2] Philadelphia Architect & Buildings Project. Van Rensselaer Residence. Online. (http://www.philadelphiabuildings.org/pab/app/pj_display.cfm/13631 : accessed 3 May 2011)

[3] Webster, Richard J. Philadelphia Preserved: Catalog of the Historic American Buildings Survey. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1976. pp. 108-109.