Malvern's Wharton Esherick Museum A Hidden Treasure Amidst The Pines

Deep in the wooded hillside overlooking the Pennsylvania Turnpike and Route 202 lies one of Chester County’s most unique and least-known cultural treasures.

The Wharton Esherick Museum, nestled along a narrow winding road called Horseshoe Trail, is surrounded by thick and dense forest, and in the full bloom of late springtime it is hard to distinguish the museum from the woods in which it is nestled.

Wharton Esherick was a innovative woodworker that has been called the “dean of American craftsmen,” according to the museum.

“His legacy lies not in establishing a style, his designs were too unique, but in pioneering the way for successive generations of artists working in wood to exhibit and market their original, non-traditional designs,” the museum notes on its website.

The museum, which was formerly Esherick’s estate, includes the much of his handiwork inside the original dwellings.

The interior of the buildings are like something out of the Swiss Family Robinson. Ornately carved railings, winding spiral staircases, and benches combined with bookcases adorn every room.

According to its history, Esherick picked the wooded Malvern hillside because of a particularly distinctive cherry tree he found on the property.

When the tree died, he used the wood to make the wall in the dining room of his home.

Tours of the museum are by reservation only.

Photo credit: Wharton Esherick Museum and James Mario.