Hammond-Harwood House

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Exterior view of the Hammond-Harwood House

Ornamental fireplace in the main salon

The Hammond-Harwood House in Annapolis, Maryland, U.S.A. is one of the premier colonial houses remaining in America from the British colonial period (1607-1776). It is the only existing work of colonial academic architecture that was principally designed from a plate in Andrea Palladio’s, I quattro libri dell’architettura, 1570, (The Four Books of Architecture). The house was designed by the architect, William Buckland in 1773-74 for wealthy farmer Matthias Hammond of Anne Arundel County, Maryland. It was modeled on the design of the Villa Pisani in Montagnana, Italy in Book II, Chapter XIV of I quattro libri dell’architettura.

[edit] History

Construction on the house began in, or around, April 1774 and a majority of the house was probably completed before the death of the architect in November or December of the same year. The patron Matthias Hammond probably never occupied his elegant house because he abruptly left Annapolis for his family's country estate in 1776. He died in 1786 after renting the house for many years.

The house passed to his nephews John and then Philip Hammond who eventually sold the house to Ninian Pinkney in 1810. Pinkney, however quickly sold the house to Judge Jeremiah Townley Chase in 1811. Judge Chase bought the house as a home for the family of his daughter Frances Townley Chase Loockerman. He was well acquainted with the house because he rented the northeast wing beginning in the late 1770s.

Judge Chase’s descendents lived in the house until the death of his great-granddaughter Hester Ann Harwood in 1924. Interestingly, Judge Chase’s granddaughter married William Harwood, the great-grandson of William Buckland the architect of the house.

Hester Ann Harwood died intestate and the house was sold in 1926 to St. John’s College. The College used the house as a teaching tool for one of America’s first courses taught on the decorative arts until financial necessity forced the college to sell to the Hammond-Harwood House Association in 1940. This non-profit corporation continues to own the house and uses it as a museum that is open to the public .

[edit] Architecture

The house ranks architecturally with many of the great mansions built in the late Colonial period; however, it is the only house directly inspired from a plate in Palladio’s, I quattro libri dell’architettura. It is arguably the most exquisite house remaining from the Colonial period in America.

The initial design of Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello was taken from the Villa Cornaro in Piombino Dese, Italy, in Book II, Chapter XV of I quattro libri dell’architettura, but this façade was later covered up by Jefferson’s own expansions to his house. Interestingly, Thomas Jefferson made two drawings of the Hammond-Harwood House when he served the government in Annapolis in 1783-4. One could assume that Jefferson recognized the house as derived from Palladio because his knowledge of The Four Books of Architecture was extensive. He referred to the book as his architectural “bible” and the plate of the Villa Cornaro follows the Villa Pisani plate; and directly opposite the Villa Cornaro in some 18th century English transcriptions of the work.