Mansions Along The DelawareSM
Group Tours
Luxury over Time

Visit the country estates of Andalusia, Glen Foerd, Pennsbury Manor and Grundy Mansion (available upon request). An elegant bus tour with step on guide (dressed in period costume) will accompany you on your journey as you tour three centuries of gracious living.

Group Tour packages are as follows:

Andalusia, Glen Foerd, and Pennsbury Manor with lunch in the formal dining area at
Glen Foerd (hot buffet): $50.00 per person with a minimum of 25 people.
Tour lasts approximately 7 hours.

Andalusia, Grundy Mansion, and Pennsbury Manor with lunch at a local establishment:
$45.00 per person with a minimum of 12 people.
Tour lasts approximately 7 hours.

Call 215-946-0400 for additional details.

From the time of William Penn through the turn of the 20th century, many of Philadelphia's first families built their country estates on the banks of the Delaware River. By river barge or carriage they came to escape the heat of summers in the city and it was here that they entertained some of the foremost figures in the history of our nation.

When you visit Andalusia, privately owned by the seventh generation of one of Philadelphia's first families, you share in the hospitality enjoyed by illustrious guests from more than 150 years. President John Quincy Adams, Daniel Webster, the Marquis de Lafayette, and Joseph Bonaparte, former King of Spain, were entertained by Nicholas Biddle, the young nations most powerful banker, a poet and editor, architectural authority, experimental farmer, and adversary of president Andrew Jackson. Begun in 1797, and expanded in 1806 and 1835 by two of America's most acclaimed architects - Benjamin H. Larobe and Thomas U. Water - Andalusia is perhaps the finest example of Greek Revival domestic architecture in the United States. American and European furnishings, many of them owned by Biddle himself, fill the sumptuous mansion. From its columned porch you will survey the Delaware River, then explore the park-like ground, carefully maintained in the 19th-century tradition. Biddle's romantic out-buildings - a Gothic grotto and temple-like billiard room - will delight you. Within the walls of the rose garden you will see where Biddle conducted his many agricultural experiments. In its grounds, buildings, and furnishings, Andalusia captures the genius of its best-known owner and reflects the elegance of 19th century life.

Glen Foerd on the Delaware, listed on the National Register of Historic Places, was built circa 1853 by Charles Macalester as an Italiante riverfront house in the country. Charles Macalester, founder of the village of Torresdale, was a financier and advisor to eight U.S. Presidents from Andrew Jackson through Ulysses S. Grant.

In 1893 Glen Foerd became the home of Robert H. Foerderer, owner of a major Philadelphia leather tanning plant and U.S. Congressman. Mr. Foerderer enlarged the house in 1902-1903 and transformed it into an Edwardian Classical Revival country home. The transformation included the expansion of the grounds to an 18 acre estate landscaped in the English park tradition. The planned natural landscape was accented with a formal rose garden and a terrace with beds of colorful flowering plants.

Interior architectural features of the house included an art gallery, Haskell player pipe organ, grand staircase, stained glass Tiffany style dome, parquet floors, ornamental plaster ceilings, and rathskellar. The collection includes paintings, prints, oriental rugs, antique furniture, rare books, and objects d'art.

The entire estate, including the mansion and its contents, carriage house, gate house, cottage, garden house, water tower, tennis court, and lily pond, was bequeathed to the community in 1972.

Travel back with our costumed guides nearly 100 years before the American Revolution, when Quaker William Penn, founder of Pennsylvania and planner of the city of Philadelphia, made peace with the Indians and began his "Holy Experiment" on the principles of religious freedom. At Pennsbury Manor, Penn's country plantation, you will tour his elegantly reconstructed manor house, built originally in 1683, and furnished today with one of the finest collections of 17th century furniture in America. In our bake and brew house, blacksmith and joiner's shops, and other plantation buildings, you will learn how servants helped sustain this grand lifestyle. A full-scale replica of Pen's river barge and a host of farm animals, similar to those owned by Penn, awaits your visit. With blossoming orchards, flower and herb gardens, and lofty shade trees, the 43 acres of Pennsbury Manor have been carefully restored to reflect Penn's passion for the farming life. They recreate, for your enjoyment, the serenity and beauty of life on the Delaware three centuries ago.

Grundy Mansion was built in 1834, this elegant red-brick and brownstone house located on the banks of the Delaware River was home to a prosperous merchant family for more than three-quarters of a century.

The house, complete with finely carved oak and cherry paneling, stained glass, and the Grundy family's original furnishings and personal possessions purchased in America and abroad, offers a rare and intimate glimpse of domestic life during the pivotal era of the 19th century when Bristol Borough - Bucks County’s oldest town - was a thriving river town and the location of the country’s most popular health spa.