J. Bertram Lippincott House (Meeresblick)

Apart from its lighthouse, Beaver Tail is, above all, associated with the Whartons and the Lippincotts, who, even since the sale of parcels for development in the 1980s, still own much of the peninsula. Meeresblick unites the two families—the daughter of the financier whose name is most notably associated with the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and the son of Philadelphia's distinguished publisher. This is a straightforward but beautifully crafted shingled Queen Anne house with tall gables and broad dormers lifted on a stone rubble lower story. Like most houses on Beaver Tail, it erupts from an island of mowed grass surrounded—almost assaulted—by a dense, tangled wall of shore foliage. The combination of German Meer, which translates alternatively as “bay” or “channel,” and Blick (view) nicely encompasses the composite panorama from this house. It is massed as an angled L (or perhaps a V) with a porch inside the letter shape looking up the bay, and one on the outside looking toward the East Channel. Ornamentation is minimal but telling. Bargeboards flare to S-curved terminations. The angled wing points to a more decidedly L-shaped carriage house with upstairs guest (perhaps once servant) quarters, reached by a circular, conical-capped stone entrance tower nestled into the right angle, with a loggia porch at the top. On either side of this cylinder, the L terminates in broad, shingled gables, one sailing out over a ground-level terrace supported on rustic stone columns. The upper sash of the second-story windows is divided into squares and rectangles; attic casements are diamond-paned. Gable peaks lift to slight knobs. A shingled windmill across the road was designed to pump water. Inside (not open to the public), quiet Queen Anne detail and paneling retain the restraint of the exterior.