David B. Thayer is Executive Advisor at the Blackstone Group and the co-founder of Harvest Fund Advisors. He is the owner of “Watch Hill”, a late 1920s home in Flourtown, Pennsylvania, the subject of a history by Tradewinds History entitled The Castle: A Jazz Age Story of Fortune, Aspiration, and Forgotten Architectural Genius. A veteran of the U.S. Army National Guard, he served as captain of the First Troop Philadelphia City Cavalry, founded in 1774 and the oldest military unit in continuous service to the United States of America. He received his bachelor's degree from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, a master’s degree in international history from the London School of Economics, and his M.B.A. from the University of Chicago.
David Thayer (left) with William Whitaker, curator and collection manager of the Architectural Archives of the University of Pennsylvania Weitzman School of Design. In the dining room of “Watch Hill,” designed by Harry Sternfeld in 1929. Photograph by Steven Ujifusa.
Harry Sternfeld (1888-1976), architect of “Watch Hill” and professor at the University of Pennsylvania. A classically-trained designer trained in Penn’s famed “Beaux-Arts” tradition, by the 1920s he was a proponent of so-called “decorated modernism.” Not as famous as Louis Kahn or William Lightfoot Price, Sternfeld was known by his Philadelphia colleagues as “an architect’s architect” and “the human camera.” Born in Atlantic City, New Jersey, his family was originally Jewish but his father converted to Presbyterian and raised his children in that faith. He was a graduate of Central High School and received his undergraduate degree from the University of Pennsylvania’s architecture program. Among his design credits are “Chez Nous” in Lafayette Hill, the Germantown Jewish Centre, and the U.S. Courthouse and Post Office in Center City Philadelphia. The Architectural Archives, University of Pennsylvania, Harry Sternfeld Collection.
A detail of “Watch Hill,” originally built for bon vivant and Penn alumnus William N. Morice and his wife Mary. Photograph by Steven Ujifusa.
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