Charles Barton Keen Formal Garden

In 1901, Philadelphia Architect Charles Barton Keen designed Mather’s additions to the property including the Formal Gardens that were built over the area of Painter’s Carriage House. The stone columns and retaining wall carry the architectural details of an early Pennsylvania bank barn. The plantings brought a more formal asthetic to the gardens of the Mansion house. To your rear you will notice a series of three stone arches that lead into the lower level of the current club house. These arches were designed by Keen and Mead when the Forebay barn was converted from the Painter dairy barn into the stables for the stallions on the Brandywine Meadows Farm. The arches mirrored the original structural arches of the 19th century barn's foundation. After the disastrous barn fire in 1967 these arches remain as an original element from the turn of the century renovations.