Zane Grey House: Cultural Landscapes Inventory, Upper Delaware Scenic and Recreational River
NPS Northeast Regional Office, Killion J, Brown M, Foulds E. 2025. Zane Grey House: Cultural Landscapes Inventory, Upper Delaware Scenic and Recreational River. Cultural Landscapes Inventory Report. 300090. National Park Service. NPS Northeast Regional Office, Boston, Massachusetts / CRIS-CL Database
The Zane Grey House property is located in northeastern Pennsylvania in the township of Lackawaxen, a rural community situated at the confluence of the Delaware and Lackawaxen Rivers. The site preserves the home and grounds of American writer Zane Grey (1872-1939), author of Riders of the Purple Sage (1912) and other popular adventure novels and stories that were a basis for the Western genre in literature and the arts. The site is part of the Upper Delaware Scenic and Recreational River, a unit of the National Park Service established in 1978 to conserve, protect, and interpret 73.4 miles of the river and its outstanding natural and cultural resources. The Zane Grey House property was originally a small farmstead in the late nineteenth century, and beginning in 1904 was expanded and improved into a private retreat by Zane Grey and his extended family. The site retains four acres of the former six-acre residential compound, including the Zane Grey house, which is now used as a museum and park offices. The two-story dwelling was constructed on a small rise above Scenic Drive by Grey’s brother, Romer, in 1906 and purchased by Zane in 1914. The house and its broad covered front porch overlooks the Delaware River, but views of the Lackawaxen River to the north are mostly obscured by vegetative growth on the site and along the river bank. Smaller houses and outbuildings are scattered to the west of the house amongst orchard trees, stands of sugar maples and white pines, and ornamental shrubs. There are also large areas of mowed lawn that once supported vegetable gardens, a pasture for horses and a cow, and clay tennis courts. The property is bounded by a line of mature trees and smaller shrubs on the north, by Scenic Drive and the Delaware River on the east, the remnants of a wooden-post-and-wire fence on the south, and a steep railroad embankment on the west. The former Grey lands to the north and northeast are owned by the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission and include well-used parking areas and a boat launch.
- Type
- Published Report
- Authors
- NPS Northeast Regional Office; Killion, Jeff; Brown, Margie; Foulds, Eliot
- Date of Issue
- 2025
- Publisher
- National Park Service
- Units
- UPDE
- Keywords
- Big House, Expressing Cultural Values, Farm (Plantation), Historic Furnished Interior, Historic Site, Leisure-Passive (Park), Literature, Museum (Curatorial) Storage, Novel, Outdoor Recreation, Single Family House, Vernacular Landscape, View, Zane Grey Inn, Zane Grey Museum