Pennsylvania German Stone House

Pennsylvania German stone houses are farmhouses built of local sandstone, limestone and rubblestone (uncut stone laid in rough courses) by German-speaking settlers in southeastern Pennsylvania during the 1700s. Early examples have one and a half stories, a steeply pitched roof, a central chimney and small windows set asymmetrically. Many follow a German three-room plan arranged around a central fireplace, with one room heated by a stove. Later houses adopted the symmetrical Georgian front while keeping stone walls.

The Hans Herr House in Willow Street (1719) has a date stone in its door lintel. The Conrad Weiser Homestead near Womelsdorf (1729) is limestone, and Henry Antes built a rubblestone house in Perkiomenville in 1736. The Keim Homestead near Lobachsville (1753) is a two-and-a-half-story limestone house. The Peter Wentz Homestead in Worcester (1758) has a Georgian front with a central passageway. Georgian houses have symmetrical fronts with sash windows in even rows; the earlier German houses place small windows irregularly and are built around the fireplace.

German-speaking settlement in Pennsylvania began in 1683, when Francis Daniel Pastorius led settlers in founding Germantown, now part of Philadelphia. Major settlement followed through the 18th century. The Hans Herr House, built in 1719 in what is now Lancaster County, is described as the oldest dwelling in the county. Settlers also popularized the bank barn, built into a slope or earth bank so both levels can be entered from the ground, which became the most common barn type in the region.

Stone houses followed through mid-century: the Conrad Weiser Homestead (1729), the Henry Antes House (1736) and the Keim Homestead (1753). Later houses such as the Peter Wentz Homestead (1758) adopted Georgian designs. Sally McMurry's Architecture and Landscape of the Pennsylvania Germans, 1720-1920 is a scholarly study of the tradition. The Conrad Weiser Homestead became a National Historic Landmark in 1960, the Antes House in 1992 and the Keim Homestead in 2016. The Lancaster Mennonite Historical Society bought the Hans Herr House in 1969 and opened it as a museum in 1974.