HAMMERSTEIN HOME: Tours continue through August at Highland Farm in Doylestown, Pa., the former residence of renowned lyricist Oscar Hammerstein II where many of his popular musicals were written. (Photo courtesy of Oscar Hammerstein Museum and Theatre Education Center)

By Wendy Greenberg

A year ago, on August 1, 2023, the Oscar Hammerstein Museum and Theatre Education Center (OHMTEC) announced a gift that would allow the nonprofit to secure Highland Farm, the Bucks County, Pa., residence of renowned lyricist Oscar Hammerstein II.

The long-awaited purchase of Highland Farm, Hammerstein’s home for 20 years, where beloved musicals like Oklahoma! and The Sound of Music were written, was completed in December 2023, and now the nonprofit organization has invited the public to visit the rooms where those and other musicals were written.

Summer tours continue through August on Fridays at 11 a.m. and Sundays at 3 p.m. Visitors to the red farmhouse, which was originally white, can stroll the grounds, see the swimming pool — the first inground pool in Bucks County — and navigate the two staircases to see Hammerstein and his wife Dorothy’s bedroom, Hammerstein’s study, guest rooms, and see the iconic curved balcony porch (not secure enough yet for visitors).

They can look out the windows and see the view that inspired Hammerstein to write the lyrics, “Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin’” (from Oklahoma!) and stroll the grounds of the modest Doylestown, Pa., home where “the big five” shows were written, said board member Christine Junker, who named Oklahoma!, Carousel, The King and I, The Sound of Music, and South Pacific (from a novel by another Doylestown resident, James Michener) as written at Highland Farm. Lyrics and most of the librettos (excluding the book for The Sound of Music) were penned by Hammerstein with music by Richard Rodgers, a collaborator and frequent Highland Farm guest.

They will see the guest bedroom where composer and lyricist Stephen Sondheim stayed. Sondheim, mentored by Hammerstein, was a friend of his son’s at George School in Newtown, Pa.

Oscar Greeley Clendenning Hammerstein II was born on July 12, 1895 in New York City. He studied at Columbia Law School, but left to pursue a love of theater. Over his career he contributed lyrics to more than 800 songs, including some of the most notable in American musical theater.

The Hammersteins moved into the house, once on 79 acres but now on five, in 1940 to get away from New York City during World War II, according to the tour information. They lived there for 20 years until Hammerstein’s death at the farm on August 23, 1960.

The mentoring Hammerstein did will be paid forward in the form of an educational center on the site of the barn, now in disrepair but set to be renovated. Plans call for a youth company, classes, mentorship and school programs, and writers’ retreats. The barn has its own interesting tale. The story goes, said Junker, that a previous owner ran a circus, and at one time had a baby elephant in the barn. This is fueled by the thicker than usual barn floor, and an elephant pond out front, and could have been the inspiration for the line in Oklahoma!, “The corn is as high as an elephant’s eye,” said a tour guide.

The property had been a bed and breakfast since 2007. The purchase was made possible by financial support from hundreds of individuals and organizations, including a grant from the Miranda Family Fund (the charitable foundation of playwright and composer Lin Manuel Miranda). The tipping point in the ability to purchase the property was a gift from the estate of philanthropist Ronald Franklin Pratt, a Georgia resident who was passionate about musical theater.

The tours have proven very popular, said Junker, who anticipates that tour dates will be added in the fall. In the meantime, as the summer tours sell out, the organization often adds another tour on the established days at different time, so interested persons should check the website at hammersteinmuseum.org/tourinfo.

The tours, at $15 a person, are an important source of fundraising. “There are a lot of expenses in maintaining a historic property,” said Junker. The goal for the home is to be able to restore it to the time period when Hammerstein lived there, and to develop the barn area education center.

But the main goal, said Junker, is to promote the Hammerstein legacy not only as a librettist and lyricist, but as a mentor and a humanitarian. Hammerstein, notes the website, “secretly wrote a speech for 1956 Democratic presidential candidate Adlai Stevenson,” and helped cofound writer Pearl S. Buck’s Welcome House adoption program in nearby Perkasie, Pa.

The late critic and theater writer Terry Teachout, as quoted by a board member on the website from a Wall Street Journal article from July 10, 2018, sums up the feeling he got from visiting the house a few years ago: “To stand … in the room where [Oscar Hammerstein] wrote the words to ‘Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin’’ is to know in your bones that for anyone who loves the American musical, the successful preservation of Highland Farm will be the worthiest of causes.”

Fall fundraising events will include more tours and a gala, to be announced on the hammersteinmuseum.org website. Donations are accepted on the website. For more information, email hammersteinmuseum@gmail.com.