"That a house may be built, materials must first be provided, the foundation laid, and the walls erected; and so finally it is inhabited. The good of a house is the dwelling in it."

Carved on the teakwood beams of the entrance hall in Glencairn are these words from The Doctrine of Charity, one of the theological works of Emanuel Swedenborg on which the New Church is founded upon. These are self-evident words, and applicable to any home. But in Glencairn the providing of materials, the laying of its spiritual as well as physical foundations, its erection through twelve creative years - these form a unique picture of purpose and fulfillment.

The story of Glencairn is manifold. To the architect its design embodies the strong beauty of Romanesque in a structure suited to modern needs and uses. To the student of building economy its history provides a striking departure from current methods of construction. To the artists it is a fitting repository for medieval treasures in sculpture and stained glass, as well as other artifacts of cultural history.

But "the good of a house is the dwelling in it." To those who have lived in Glencairn, and to their families and friends, it has been above all else a home - a center of family life and a focus for social, civic, and cultural uses reflective of the Lord's presence in His Second Coming. To this ideal all other aspects of Glencairn contribute; even the casual visitor senses the pervasive sphere of a religious faith, expressed in the integrity of its design and workmanship and in the symbolic decoration throughout the building.

The name Glencairn unites the family names of the builder and his wife, Raymond and Mildred Glenn Pitcairn. And like a family itself - they had nine children, whose names are carved around the arch above the entrance - the idea of Glencairn grew through years from a relatively small beginning: the concept of a studio to house a collection of medieval art gathered in support of the building of Bryn Athyn Cathedral.

Raymond's father, John Pitcairn, founder of Pittsburgh Plate Glass Company, and Mildred's father, Robert M. Glenn, were close friends and ardent followers of the teachings of the new Christianity established through Swedenborg. John had used his wealth to endow New Church schools and to start in the 1890s a church community north of Philadelphia which was to be named Bryn Athyn - "Hill of Cohesion" - and which became the episcopal seat of the General Church of the New Jerusalem. Raymond and Mildred spent their adolescent years in this religious community. Married in 1910, they settled in with Raymond's widowed father at Cairnwood, the home he had built for his family in Bryn Athyn, and which Raymond and Mildred were to make their home until Glencairn was completed in 1939.

In 1912 plans were laid for a suitable house of worship for the growing congregation. As an active young leader in the community and by virtue of his interests and abilities in the fields of art and architecture, Raymond was drawn into this creative endeavor; and by 1914 he had given up active practice as a lawyer in Philadelphia to devote his time and energies to the design and building of Bryn Athyn Cathedral, for which he took on the full responsibility.

This did not at all signal a withdrawal from other uses in Raymond's life. In addition to a remarkable breadth of leadership in many fields associated with Glencairn, to be noted in these pages, he was an outstanding business executive. Upon John Pitcairn's death in 1916 Raymond was elected to serve in his father's place as a director of Pittsburgh Plate Glass Company, and filled that position with distinction for fifty years. He also incorporated a family company and served as its president for four decades. An associate recalls that "as a businessman, Raymond was an unparalleled motivator of people. He respected each individual employee, while setting high standards and clear expectations." A resolution of the Pittsburgh Plate Glass board of directors on his retirement in 1965 cited his leadership thus: "Lawyer, architect, statesman, and businessman, Raymond Pitcairn has brought to the deliberations of the Board of Directors lofty inspiration, perceptive judgement, and unflagging confidence in the future ... a resolute determination and a deep sense of justice.

"These qualities formed the foundation stones that Raymond brought to his new vocation of architect in 1914, principles that made Bryn Athyn cathedral a place of surpassing beauty and nobility. They may be summed up in the word "integrity": wholeness, loyalty to truth, and honesty of workmanship. The cathedral was to reflect these in its organic design, the freedom of artists and artisans to develop their own ideas, and the centering of the work on the site. All of this results in the opposite of mass production, in which structural materials are prepared in a factory according to set specifications and shipped for placement in a predetermined structure. The organization developed in the building of Bryn Athyn Cathedral called forth painstaking creativity on the part of each worker within the limits of his skills, and hence a strong esprit de corps.

Grouped around the rising cathedral a short distance from the future site of Glencairn were shops for the working of stone, wood, metal, and stained glass, together with an architectural studio and modeling shop. Here were gathered more than a hundred men, designer and draftsmen, artists, craftsmen, and laborers whose common purpose was the erection of a church which would embody, as one visiting architect put it, "the same exquisite detail, the same unerring sense of beauty as the great cathedrals" of the Middle Ages.

In 1916 Raymond Pitcairn had begun collecting medieval sculpture and stained glass in order to provide inspirational examples for the artists and craftsmen working on Bryn Athyn Cathedral. By the mid-1920s he had gathered a collection of remarkable quality. And now a new challenge lay before him - provision of a setting worthy of its beauty and religious significance.

A letter written in 1922 to his brother Theo contains perhaps the first reference to what would become Glencairn: "I should like to incorporate my little collection into a studio which would be a Romanesque or early Gothic room or small building." Then he added, characteristically, "But after all, the more important work is the production of something new. The collector's work is interesting, but it is far easier than productive work."

What he first thought of as "a small building" to house an art collection became the splendid realization of far deeper purposes and loves. As a member of the Church of the New Jerusalem, which is founded on a revelation through Emanuel Swedenborg of the internal or spiritual meaning of the Old and New Testaments and of religious doctrines appealing to rational understanding, Raymond accepted the Lord's words, "Behold I make all things new," as a promise to be fulfilled in all of life's activities.

On the face of the teakwood beam above the fireplace in the great hall at Glencairn are carved these words from Psalm 127:
"Except the Lord build the house,
They labour in vain that build it.
Except the Lord keep the city,
The watchman waketh in vain."

In the revelation to the New Church it is taught that the house referred to is that of man's mind, his spiritual home to eternity. But it is also true on the physical plane. None of the materials constituting a structure can be created by man, though he may combine them into new forms such as glass or concrete; he must find them in nature, placed there by the Lord for human use. Nor is man's use of them really his own; the natural laws which the architect and builder must obey are Divine laws operating for man's use and protection.

So it was that when Emanuel Swedenborg viewed in heaven the magnificent dwellings of angels, he was told, "The things that you see were not fashioned and wrought by any angelic hand, but were formed by the Builder of the universe... Here, therefore, architecture is in its perfection, and from it are derived all the rules of that art in the word." (True Christian Religion 740).

The mansions of heaven are spiritual homes, and no architect can hope to emulate in the materials of this world their intrinsic beauty. Yet he can, in recognition of uses to be housed, align his plans with spiritual values, thus determining the size and style of his structure, the arrangement of its parts, the provision for all essential functions in the life of its dwellers, and the decorative features that give it beauty and variety. The ideal architect of a home is the husband and father.

Such cannot often be the case in practical reality. Yet in the building of Glencairn the ideal was realized - Raymond PitcairnÍs long-cherished dream of providing for his wife Mildred and his children a home that would be a living center of family life, a home that would declare the presence of the Lord among them, so that its building might not be in vain.

While summering in the Catskills in 1927 Raymond had shaped a little block model, on a 1/16th-inch scale, of the home he envisioned. In 1929, with the cathedral essentially completed, the men who had built it were asked to turn their efforts to the new project. That winter the Great Depression struck; digging was abandoned and the foundation hole partially filled in. But for the sake of the men who had worked on the cathedral so well and for so long, and out of the compelling strength of his purpose, Raymond reopened the project. Over the next decade it grew slowly and steadily; in December 1938 the building was dedicated, and soon afterward the Pitcairn family moved into Glencairn as their new home.