page_title: Sarah Logan Wister Starr
section_title: Homestead
hierarchical_section_title: Sarah Logan Wister Starr / Homestead
caption_attribution_description: English: Gate of James and Sarah Starr's "Chinese Garden" on their Belfield Estate.
context_page_description: Sarah Logan Wister Starr was a prominent member of Philadelphia society in the early 1900s and a dedicated humanitarian.
context_section_description: After her mother died in 1922, Sarah received ownership of the Belfield Estate, a Philadelphia homestead that had been passed down through the Wister family for years, and which had once been owned by the artist Charles Willson Peale.  Elizabeth's anger at not receiving Belfield led to a feud between the two sisters that lasted for 30 years, until the death of Sarah’s husband brought them partially back together.
  Sarah made several changes to the estate.  Telephone and electricity were added via underground wires, so as not to disturb the garden. Upon the opening of nearby 20th Street, a restraining wall 900 feet long and in some places 14 feet high was built to provide security and protection from heavy traffic and passersby. James added water and rock gardens. Sarah herself added a garden of 100 hybrid tea roses. After a trip to China in 1933, they reworked a section of the garden in Chinese style. “A plastered stone wall, separated by a tiny hip roof and an entrance to it is made through a large vase-shaped gate, on one side of which appears, in red, the Chinese characters which denote the year, month, and day of its erection.”  The garden also holds an orange and a lemon tree taken from the orangery of Butler Place when Owen Wister sold it.  Belfield Estate is now part of La Salle University’s campus.
caption: The Starr's "Chinese Garden" in 2010. The Chinese characters are still visible to the door's right.
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