A private gardens open to the public and managed by a little old lady doesn't sound like something that would last, but I wish it had. When I was about 6, I recall visiting Swiss Pines near Phoenixville. I remember a winding road with trees on both sides. Then a pulloff and a Japanese gate across the road.
There were paths lined by bamboo that led to little private gardens with koi and or rocks and tea houses.
I also remember a mansion on a hill with azaleas and rhododendrons all around it. There was only one lone gardener in the midst of it all.
The last time I visited Swiss Pines, I was about 14, and it seemed a little run down, but still there. Still open to the public, and by the looks of the clientele, still loved by the upper classes.
Today my boyfriend and I decided to find Swiss Pines. I didn't really know where it was when I was younger, but when I asked my father, he pulled an old, yellowing pamphlet out of the drawer that had a crude map from a time when the Phoenixville area was less developed.
It gave me a general idea of where it was and after googleing it I found a few references. The most recent was this entry on an unofficial Charlestown Web site.
It was last updated in 2003, but I believe the picture may be much older. There are too many trees, even in spring, throwing shadows on the gate for it to be new.
Swiss Pines is on Charlestown Road, known as Route 113. You drive past Valley Forge Christian College and Cat-Pickering, the Chester County/Phoenixville area technical school where I learned how to ride a motorcycle. We drove (I on my scooter, Ed on his motobike) and the road became more rural and windy, but the traffic certainly didn't slow down. After some harrowing turns at the tops of hills I saw the old pull off to the right of me (heading south) but didn't have time to stop for fear of a truck slamming into the back of me. (That section of 113 REALLY shouldn't have trucks on it).
After a quick, and rather deadly, turnaround and an attempt to go back, I realized it was shut down. The gate was locked up and there was a rope across the old parking lot. I didn't have a chance to stop, but my boyfriend saw it in time to pull off and said there were signs everywhere saying "No Trespassing" and "Area under surveillance."
From what I could see through the fence as I drove by was an overgrown area with smashed pots and toppled statues. It was sad.
The bamboo was still growing profusely along the fence, shielding any more of a view. I stopped at the Charlestown General Store (an old empty, but well-kept building a short ways down the road) and wondered what would become of it.
Ed said there was a row of mailboxes outside, as if the place now housed tenants. Is that what has become of the old mansion? Has it been broken up into apartments with the gardens left to become overgrown? It was very sad. What will happen to Swiss Pines?
It was originally created and developed by Arnold Bartschi, who is credited with saving Charlestown Township and working with the French and Pickering Creek Conservation Trust to preserve the natural area. Swiss Pines was built upon the old Llewelyn Estates.
Bartschi also preserved that still beautiful general store as well as a 55-acre farm on the same road.
With all that still in good shape, it would be a shame to see a gem such as Swiss Pines be lost.
I began looking for anything else about this garden and found pictures on a flickr account from 2008. So I'm not sure what to make of it.
