Visit with an eccentric millionaire

If you were a gentleman in the early 20th century who inherited a fortune, what would you do? Perhaps build a castle out of hand-mixed concrete and hand-painted tiles? Or create a museum about early American tools? These were the rather bizarre ways Henry Mercer of Bucks County, PA chose to spend his money and free time.


A few friends and I drove out to Doylestown to see Mercer's house and museum. We were absolutely overwhelmed by how quirky this guy must have been. He started a tileworks and collected tiles from around the world, many of which he built into the walls of the concrete castle he designed and built. There were cuneiform tablets from ancient Iraq embedded into one concrete column and Chinese ceiling tiles from centuries ago overhanging a stairway. There were no hallways, just one strange little room leading to the next.

Along with tiles, Mercer was also obsessed with tools. He had a broad definition of what a "tool" was and had a whole taxonomy of classifying tools. The museum, with 6 stories winding around a massive central atrium, is organized around this system. There are tools for butter churning, tools of transportation--hence the boats and carriages suspended from the rafters--tools for heating, and tools for punishment, to name a few. That last category included a room which you enter only to find yourself underneath a gallows.


In some ways, it's a curator's dream--a collection already organized and catalogued. Mercer kept meticulous records of each of his objects, even (unfortunately) writing the number he assigned the object on the object itself. But more than a museum, the place feels like an attic full of treasures.