Around 1890, William Dayton Rosencrantz, his children William Dayton, Jr. and Mary Elizabeth, and his second wife Bessie posed in front of the well-house that provided water for the Rosencrantz family and for travelers on Franklin Turnpike. The well-house harmonized with the gabled roof and Gothic pointed arches of the 1847 Hermitage. Victorians felt that arches represented the loftier moral principles of an earlier day in contrast to the newly developing industrial society.