The land was Paxson before it was a garden
The ground here was taken up in the late 1600s by Quaker settlers as part of a larger Paxson family holding, and the road out of New Hope still carries the name. The stone farmhouse went up in 1830 and the property worked as a farm until the end of the twentieth century, a single use held for the better part of two hundred years.
1997: a mound, a gazebo, a privet maze
David R. McShane bought the farm in 1997 and, with the horticulturist and garden designer Bruce Gangawer, began putting a garden onto a working field. The first move was the plainest one on the property: a raised mound capped by a gazebo, with a privet maze planted around its base.
Everything else grew outward from that point across the next twenty-seven years. Ponds stocked with koi and carp, linked by streams and waterfalls. A Japanese bridge painted black, and a stone one. A dwarf conifer garden. Gravel beds of Miscanthus and Pennisetum with sedges run through them. Sculpture placed where a path turns. Gangawer has hosted the Garden Conservancy's Open Days here since 2014 and serves as its regional ambassador for Bucks County.
The house
The 1830 stone core was extended from 2000 and now runs to 6,843 square feet. Vaulted ceilings over the gathering rooms, a dining room that seats twenty, a basement reinforced in steel, and heating and cooling drawn from the ground rather than a burner. The stone porch is enclosed and glazed, and it faces the water, which is where the house spends its afternoons.
Four parcels, held together
Behind the house: three one-bedroom guest cottages, each with its own kitchen and bath, a barn with concrete-floored horse stalls, a greenhouse with radiant heat in the floor, a five-car garage, reflection ponds, a bocce court and a pool.
On October 21, 2025 the Solebury Township Board of Supervisors bought a conservation easement over the 30.6 acres for $600,000. The four parcels cannot be subdivided. Whoever buys the house buys the whole view with it.
