Clothiers gather at historic family home in Riverton

By midafternoon on a recent spring Sunday, about 40 visitors were cascading through the stately Riverton home of Mary Louise Bianco-Smith and Ken Smith.

This was a "house tour" of a most unusual sort.

The Smiths had invited over several generations of Clothiers. Yes, those Clothiers - descendants of Caleb Clothier and his son Isaac, the cofounder with Justus Clayton Strawbridge of Philadelphia's Strawbridge & Clothier department stores.

"We knew that most of them had never seen the home, and when I was contacted by a family member, I was happy to arrange this visit," said Mary Louise. "It's a wonderful house, and we're in some ways just the custodians of its history."

The house, built for Caleb Clothier, is one of a colony of 10 formed in the mid-1800s by Clothier and nine other Quaker businessmen - including Robert and William Biddle and Rodman Wharton. They got together to stake out summer homes in what would become the country's first planned residential subdivision. Riverton was far enough from Philadelphia to provide a sanctuary, and close enough to be convenient.

Designed by Samuel Sloan, a prominent architect at the time, the homes were situated on the banks of the Delaware. By 1865, the Riverton Yacht Club, now one of the oldest in the country, had been created.

Among the town's landmarks are the rose window in Christ Episcopal Church, designed by Louis C. Tiffany himself, and the town's tiny library, still housed in a carpenter-style cottage. The Smiths' 1851 Greek Revival is on one end of the colony, with perfect views of the river and the yacht club.

"This is a wonderful town and a wonderful house," said attorney Isaac H. Clothier IV of Bryn Mawr, a fourth-generation descendant known as "Quartie" in the family. "Being here is a very special experience."

Another fourth-generation member of the clan, Robert Taylor of Philadelphia, the person who had contacted Bianco-Smith to arrange the "homecoming," had brought with him several Clothier family heirlooms, including a Clothier wedding dress, to reconnect new generations with the old.

There also was the large music box on display in the Smiths' 30-foot living room (decorated with antiques lovingly collected by Mary Louise and Ken since they moved into the home in 2005), which was carried back from a grand tour of Europe by Isaac and Mary Clothier in 1885 for their Wynnewood home. Operated by three cylinders, it delivered a sweet bell concert.