Thirty-three rooms, four fireplaces, and 71/2 baths fill sprawling Gittings Ha Ha, seen here from the air. Land records of the 1750s indicate that Amey Holland owned a log cabin on the site, which William Washington Brown expanded into a modest farmhouse in the late 1700s. Today's spacious and landscaped home was designed by owner Henry L. Breuninger in the 1930s. The estate's name stems in part from Thomas Gittings, who obtained the land patent. The Ha Ha? Apparently no evidence exists of the traditional sunken fence, but one speculation holds that in the course of frequent revels, tipsy guests would attempt to walk a brick wall behind the house and invariably fall off, provoking laughter from watchers.

Edward Peirce built Riverton before building Fairfield, probably just before sailing off in the 1849 California gold rush. His parents Joshua and Hannah had lived in a log cabin on the site in "this land of hills" since 1822. Here their barn burned in 1841, leading to formation of the Mutual Insurance Company. Pierre DuPont's famed Longwood Gardens in Pennsylvania occupy the original Peirce farm in Chester County. In 1860 Riverton was purchased by the Janneys, who lived there for nearly three-quarters of a century. It passed then to the Leishears and in 1955 to Mary and Roger Brooke Farquhar III. Today it is owned by Tim and Sally Eller.