ASHCOMBE

Last weekend I had gone to Ashcombe Market and Greenhouse to get some of my garden replacements such as the Cassia and the lovely Datura Ballerina plants. I always enjoy going there, and we have been using them since my paternal grandparents went there. The greenhouse offers quite a selection, and garden and bird supplies, but also offers up a small produce market, and homemade baked goods. They at one time even had their own dairy. The place got its named though from the lovely Victoria mansion of the same name. The Aschombe mansion sits atop a small hill all these years later like a well-heeled dowager from last century. I always enjoy seeing it. It is now a wedding venue. But I can recall when I was chosen to remodel a room back in 97 when the Harrisburg Symphony chose the location to have a fundraiser in the form of a Designer Showhouse in it.  I was nervous as it was the first big project for me being right out of schooling. I had gotten the Mrs. Writers Nook, Margarets library and where she did her writing. The inside of the house was just spectacular. The mansion originally served as the summer home for the mistress of the house Margaret Moser, widow of the Honorable Henry G Moser, an iron manufacturer, legislator and county judge. She babied the house and loved her gardens. The family was in it over 90 years. Once the family sold it and moved, Ashcombe's bought the house since they owned all the land leading up to the mansion, but didn't really use it for anything, lived in it briefly, which is how the Harrisburg Symphony committee decided to do a showhouse in it. Shortly after, it was used on NBC's short-lived comedy, Grand, then one Dr Stinckovic and his wife Mira bought it and it tuned into a Bed and Breakfast, who later sold it to the group that owns it now and did a 10 million renovation on it. It is now back in its glory days. The inside had gorgeous hardwood floors, winding Victorian era grand staircases, and many original stained-glass windows, not to mention restored original wallpapers paintings there were discovered all over the house when we did the designer showhouse. The stone facades and the intricate woodwork are a testament to the craftsmanship of the era in which it was built and we most likely will not see again. It rare there isn't something going on there, so I zipped in last week and took these exterior shots. Isn't it just gorgeous?