In the news (again)
Happy new year!
US Airways started the year off right, announcing it was cutting fares up to 50% on flights to Harrisburg airport. (Harrisburg is about 45 minutes away, and is the closest major airport to Lancaster.) Some examples:
- $119 from Boston
- $128 from Hartford
- $223 from Phoenix
These are all one-way, advance purchase, excluding fees and taxes. This was described as a "permanent cut," not a sale. Hopefully the other airlines (Air Canada, American, Continental, Delta, Northwest, United) will follow suit. Harrisburg (airport code MDT) has non-stop flights from Atlanta, Boston, Charlotte, Chicago, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Dallas, Detroit, Pittsburgh, Toronto, and Washington DC, with connecting flights to everywhere else. It's also a very nice airport, clean and uncrowded; a far cry from Philadelphia.
You should also check out our new "directions" page, which makes it easier than ever to get to Lancaster.
In other news (literally), I just found out we were featured in the local newspaper two weeks ago. It's a nice article about all the antiques that were restored. It's great when you can save a house, but when you can save a house *and* all of its contents, that's really cool. (By the way, Dawn neglects to mention she was never allowed to touch the furniture when her grandmother was alive, and was once thrown out of the house for playing with the ice dispenser on the refrigerator.)
Some errata:
- Anne Coleman (conflicting sources put it as both "Ann" and "Anne") did live in the mansion as a child, and met Robert Coleman when her father invited the young clerk to live with them. (Coleman had arrived a penniless immigrant just a few years before that.) When Robert and Anne married, they moved out.
- In 1784, Robert purchased the property from his then-father-in-law, who had already moved to Reading, but they did not move in. Instead, they ended up at Elizabeth furnace, which Stiegel had already built. (Coleman added a wing, and it is now known as the Coleman-Stiegel mansion.)
- There was no Lake View Drive in 1941 -- it wasn't until the 1960s that the state took some of the Darlington property and created the lake. They were driving down Speedwell Forge Rd which, I don't think, even had a name at that time. (All of the mail was addressed to "Rural Route 2.")
- The 1930s piano we bought in Los Angeles and moved to Pennsylvania. Even though Dawn's grandparents called the front room the "music room," they didn't have any musical instruments. (They did have a cool vacuum-tube stereo that still works, but is currently in storage.) Ironically, the music room is now called the parlor, even though that's where the piano is.
- The clawfoot tub is definitely not antique--it's a whirlpool tub, for goodness sake! And most clawfoot tubs are five-feet long and so narrow they make you feel claustrophobic--this monster is six feet long and three feet wide!
Lancaster New Era (PA)
December 29, 2006
Grandma's house
Lovingly restored antiques and wonderful memories make this home-turned-B&B a family treasure.
Author: Laura Knowles, Correspondent
Section: A
Page: A7
Dateline: Lancaster, PA
WHEN DAWN DARLINGTON was ready to furnish the newly restored 1760 Speedwell Forge Bed & Breakfast with lovely antiques, she didn't have to go far.
"Most of the antiques and furniture were my grandmother's. They have been here in this house for many years," says Darlington.
In furnishing the bed and breakfast, Darlington even reproduced many of the same arrangements that her grandmother had used. Sofas and chairs in the living room are in the same places, arranged in much the same way.
The only difference is that Darlington had many of the pieces reupholstered and refinished, in some cases, to return them to the beauty that she recalled from her own childhood, when she spent many hours at Grandma's house.
Darlington's grandparents, Kathryn and Gerald Darlington, bought the historic sandstone mansion back in 1941. It seems that Kathryn was smitten with the place right from the start, when she first saw it as they were driving along Lake View Drive in Elizabeth Township.
The home had a rich and long history, dating back to 1760, when it was built by ironmaster James Old, whose daughter, Ann, married Robert Coleman, who had been his clerk.
The Darlingtons created their own history, when Gerald Darlington - who worked at Hamilton Watch Co. -surprised his wife with the elegant mansion as a gift. For years before that, it was the site of a dairy farm and a stock farm for race horses. When the Darlingtons bought it, the home became a quiet country retreat, where family dinners were served and the family sat on the back porch watching the birds from the Speedwell Forge wetlands.
Kathryn Darlington was widowed in 1972, and spent the next 14 years living alone in the house until her death in 1986.
"I loved it here. I used to always say I wanted to live in Grandma's house someday," says Darlington, who is the daughter of Barbara and the late Bill Darlington.
She had her chance, when she and her husband, Gregg Hesling, moved from California to Elizabeth Township and embarked on restoring the family home to its previous glory. Not only would they live there, but Darlington decided to turn it into a bed and breakfast inn, to help fund all the restoration needed.
"You wouldn't believe what this looked like when we started. It was overwhelming," says Darlington, adding that the house had been vacant since 1986, and had since become home to squirrels, mice and birds.
It took 18 months to add a new slate roof, paint the hand-carved woodwork, refinish the wood floors and transform it into a home for Darlington, her family and their guests. In each room there are memories of Kathryn Darlington, thanks to the antiques and furnishings that Dawn Darlington has so lovingly restored.
In the front living room or parlor, her grandmother's antique bone china fills the built-in corner cupboard. Most of the pieces were made in England and include Royal Imperial, Tuscan, Adderly and other patterns. Antique chairs and tables fill the room, along with steam radiators from 1874. The radiators utilize steam to heat the rooms, with water heated to a steamy 212 degrees.
There is a piano from the 1930s and a crystal chandelier that was so coated with dirt and grime that it was almost thrown away.
The grand Georgian-style foyer features several especially notable antique pieces, including an exquisite 1904 clock with a gold filigree design and large numbers on the face. The clock was made by Breitinger & Sons of Philadelphia and still works, powered by weights that slowly fall.
A hand-blown art glass oil lamp from the late 1800s or early 1900s shimmers in cool shades of blue with a circular pattern. The oil lamp was converted into an electric lamp in the 1940s and still sports the pulley system that was used to drop the snuffer on the flame when it was time to turn out the lights.
Upstairs, more of Grandma's antiques adorn the home. An antique sleigh bed is used in the innkeepers' room to the rear of the house. The bedroom that was once Kathryn Darlington's at the front of the inn is now a guest room, accented with a canopy bed, dressers and chairs that were there many years ago.
One of the most intriguing antiques is not movable at all. Wallpaper hangers created their own little record of the home's history. W.A. Gantz recorded the date that he had first wallpapered the room: June 30, 1902. Then the room was wallpapered again on Dec. 10, 1947, by Harvey O. Eberly, who wrote on the wall under his workmanship. On Feb. 10, 1964, H.O. Eberly made his mark next to the second signing. The weather was even recorded as "Fair and cold."
"When we found this, we decided to preserve it," said Darlington, who had it framed. It is now a permanent work of art on the wall of Grandma's room.
Speedwell Forge B&B is filled with many other antique treasures, such as clawfoot bathtubs, antique vanities, bookcases, a Pennsylvania German shrank and a dining room table with chairs.
The home itself is an architectural treasure, listed on the National Register of Historic Homes. Located at an iron forge known as Speedwell Forge, its history goes back to James Old and his son-in-law, Robert Coleman, who made a fortune casting iron chain links, cannon balls and other iron items. They built the mansion, which blended Georgian and Federal styles.
It is doubtful than Ann Old Coleman ever lived in the mansion. Her husband built the Coleman mansion further north at Elizabeth Furnace for his family after Henry William "Baron" Stiegel, founder of Manheim, Charming Forge and Stiegel Glass, lost his fortune and became Coleman's employee.
Darlington thinks that the home's history has much to offer as a bed and breakfast inn. With three guest rooms and two private cottages - one is the paymaster's cottage - guests enjoy a three-course breakfast, the natural setting at Speedwell Forge Lake, the adjacent wolf refuge started by Darlington's father and the warm hospitality of Grandma's house.
"I love knowing that the antiques and furniture my grandmother had are still here, making people feel as welcome as I always did," says Darlington.
Clockwise from left: An antique ceiling lamp, radiator and foot locker are among the family heirlooms Dawn Darlington used to decorate Speedwell Forge Bed and Breakfast. Photos by Marty Heisey
All content (c) 2006 Lancaster Newspapers Inc. and may not be republished without permission.
And finally, we're celebrating black history month in February by giving away two free tickets to "Living the Experience," an amazing hands-on re-enactment of the Underground Railroad. Just stay two nights, including a Friday or Saturday, and the tickets are yours. These tickets are $23 each so this is a great deal, and I hope people will take advantage of this offer because Living the Experience is definitely worthwhile, no matter what your background. The tour is only offered Saturdays at 1pm. Sometimes they host a southern BBQ afterwards, for $11. More info here:
