Another Lynnewood Hall

During the late 19th and early 20th Centuries, the northeast and its countrysides were the playground for America's wealthy industrialists. From Newport's Breakers to Lynnewood Hall, the tycoons of the Industrial Revolution built the modern palaces of the United States. Unfortunately, like the countless castles erected across Europe centuries before the Vanderbilts and the Rockefellers were household names, some didn't survive and others have been left to nature. 

Nearby Philadelphia, Horace Trumbauer's Lynnewood Hall awaits uncertainty. Faced with politicos who've suggested razing the historic mansion for a shopping mall, a real estate market with no demand for a 70,000 square-foot fixer-upper, and no philanthropist stepping forward with heaps of cash, Lynnewood Hall may fall.

When I was a kid in rural Virginia, I was always fascinated with architecture. Particularly the palatial estates of the Gilded Age. My hometown - population 210 - was full of modestly sized, yet still elaborate plantation homes. Prior to the Civil War, these would have likely been large tobacco farms. Just as the North dominated industry, the South was its farming equivalent. 

The Civil War eviscerated the South's farming communities, and rightfully so. Whereas many of the North's elite weathered the war, building bigger and bigger prior to the Great Depression, the plantations in the South faced the Reconstruction Era or their own devices. Reconstruction largely targeted the South's war ravaged cities - Atlanta and Richmond - while those in the rural areas, particularly the Appalachian Mountains hunkered down and clung to the past.

Well into the 1980s, I remember these places. They were the homes of my classmates and teachers, descendants more than a century removed from the Civil War and the unbridled and sinister opulence that preceded it, frozen in time. Decrepit oak trees lines the long drives to these estates, flanking grand white columns or porticos. Cracked oil paintings of unnamed ancestors lined the walls of ancient parlors decorated with a mix of antiquities and furnishings from big-box department stores. Untouched and faded, they smelled of musty newspapers and untreated wood. Not bad, just aging. 

Since then many have changed hands to find new life. As my peers left their farms for cities like Washington, D.C., Richmond, and Norfolk, their parents had abandoned the burden of 100 year old plumbing and rusty window units. The dot-com boom of the 1990s reinvented Northern Virginia, enabling a new era of industrialists seeking lavish amenities from the past and the quiet of the country. The Shenandoah Valley's abundance and accessibility of affordable panache drove countless restoration projects. 

Once marred by struggling small towns, Virginia's western edge is now a collection of boutique villages surrounded by grand estates, both new and old, vacation homes for a new generation that knows nothing of the region's past. But New Money will someday be Old Money, and today will someday be history. Perhaps that's the idea that drives preservation. 

Yet where the most livable of historic places find new life with ease, it's those most deserved of salvation that struggle the most. Lynnewood Hall is a prime example. In the Shenandoah Valley, or at its edge, is a similarly unfortunate story, one few even know exists. 

Swannanoa, designed by Baskerville & Noland, was built atop Afton Mountain by Richmond philanthropist, James H. Dooley. Built in 1912 as a retreat for Dooley and his wife, Sallie, Swannanoa is every bit as lavish as Lynnewood Hall, but also carries with it a storied and very personal history. 

More than 300 artisans spent eight years perfecting the mansion complete with gilded fixtures, stained-glass Tiffany windows, and a domed ceiling with a portrait of Mrs. Dooley. The retreat, according to James Dooley, was a symbol of the love he and Sallie had for one another. 

Swannanoa was only occupied briefly following its completion. After the death of Mr. Dooley in 1924, and then his wife in 1926, it was passed to his sisters who quickly sold the retreat to the Valley Corporation of Richmond. Since then it served as a country club during Prohibition, one that purportedly distilled the best moonshine in the region. During World War II the Navy considered purchasing the mansion as a place to interrogate prisoners of war. Then, and for much of its life, the Valley Corporation leased it to Walter Russell and the University of Science and Philosophy. 

Education is often a good avenue for restoration, or at least adaptive reuse. But the University of Science and Philosophy was more cult than college. When I toured the house in high school we were forced to watch a promotional video about Russell's University, a video very similar to those used to propagate Scientology. Nonetheless, the video guaranteed a well earned tour which was every bit as astounding as you'd suspect. But unlike the restored Breakers or Biltmore Estate, Swannanoa shared the same quirky, lived-in characteristics of so many plantation homes throughout the Shenandoah Valley in the 1980s and 90s. 

Marble floors and columns were accompanied by modular tables and folding chairs, and boxes upon boxes of University paperwork. Modern file cabinets stood haphazardly against wood carvings and priceless works of art. The bizarre juxtaposition between the ultimate dedication of Dooley's love for Sallie and Russell's religious ideology made it much more interesting than an intricately restored house museum. It wasn't only authentic, it represented both its Gilded Age history as well as a history not yet in textbooks. It was weird, and it was real.

Outside, the expansive grounds are overgrown and crumbling. Shrubbery is unkempt, its fountains are dry, and the statuary - whether dedicated to the gods of ancient democracy or modern capitalism - weathered by the sands of time. 

J. F. Dulaney, Jr. now owns the property and offers occasional tours of the first floor. There are tentative plans to convert the mansion into a bed-and-breakfast and it's occasionally rented out for weddings. Like Lynnewood Hall, Swannanoa's consistent occupation, however erratic, can largely be credited for its survival. While it has not been completely preserved, the mansion has been maintained. 

Unfortunately preservationists in Virginia, while every bit as historic as the most Colonial parts of Pennsylvania, perhaps even more so, look at their history much the way Philadelphia did in the 1950s and 60s. While we've come to embrace our Furnesses, our Hales, and our Deckers, Virginia continues to neglect anything not synonymous with Colonial History or "Old South." Swannanoa is neither, and while that in itself makes it ever more unique than most of the Commonweath's Presidential landmarks, it - and sites like it - are routinely ignored. 

Swannanoa is currently open two weekends each month throughout this summer, but you'll have to use Google Maps to find it and simply show up. Although Dulaney, Jr. is doing what he can to show the home, no website exists and marketing is minimal. If you've ever wanted to tour Lynnewood Hall and been unable to find a realtor willing to show you a $17M property, I suggest heading about five hours south. You will not be disappointed. 

Living in History

When I was in middle school, my family moved to a farm in rural Virginia. The house had been unusually divided into apartments for the extended family that lived there before us, the water well needed upgrades, and the massive tin roof was in disrepair.

I hate using that word, because disrepair doesn't mean what it implies. We repaired the roof, we restored the oak floors and cherry doors, and we modernized the home's water supply. 

It wasn't cheap, but it wasn't unheard of. 

Insignificant, but why not?

Throughout the South, older homes are readily renovated or simply restored. It may seem surprising, but some of the most conservative parts of the country abide by the creed, "the greenest house is the one already built."

Many of my childhood friends lived in homes without central air, and they weren't all poor farmers. Preserving the legacy of the past, some lived in tediously restored plantation homes which, with the exception of modern plumbing and electricity, existed exactly as they did prior to the Civil War.

I'm not simply regaling a lost era. I'm not that old. When I was in high school in 1993, a Mennonite family I knew purchased a farmhouse near my own family's farm. But they didn't purchase the land. Instead, they had the house lifted and moved to a new location. It may not seem unheard of when you consider the offer made to move the Main Line's palatial La Ronda all the way to Florida. But the Berry residence was a simple, late 19th Century farmhouse, one that can be found in abundance throughout Virginia's Shenandoah Valley.

So why bother? The house bore no family connection. It was a simple respect for history, and a nod to the fact that the greenest house is the one already built.

Another childhood friend of mine was the heiress to a massive poultry corporation. I remember practicing for my role in West Side Story at the Wampler house when my love for architecture kicked into gear. The simple farmhouse didn't just look original, it was original. When the Wampler's purchased the house - clearly with the means to raze the humble home for a mansion and swimming pool - they opted to restore the beleaguered and historically insignificant residence, going as far as replacing the rotten wood paneling with lumber farmed from the same region in which it originated.

So now ten years into residing at the pinnacle of American history, Philadelphia, I'm obviously perplexed by the region's willingness to discard its history at the mere mention of disrepair. Disrepair that simply cites broken gutters and detached stucco. I didn't just know people who lived in such homes, I lived in one myself. 

Sadly in Philadelphia, the apex of American history, a lack of central air can mean disrepair.

A century old home in Chestnut Hill is learning this the hard way. At 415 West Moreland Avenue, a handsome Colonial Revival mansion, well within the neighborhood's National Historic District, is slated to be demolished by Blake Development Corporation simply because the aesthetic challenges of renovating the property have deemed it to be in a state of disrepair.

415 West Moreland

Of course the fact that Blake wants to raze the property for two new houses exposes the transparent agenda. Obviously two Chestnut Hill homes are worth more than one, especially if they're new.

Still, like the fate of the historic La Ronda, the likely end to 415 West Moreland calls into question not just the irrelevance of any historic designation, but our own regional interpretation of what's worth preserving. 

In Asheville, NC, Biltmore Estate is a beacon of historic preservation and a source of regional pride, even though its namesake is derived from a region that might as well be its own country. In the North, its Gilded Age sister, Lynnewood Hall, is blighted abandonment just waiting to become another cul de sac community. 

That's not to say the South is without its architectural losses. Low County plantations have made way for golf courses and their own planned communities and cities like Atlanta and Charlotte continue to chip away at what little history that remains. But for every Atlanta mansion razed for condominiums, numerous mansions have been preserved throughout Georgia, Florida, and the Carolinas. 

Perhaps we Yankees don't have the same respect for our history because we won the war, perhaps these locations aren't deemed culturally significant, just big buildings built for another time and place. We look at Lynnewood Hall and 415 West Moreland the way we looked at Pennsylvania Station when it was demolished in the 1960s: irrelevant and useless.

Lynnewood Hall: How is this abandoned in anyone's America?

But Penn Station should be proof that we shouldn't let progress run away from ourselves. There isn't a soul on this planet that wouldn't want to have New York's grand Pennsylvania Station in lieu of what replaced it.

While the South continues to learn from its mistakes, New York and Philadelphia continue to blindly eradicate our past on the assumption that we're too good to preserve our history, and in particular, to live in it because it isn't climate controlled.

La Ronda was a treasure. Lynnewood Hall, even 415 West Moreland, still are. If you want new construction or an indoor hockey rink, there is plenty of land within the tristate area to erect a grand estate. 

But there is no legacy to be made in eradicating history, only superficial gratification. Learning to love history, the history of our built environment, and being a part of that, that is what makes a great Philadelphian, and a great American.

Neglected Obligations in Cheltenham Township

Chelnetham Township's commissioner, Harvey Portner has said little about the forlorn Lynnewood Hall, at least nothing more than "it can be and should be developed into something magnificent." It's hard to know exactly what he means, and speculating isn't fun.

The township has been firm. Unless Richard Yoon's petition to the Supreme Court makes waves in Cheltenham, the owner of The First Korean Church will not be able to operate the property as a tax exempt church or school.

Currently Yoon pays over $130,000 in taxes yearly, and he'll likely unload the property if its tax status doesn't change.

Cheltenham is a nice enough suburb, but it isn't as renowned and cash flushed as other areas. Portner has a job to do, and losing $130,000 every year isn't part of it. In that regard, Portner's stance may seem reasonable.

It's a shame, because Lynnewood Hall is one of the regions most spectacular examples of Gilded Age architecture. Designed by Philadelphia's own architect to the stars, Horace Trumbauer, Lynnewood is the ninth largest historic home in the United States, 5000 square feet larger than Newport, RI's Breakers.

We learned our lesson when Whitemarsh Hall was demolished in the 1980s, the third largest historic house in the United States. When La Ronda was demolished a few years ago, preservationists and historians across the country were devastated, yet Addison Mizner's Spanish style masterpiece pales in comparison to Lynnewood Hall.

Enough locals don't realize what's at stake here. Landmarks like Biltmore Estate are household names, even for those with no interest in architecture or history. I know I don't need to say this to anyone reading an architecture blog, but that's what Lynnewood is.

It's City Hall. It's the Philadelphia Museum of Art. It's Philadelphia's foremost example of  Gilded Age architecture, perhaps even the Northeast's.

If Portner wants something "magnificent," he already has it.

Beyond the rusted gates of Lynnewood Hall, Cheltenham has something even more magnificent, something no other region in the country can claim.

Lynnewood Hall is not alone. As stately as the manor is in itself and its grounds, it's simply one part of a complex of architecture history unrivaled in the United States, all of which lie dormant.

Across the street from Lynnewood Hall is not one Gilded Age mansion, but three.

Elstowe Manor, the seventeenth largest historic house in the United States was abandoned in June of this year. Known as the Elkins Estate, the grounds are comprised of Elstowe Manor and Chelten House. Additionally, Georgian Terrace was abandoned by Temple's Stella Elkins Tyler School of Art a few years ago, also empty.

Fortunately none of these properties have succumbed to the death of architectural hope otherwise known as tax delinquency, but with the Elkins Estate taxed at more than $300,000 a year, it's even less likely that the township will grant any of these properties the exemption they need to survive much longer.

As if the architectural significance of these properties isn't enough, their history is unparalleled. All built for the Widener and Elkins families, these estates once carved out a private enclave for the tycoons that built the Philadelphia we know today. It's inarguable that their contribution to the region, even the nation, deserves the dignity of salvation.

When you consider this site's significance and the unique fact that this compound remains intact, Portner's position goes beyond the scope of his local responsibility, but also taps an obligation to the nation. While this land could stand to profit from townhomes and condos, this is one of those rare occasions when money doesn't matter.

What's most disconcerting is Portner's absent resolve for a specific outcome. This leaves the preservation community and the region in the dark. These properties are more than simple homes and the township has an obligation to responsibly address these assets as the benefits to the community that they are.

Without the township fielding investors, it leaves the job up to preservationists and realtors. But without a statement from the commissioner other than it should be "something magnificent," those concerned about the fate of these mansions can do little.

Can it be a school? Can it be converted into condos? Can it be a museum?

No one knows.

Without an interest from those in charge, realtors and property owners are saddled with finding buyers willing to use the properties as they were zoned. In the case of Lynnewood Hall, that's as a private home, which at 70,000 square feet, is a tough sell in Cheltenham Township. 

Cryptic comments from those presiding over the nation's most significant chunk of unused real estate call their motives into question. Sadly, the most realistic possibility is one that happens all too often.

Could Harvey Portner simply be awaiting the inevitable, wherein property owners unable to sell simply abandon their tax obligations, allowing the mansions to be seized by the township and sold for scrap?

Without Lynnewood Hall, Cheltenham is just another suburb

Type "Lynnewood Hall" into Google Maps. See it? It comes right up. That's how infamous the Horace Trumbauer mansion has become.

For the past two decades, Richard Yoon, pastor for the First Korean Church of New York and a surgeon, has been battling with the Cheltenham Township over turning his property into a church. Since 1998 the township has refused any variance that would allow operating a church or school in this residential neighborhood.

But look back at that map. Why? Aside from the fact that Lynnewood Hall's land is a small reprieve of green amid a sea of sprawling suburbia, it's around the corner from a mall. How is refusing a church or school in the neighborhood's best interest, especially when you consider the mansion has been all but vacant for twenty years?

Yoon has been paying over $100,000 in taxes on the property every year, taxes that would be exempt if it were a church or school. The decision likely has to do with taxes. Taxes in Cheltenham Township are insane, and the desire to seek taxable development is reflected in commissioner Harvey Portner's statement, "it can be and should be developed into something magnificent."

There are two problems with his statement, two problems that plague politics in the Philadelphia region.

Portner is playing the part of a development speculator without actually being a developer. We see this all over Philadelphia. Politicians grant demolition licenses hoping that development will come, and it never does.

This is particularly troublesome with an historic property in a township like Cheltenham. It's not the Main Line so we're not going to see the mansion fall into the hands of a wealthy philanthropist. We're also not going to see it make way for an even more fantastic project.

Based on Portner's statement, the best he can hope for is more suburbia that will slightly exceed the tax the township currently sees from the property. At worst, it will change hands, falls into disrepair, gets razed, and never become anything. Developers aren't exactly fighting to build in Cheltenham.

This brings up the second problem with Portner's statement: the township's lack of regard for its history.

Let's be honest, the best use for this property isn't as a church or school. Ideally, a rich eccentric would buy it and live there. But that's not happening.

The most realistic way to save this property is tax exempt, either as Yoon's church or as a non-profit historic house museum.

The township's leaders don't seem to understand the benefits that come with a site like this, the pride that finds its way to its neighbors. Without Lynnewood Hall, Cheltenham is just another indistinguishable suburb. 

An American Versailles

Lynewood Hall, coined "The Last of the American Versailles" by it's owner, Peter A. B. Widener's grandson. Although the 110 room mansion in Elkins Park is Preservation Alliance of Greater Philadelphia's endangered properties list, it is not yet on the National Register of Historic Places.

It's current owners, The First Korean Church of New York, has been battling with the Cheltenham Township Planning Commission to use the mansion and grounds as a church and residence for a caretakers and assistant pastor since 1998.

Although the community's refusal to accommodate the property's owners has contributed the the mansions decay, negotiations for new ownership are supposed to conclude before the end of 2011. Proposed renovations to the estate would allow it to serve as a private residence with guest rooms, serving as a bed and breakfast.

Renovations are expected to cost around $12M, and efforts are underway to track down many of the home's original fixtures and artifacts that have been auctioned off over the past fifty years.

Lessons Not Learned

Completed in 1921 by renowned architect Horace Trumbauer (Philadelphia Museum of Art, Free Library of Philadelphia), Whitemarsh Hall in Wyndmoor was razed in 1980 to make way for Stotesbury Estates, a suburban townhouse community.
More recently, T. P. Chandler's 1897 Dunminning Mansion in Newtown Square was sold to Bentley Homes and razed for development in 2007. Chandler founded the University of Pennsylvania's Department of Architecture.
Lynnewood Hall, another Trumbauer masterpiece designed for Peter A. B. Widener, sits vacant in Elkins Park. Owned by the First Korean Church of New York, the Cheltenham Township Planning Commission has twice denied the church use of the building as a residence, an example of elected officials legislating on behalf of predatory developers and encouraging suburban sprawl.