Henry Antes House

Antes was a German renaissance man whose early career included the design and supervision of the mills and buildings of Moravian Bethlehem. For his own rubble stone house, he continued building practices brought from Germany with a three-room plan (two small, one large) around a central chimney core. Small windows, placed to serve the internal spaces rather than to suit an exterior design, and the tall roof containing two stories lighted by tiny end windows are hallmarks of its roots in the cold climate of northern Europe. Antes established a Moravian school in the house that continued the nonsectarian values of William Penn. The local Goschenhoppen Historians, Inc., have begun a restoration because it is among the best preserved of the early German houses of the state and offers a clear commentary on German building practice.