Welcome to the Archives of the Paul Rudolph Heritage Foundation. The purpose of this online database is to function as a tool for scholars, students, architects, preservationists, journalists and other interested parties. The archive consists of photographs, slides, articles and publications from Rudolph’s lifetime; physical drawings and models; personal photos and memorabilia; and contemporary photographs and articles.

Unless otherwise noted, all images and drawings are copyright © The Estate of Paul Rudolph and The Paul Rudolph Heritage Foundation. Please speak with a representative of the Paul Rudolph Heritage Foundation to get permission to use any drawings or photos. Drawings, sketches and other materials produced by Rudolph’s architectural office at the Library of Congress are maintained there for preservation, but the intellectual property rights belong to the Paul Rudolph Estate and Ernst Wagner, founder of the Paul Rudolph Heritage Foundation.

LOCATION
Address: 372 Brownsburg Road
City: Newtown
State: Pennsylvania
Zip Code: 18940
Nation: United States

STATUS
Type: Residence
Status: Built

TECHNICAL DATA
Date(s): 1959
Site Area: 25.5 acres; 1,110,780 ft² (103,194.8 m²)
Floor Area: 3,550 ft² (329.8 m²)
Height:
Floors (Above Ground): 2
Building Cost:

PROFESSIONAL TEAM
Client: John P. Fullam (1921-2018) & Alice Freiheit Fullam (1926-2016)
Architect: Paul Rudolph (1918-1997)
Rudolph Staff: Royston Landau (1927-2001); Visvaldis Paukulis (1923-); Bryan Becker
Associate Architect:
Landscape:
Structural:
MEP: Symmes, Maini & Hryniewicz
QS/PM:

SUPPLIERS
Contractor:
Subcontractor(s):

Fullam Residence

The project is to design a home for John P. Fullam and his wife Alice (Freiheit) Fullam. Having met in 1946, they are married in 1950. John Fullam meets Paul Rudolph while attending Harvard Law School and Alice was active in the arts at Radcliffe College while Rudolph is studying at the Harvard Graduate School of Design.
The Fullams invite Rudolph to visit them in Pennsylvania and Rudolph sends them a thank you letter on March 21, 1957. purchase the property around April 26, 1957. Ten years after meeting, the Fullams' commission Rudolph to design a modern home for them.
The two-story house is sited on a steep hillside and designed as a 3-bay structure composed of local Pennsylvania stone with a wall of windows on the southwestern façade. The stone, originally intended to be 36” thick poured-in-place concrete interlocking forms, matches the material used to build farmhouses and barns in the vicinity.
Rudolph presents a concept rendering of the house to the Fullams in early 1957. This drawing hangs on the wall of the Fullams’ bedroom for the duration that they lived in the house (1958-2007).
The original design for the house includes a garage parallel to the house along with a spring house (both constructed of stone with roofs mimicking the main house). These out buildings moved over the course of the design due to a request by the Fullams that the design preserve a Beech tree on the property where they had carved their initials and a heart into the tree trunk when they bought the property. To save the tree, Rudolph rotated the location of the main house causing the garage to no longer be parallel with it.
Construction drawings for the house are prepared in 1958.
Bids for construction go out in 1958.
Two bays of the proposed design (the northwesterly and central bays) are constructed between 1958-1959. In order to save on the cost of construction, Mr. Fullam does some of the stonework himself.
The clients ask Paul Rudolph not to publish or publicize the project. Mr. Rudolph respects the client’s wishes, and the house is relatively unknown until the Fullam family allows it to be recognized in 2006 following concern over the destruction of several Rudolph projects.
On August 29, 1966 Mr. Fullam is sworn in as a federal district judge in Philadelphia after being appointed by President Johnson. When asked if he was going to move out of Bucks County, PA by Paul Altaire, a reporter at the Bucks County Times newspaper, he replies, “certainly not - not after all the work I put into building this house by myself.”
The Fullams live in the house from 1959 until 2007.
On December 18, 2007 the house is sold to Linda Richardson.
Plumbing and electrical upgrades are made to the house in 2007-2008, mostly to bring the mechanical systems up to code.
On April 03, 2014 the house is sold to Eric Wolff.
From 2015-2016, the third bay is constructed to Rudolph’s original design, matching Rudolph’s specifications on the materials, techniques and dimensions, with minor deviations to the design to reflect changes in the building code.