Interpreting Historic House Blueprints

The conception of most buildings, residential houses included, has historically involved some sort of architectural drawing. Whether crudely crafted as a rough hand sketch or professionally drafted and reproduced, drawings serve to visualize, communicate, and translate a building's design. I've written before about the importance of at least making an inquiry at your local building department regarding the possible existence of your home's original permit drawings. The older your house is, the more likely you are to come up empty in this search. However, the value which bona fide architectural drawings can bring to the richness and understanding of your house's history make it worth the effort to try a few other places as well, such as historical societies, county archives, and architectural archives. One such repository here locally is the Athenaeum of Philadelphia, which houses an extensive collection of drawing archives and maintains an outstanding online database of Philadelphia Architects and Buildings. While age may decrease your odds of finding plans, if your home has local significance then the odds may increase that some drawings have been preserved throughout its history at such a repository. One other way to potentially locate old drawings for your house is through previous owners or their descendants. Perhaps the son of an original owner felt deeply connected to the house in which he grew up and was able to hang onto the plans.

So let's say you score. You are able to locate historic drawings for your home-- now what? Let us look at a case study. Last month, I published a Saturday Spotlight article featuring a 19th century folk/vernacular home in Roxborough, which had been significantly modified with renovations and a major addition by noted Philadelphia architect Robert Rodes McGoodwin in the mid-1930's. Fortunately, a blueprint copy of drawings for the project has survived and been passed down through the progression of ownership history of the house. The current owner has been kind enough to grant permission for me to share and interpret the blueprints here, so let's do exactly that. A scan of the entire sheet is shown below and includes primarily floor plans and elevations.

Scan of blueprint copy. Courtesy of the home's owner.

Provenance

As described, we know that this an authentic copy of the original architectural drawings. That is of no doubt, due to its having remained with the house. In drawing set standards, the title block is essentially what it sounds like-- a block of space on the sheet reserved for basic information including project name/location, the name of the architect or firm, client's name, drawing scale, the drafter's initials, and the title and date of drawing issues and revisions.

The drawing sheet title block, providing basic information for the project. At right is a photo of architect Robert Rodes McGoodwin. (Photo source: University of Pennsylvania Archives)

Looking in the lower-right corner of the drawing sheet here we see the title block. Some of that basic information includes:

Title: "Alterations & Additions to Frame House at S.E. Corner of Spring Lane and Paisley Road, Roxborough, Phila., Penna."
Owner: Mrs. Samuel F. Houston
Architect: Robert Rodes McGoodwin, Registered Architect

These pieces specifically tie the drawings to its exact current location. McGoodwin is known to have been commissioned by Samuel Houston for a number of residential properties in Roxborough. As described in the previous article on this home, the Houstons never lived in this home but did own it and alot of land in the neighborhood, commissioning the expanded design of this home as part of a larger effort to bring up the standards of Roxborough at-large. The specification of Houston's wife as the Owner might be an indicator that she may have been more heavily involved in dealing with McGoodwin and his associates for this particular house than her husband was. The original date of the drawing was October 19, 1935 and a revision is noted and dated November 12 of the same year. That November 12 date is likely when the original hand-drafted version of this copy was produced. While there is the possibility that this or some version of this drawing was used for construction, there likely were additional drawings for the builder. I believe that this copy is a final or near-final progress copy used by the architects to communicate the design to the owner, thus its having been passed down through ownership history.

Floor Plans

Most people understand what floor plans are. An architectural floor plan depicts the layout of a building, viewed from overhead, as if one were to take a horizontal slice through it about 4-feet above the floor (in order to show doors, windows, etc). Taking a look here at the first floor plan, I've highlighted a number of standard architectural drawing conventions in yellow. Of course, each room is labeled with its intended use "Kitchen", "Pantry", "Living Room", etc. Primary dimensions of various rooms and of the overall addition are provided. Window tags assign a number to each window, which would typically correspond to a window schedule (not seen in this blueprint), which is a list of all the planned windows with their sizes and other pertinent information. Standard symbols show locations of electrical outlets as well as lighting locations.

A few things to note about the layout itself. McGoodwin's task in 1935 was to design an addition onto an existing house. On the blueprint, I can see the original house comprising the rooms labeled "Living Room", "Alcove", "Dining Room", and "Hall" as this resembles a common arrangement of rooms in many earlier vernacular homes. There are other clues here as well which tells us where the old ends and the new starts. At both the top and bottom of the plan, there is a line cutting through the center of the house labeled "Face of Old Studs". The studs are the vertical wood framing members of the original house. To the right of that line, all the walls are "unhatched", meaning they aren't colored in by the draftsman. This drawing convention in this case indicates all of the existing wood-framed walls. To the left of that line, the walls are "hatched" or "poched" (colored-in solid), indicating new walls built of cinder blocks.

This 1935 addition essentially turned a fairly basic house into an upper class or upper-middle-class residence. The addition is setup as the "servant zone"-- it is more or less an "ell" addition, meaning it is not as wide as the original house and relocates the kitchen function there. The original kitchen may have been where the dining room is now, adjacent to the fireplace. A new garage is added onto the ell addition, and a secondary set of stairs has been added at the kitchen for use by servants to travel to the Laundry Room directly below in the basement and to the servant's bedroom above the garage.

There are a few significant differences between the 1935 layout and the current 2016 floor plan of the house. A powder room is now provided at the 1935 coat closet off of the front Hall; the access to the basement remains with an additional door within the powder room. Today of course there are no servants, no service "wing" of the house, and the house merely functions as a residence for only the family itself. Thus, at some point in the past, there was less need for a separate storage pantry at the kitchen; the wall separating the pantry from the kitchen was removed, giving way to the modern trend of a larger centralized kitchen.

The current kitchen. At the far wall are two doors to the staircases which once were used by servants, as well as built-ins original to the 1930's addition. This photo is taken standing at a spot which was formerly part of the pantry. The wall between the kitchen and pantry would have been where the oven range currently sits, cutting to the left across the view in the photo. Photo courtesy of The Sivel Group.

The space marked "Alcove" on the First Floor Plan is now a home office, with access off of the main hall and now closed off from the Living Room. That Living Room was expanded over time by enclosing the porch and filling in the remainder of the depth of the original house with a one-story cinder block addition. This is the area covered in yellow by me on the first floor plan above. The result is the generously-spaced living room existing today.

The current living room. The walls painted in green, and the fireplace, in this photo are all within additions which occurred after the primary c. 1935 renovation. The original exterior wall of the house would have existed approximately at the left edge of the larger built-in shelving, coming out perpendicular and crossing to the back face of the house. Photo courtesy of The Sivel Group.

The most significant difference at the second floor between the 1935 floor plan and that of today is seen in between the two bedrooms marked "Chamber #1" and "Chamber #2" on the Second Floor Plan blueprint below. The alcove to the right of the bathroom has been eliminated by removing the wall between it and the bathroom, effectively creating a large master bathroom off of the master bedroom (Chamber #1). There is still access into this bathroom from the second bedroom.

Scan of Second Floor Plan blueprint, courtesy of the home owner. Although the image is stretched a bit, the Bath and Alcove have recently been combined into a larger master bathroom, seen in the following image.

Current master bathroom. The wall between the original bathroom and the "alcove" / dressing area used to come across where the vanity exists currently. Door to "Chamber #2" seen in the background. Photo courtesy of The Sivel Group.

Two more bedrooms on the Third Floor. They're still there, I saw them. Scan of blueprint courtesy of the homeowner.

Elevations

The term "elevation" in architectural drawing parlance refers to a straight-on view of the exterior facade. On this drawing sheet, we have elevations for all four primary facades of the expanded 1935 house. In this analysis, we will focus on the street-facing (front) facade as well as the backyard (rear) facade.

In the Northwest Elevation above, I have added a few marks in yellow to call out what the architect is conveying with certain drawing conventions. Again, we delineate the extents of the original house as well as those of the 1935 addition. As part of the building's facelift, most of the window openings remained as-is, but some were filled in and others were created new to produce the rhythm McGoodwin sought on the home's exterior. At those new window openings, we see annotation calling out the size of window headers required to span the opening structurally (8"x10", 8"x12"). Also on the elevations we see the basement and foundation construction drawn in lighter, dashed lines, indicating that this construction is below ground level. At the left side of the elevation drawing, each floor level is noted and the floor-to-floor height (vertical dimension between floor levels) is provided. Throughout, building materials are called out with additional annotation: "T&G boards" refers to tongue and groove wood trim; "clapboards" are the horizontal wood siding;"wood lattice" is called out at the side porch area; and on the rear facade of the house, McGoodwin's firm included a "wood and W.I. trellis", W.I. standing for wrought iron. This trellis, as well as the side porch, no longer exist today, so this is a fantastic and accurate depiction of what these features once looked like on the house.

Blueprint copy of the rear elevation, courtesy of the homeowner. A trellis!

Capturing a Home's Evolution

This particular house has lived several lives, taking on a new personality on multiple occasions. Originally, in the 19th century, it existed as a relatively simple home with a Folk Victorian style. Then, in the 1930's, a well-known architect crafted an extensive renovation and addition. Without the blueprints which have survived for 80 years, while we might be able to determine this house's evolution, it would have taken much more detective work. Had this home been significantly altered even further after the 1930's addition, these blueprints would have been invaluable in coming close to understanding the house's history at the particular point in its history. These professionally hand-drafted drawings provide insight into the mind of the architect so many years ago, and hopefully now you might be able to interpret more of what you'd find on a set of blueprints if you happen to locate some for your historic house.

At left: the rear of the house as it exists today, trellis long gone. Photo courtesy of The Sivel Group. At right: the rear of the house prior to McGoodwin's intervention, pre-trellis. Historical photo courtesy of the home owner.

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Confirmed: The Neighboring Lot Was Once "Part" of My Current Property

Several months ago, I was fortunate enough to interview the daughter-in-law of John J. and Catherine Cantlin, the long-time owners of my home from 1932-2001 (John Cantlin passed away in 1961 and Catherine continued living here for 40 more years). This woman was able to share several pieces of information I had not known previously, including a birth in the home (her husband, in 1934), and the fact that Mrs. Cantlin also owned the neighboring lot on the north side, which was undeveloped at the time. This was the lead upon which to build more solid information.

My 1920's home in the foreground, with an even earlier home in the background (light blue); sandwiched in between the two is land which was owned by the Cantlins for some time, now occupied by my neighbor's ranch house.

Today, that lot contains a one-story ranch style house where my neighbors, a friendly family of Italian descent, live. These being lots of modest width, their driveway defines the property line, leaving about 6-8 feet between it and my house. The daughter-in-law had relayed that Catherine owned the lot and "sold it off about 20 or 30 years ago. She sold it and then that house was built." The stucco and brick rancher could be 1980's by the looks of it, although I'd have bet somewhere in the 1950-1980 range. My neighbor has been there since 1989 (27 years ago, could fit the timeline given). The only problem was that on the county assessment office's online database, there are listed transactions back to 1973, and none of them involve the Cantlins. So, naturally, where would I look to solve the problem? A chain of title search at the county's Recorder of Deeds office, of course.

I performed the search in person at the office-- although my county does allow off-site access to historical deeds, it currently costs 30 cents per minute so this can add up (I hope new Recorder Jeanne Sorg takes cues from Mr. Schiller in Berks County!). Also, since the assessor's database lists the last three transactions for this property, I could have skipped back to 1973 if I so chose. But, since I was there in person I decided to complete the full chain from my current neighbor back to Ferguson's subdivision (Reginald T. Ferguson was the man who subdivided Emma Spear's roughly 200 acre tract into individual building lots).

The first step was to locate my current neighbor's Grantee deed from 1989. As with most deeds in this area, there is a paragraph which includes reference to the previous deed in the chain. Repeating this process took me backwards successively in time, from deed to deed, and after not too long I located the 1919 deed with Ferguson's conveyance of the lot to a Albert F. Troast.

However, it's later in the chain's chronology where I'm hoping to locate the Cantlins, and earlier within that search I found it. On May 18, 1946, John J. Cantlin and Catherine Cantlin purchased the lot from Troast, who apparently held it for 26 years, for the sum of $500. The property actually consisted of three skinny lots, numbered #2220, #2221, and #2223 on Ferguson's plan, none of which were individually large enough to build on-- I have yet to learn why most of the land was apportioned in such a way by Ferguson's surveyor.

Clip from 1946 deed conveying the neighboring lot from Albert Troast to John and Catherine Cantlin

Around this time in the 1940s, the remainder of the block was finally starting to fill in with new stone-front Cape Cod homes. Although it is mere speculation, the Cantlins may have recognized burgeoning development on their block and decided to snag the adjacent land while they had the chance, holding open the possibility of expanding to the north, or to hold onto the lot for use by one of their children or other family. As I've discovered previously, the Cantlins were in the process of enclosing their rear porch to expand the house, taking out the permit only a month prior to this! So clearly, they had expansion on their minds in some respect. If I get the chance to ask the Cantlins' daughter-in-law, I'll see if she can provide any further insight.

In any case, John Cantlin passed on in 1961, and the neighboring lot remained undeveloped by the Cantlins. Catherine held onto it until 1972-- 44 years ago. I'll certainly forgive the daughter-in-law for the inaccuracy in timing, for she provided me the clue in the first place! I wonder how Catherine used the open lot-- did she garden there? Let her teenage kids frolic there? Another question to ask. When she did unload the land on May 10, 1972, she sold it to a company called Mont-Bux, Inc. for $7,000. Mont-Bux flipped it a year later to a Sidney and Carol Mann for $29,275. It seems clear that Mont-Bux Inc. was a local residential development company; a brief search turns up a few appellate court cases from the 1970's, all involving residential developments planned by the company. This evidence that Mont-Bux was a residential developer, grouped with the sharp increase in value in 1973 plus my interviewee's recollection that a house was built shortly after Mrs. Cantlin's sale of the land, strongly suggest that the rancher house was built between May 1972 and May 1973.

Clip from 1972 deed conveying the lot from Catherine Cantlin to Mont-Bux, Inc.

The second page of the 1972 mentions John's passing in 1961, in order to clear up any potential question in the title chain. Also note in the last line of this page that the lot is subject to the same restrictions spelled out in all Ferguson's lots, as discussed here.

Another clue turns into a fun research task and a question answered, adding another component to the history of my house! And further evidence that you must reach out to actual people who may have first-hand knowledge about your house's history, even if they don't realize it.

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What Local History Has to Say About Ardsley vs North Hills

My house may have a slight bit of an identity crisis in terms of the neighborhood to which it belongs. It sits at the nexus of two communities within Greater Glenside-- Ardsley and North Hills. The larger subdivision containing my land, Reginald Ferguson's "North Glenside", eventually became known as "Ardsley". Today, Ardsley is largely considered to be bounded at its south end by the main thoroughfare of Jenkintown Road, stretching north to Susquehanna Ave between North Hills Ave and Hillside Cemetery). We, however, are located to the south of Jenkintown, part of a small 6-7 block portion of Ferguson's subdivisions, in what is now commonly known as North Hills. North Hills covers generally between Mount Carmel Ave to the south, North Hills Ave to the west (and extending even a few blocks further west into Upper Dublin Township), Jenkintown Road to the north, and Edge Hill Road to the east. By the literal definition of these boundaries, the house is located in North Hills; and, although the construction date of my home in the 1920's post-dates many earlier homes to the south more firmly in North Hills, it more closely aligns to the development of this neighborhood than Ardsley, where a majority of homes were built in the 1950's and 1960's.

Ardsley station (Wikimedia Commons)

North Hills, corner of Mount Carmel Ave & Limekiln Pike (Wikipedia)

Currently, I'm making my way through reading a comprehensive history written about Glenside, The Story of Greater Glenside by Robert S. Camburn (1977). There are several interesting nuggets of information in here on these two neighborhoods, and interestingly enough, the map included at the very end of the book allows the name of "Ardsley" to ever-so-slightly overlap Jenkintown Road at its east end:

Map of Glenside, as published in Robert S. Camburn's The Story of Greater Glenside (1977).

A few excerpts from Camburn's description of Ardsley-North Hills begins with this clarification, despite the label on the later map:

     "Because the names of Ardsley and North Glenside were used rather freely for development plans, we will state at the outset of our consideration of the North Hills area that it is regarded as lying between Jenkintown Road and Mount Carmel Avenue, while the Ardsley of today runs northward from Jenkintown Road."

In discussing North Hills further, Camburn describes various subdivision developments in the neighborhood across multiple historical maps, some of which I have seen (but some I haven't and can seek out!) spanning from before 1893 up to the late 1920's. My portion of Ferguson's subdivision is not mentioned here, but both the 1893 and 1909 atlas maps label the area directly south of my property. My house is at the absolute extreme southern boundary of Ferguson's later subdivision, and thus the area described here ends quite literally at my southern neighbor's property.

Portion of 1893 atlas map, highlighting the future location of my house, directly adjacent to the development of the Wm. Penn Real Estate Co. Map courtesy of Franklin Maps (note: map oriented with north to the right of the image)

Most of the Cape Cod-style houses on my block, however, were not actually built until the 1940's. Camburn's presentation of the several blocks directly to my south:

     "Plan maps which the author has seen for the earliest development of the North Hills community do not carry any dates. However, the 1893 local atlas map indicates a development here by the Wm. Penn Real Estate Company. (Somewhat later it has been called the Wm. Penn Realty Co.) The local atlas map of 1909 designates the same area as Remlu Heights (the developer, Ulmer, using the reverse spelling of his name). Parry says that this designation was attached only briefly to the locality."

Portion of 1927 atlas map, highlighting my house in Ferguson's North Glenside, with "Remlu Heights" directly to the south (left side of map). The name "Ardsley Estates" is also sprinkled throughout pockets of Remlu Heights. Map courtesy of Franklin Maps. (note: map oriented with north to the right of the image)

And later, more specifics of the location:
     "The earliest plan map mentioned above largely agrees with the 1893 local atlas map, boundaries being half-way above Spruce Avenue (to Jenkintown Road)... These maps all indicate Wm. Penn Real Estate Co. as owner."
     "On the 1909 local atlas index map, the area is designated Remlu Heights... but only to about halfway between Spruce Avenue and Jenkintown Road..."

This spot, halfway between Spruce Ave and Jenkintown Rd, is the location on the map where the northeast/southeast avenues take a slight curve, a product of Reginald Ferguson's layout being misaligned from the streets of Remlu Heights (now North Hills). This occurs directly in front of my house on Central Avenue, and also results in diagonal property lines at the front and back of my lot.

Camburn has another interesting footnote, speaking to his earlier allusion to the fast and loose use of the name "Ardsley" to different subdivisions:
     "An undated sales map, similar in coverage to the early maps showing the Remlu or Wm. Penn Real Estate Co. subdivision, bears the title of "Ardsley Estates." A separate plan map of 1923 shows Ardsley Estates owned by Edge Hill Realty Corp."

This name of Ardsley-- I had wondered about its origins since the early days of my research. However, rudimentary searches had only yielded the existence of another village called Ardsley, just outside of New York City which was supposedly named by a large landowner there after his ancestor's birthplace, the village of East Ardsley in England. Also, being an English placename, it supposedly means "home-lover's meadow."

Perhaps this is an image William T.B. Roberts (1850-1936) had in mind in 1905. Roberts, a business associate of the likes of Philadelphia magnates Peter Widener and William Elkins, came to rapidly develop several sizable developments in Glenside at the turn of the 20th century. According to Camburn:

     "Under plan dated March 10, 1905, Roberts prepared to develop what he called Ardsley. The area covered by this plan was within the limits of Jenkintown Road, Sylvania Avenue, Edgecomb Avenue and Tyson Avenue. Then, under plan designated Ardsley No. 2, dated June 1905, development north of Edgecomb Avenue to Bradfield Road was undertaken.
     Between these "Ardsley" areas and the area presently known as Ardsley from Jackson Avenue west, Roberts established Ardsley Burial Park in 1906 (which was bought out by Hillside Cemetery in 1953 and placed under the latter's management). The Roberts' family burial plot is located here."

This being the earliest chronological reference by Camburn of the use of the name Ardsley, it appears that the name was coined locally by Roberts, and referred to the neighborhood to the east of the current Ardsley, on the other side of the railroad tracks. This other area presently has an Ardsley Avenue where my wife and I made an offer on a house before finding the one we ultimately bought.

When Camburn finally comes to speak of the neighborhood currently known as Ardsley, we learn further of its origins, which consist primarily of the history I have learned through my independent research and presented on this blog:

     "...this area was called Tyson's Gap at the time of the Revolution and that this later became Tyson. Tyson was the name of Ardsley station on the rail line until about 1897. It is so named on the 1897 local atlas map.
     A development plan map of March 26, 1918, with later additions, is labeled "Ferguson Tract of North Glenside #1 - North Glenside Land Co.," and covers the area from Penn Avenue to Maple Avenue, north from above Spruce Avenue to Susquehanna Street. (The township line runs just west of Penn.)
     The Ferguson tract of North Glenside #2, as shown on plan map dated November 21, 1919, covers the area from Jackson Avenue to Maple, and from Jenkintown Road to Spear Avenue.
     Ardsley also includes the area west of Penn Avenue in Upper Dublin Township from Jenkintown Road to Fitzwatertown Road, north to Susquehanna Street."

Camburn was certainly right in claiming that the name Ardsley was used quite freely by developers. My own cobbling together of the timeline of the name's use locally, based on Camburn's history, is somewhat speculative in filling in the gaps as follows:

-1905: W.T.B. Roberts first uses the name Ardsley locally for his development east of the railroad tracks, north of Jenkintown Rd
-c. 1905-1909: The nearby Tyson train station adopts Ardsley as its new name.
-1918-1920: Reginald Ferguson lays out his North Glenside subdivision. I speculate that the name of the train station to its east, and the lack of common reference to the "original" Ardsley, causes residents and leaders to come to use this name for the burgeoning development close to the station in the 1920s. Thus, the name effectively jumps across the tracks.
-1923, 1927: Maps include "Ardsley Estates" amongst the area of North Hills to the south of Jenkintown Rd.
-1929: The Glenside Manor Civic Association of North Glenside, with its Civic Hall located on Hamel Avenue, changes its name to Ardsley Civic Association and Ladies Auxiliary, further cementing the name association with the neighborhood.

Current Google map aerial view, with boundary overlays indicating the migration of the name "Ardsley" from Roberts' subdivision east of the train station, to its present-day boundaries west of the station.

If it wasn't painfully clear by now, the message of this post is to SEEK OUT WRITTEN LOCAL HISTORIES. You are far from the first person to be interested in the origins of your micro-neighborhood and of your town or city at large. Even though my specific neighborhood is not the main focus of this written history by Robert Camburn, it was included by the author as a part of the larger history of Glenside as a whole.

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Braindump: What Items Are on My Research To-Do List?

So, research on the bungalow has slowed a bit lately. It's not for a lack of leads or places to search for more information, however. With a full-time job and a limit to what can be found online, I've not recently had the chance to get back to the Montgomery County Courthouse to make more substantial progress. With that said, there are several items which I have discovered but not yet shared here and will do so in the near future.

Still, I figure this time to be appropriate to do a sort of "brain dump" exercise to lay out on virtual paper some of the main tasks I have ahead of me. If I take a holistic view of my research so far, I would say that I have a relatively thorough understanding of both the transactions involving the house and of its major physical alterations over time. On the other hand, I have not definitively pin-pointed the construction date or builder, and there is much more to learn of the land's history before the house was built. Putting all of my identified to-do items in one spot allows me to take general stock of what items will help fill certain gaps, and it will allow me to more easily identify tasks which might be started with writing a letter or making a phone call (i.e. things I can do now without visiting a records repository).

Photo: Pixabay (CC)

So, here's the brain dump, grouped into loose categories:

Contacting Living Individuals / Primary Source Interviews

• Follow up with John/Catherine Cantlin's daughter-in-law regarding my last letter sent in November
• Get in touch with the other surviving daughter-in-law (possibly through the first one) to see if an interview can be arranged
• Contact 2001-2014 owner to share my findings thus far; discuss the renovation to a single-family he performed and ask if he is able to share any documentation or photographs.
• Locate Gutekunst descendant identified in obituary research; establish preliminary contact and try to arrange interview
• Contact owners of Spear house (possibly former home of Emma Spear) and try to arrange an interview
• Ask immediate neighbors further questions about the house and Cantlins

Courthouse Records

• Perform chain of title on neighbor's property, which was reportedly once a part of mine before being sold off
• Any record of writ of fieri facias (believed to be foreclosure on the Coogans) still in tact at County Archives? First inquiry came up needing more info to locate correct records group
• Search nearby counties for other land transactions involving former owners (especially important in establishing Stover/Brandes connection)
• Go further back in pre-house land deed history
• Ensure that I have located all available probate files available online via FamilySearch/Ancestry; once complete, begin identifying those which are not available online, in order to locate in-person

Library / Historical Societies / Township and Other Repositories

• Inquire at county/township regarding other available tax records
• More extensive search of local directories for former owners at historical society
• Visit library and/or historical society for more background and information on Harry Renninger; Including the various companies he ran (Remlu Building & Loan) and organizations in which he was involved
• Inquire again at Township offices regarding additional records, try Public Works Dept for dates of sewer/water service starts in relation to Building Dept records
• Locate a copy/image of 1925 Sanborn map
• Further research on North Glenside Land Co-- inquire library/historical society
• Make a general inquiry at County Historical Society to determine available resources

Miscellaneous

• Re-examine my home inspection report to glean any further physical clues
• Draft biographical sketches of other previous owners (Brandes complete); this will fuel further research inquiries for each individual
• Contact civil engineering firm that did Ferguson's original survey- can they provide further insight/analysis?
• Continue searching kit house plans and pattern books for a design which may have been used for my house (I have a current front-runner, but it is not an exact match)

As you can see, even though I'm maybe a year into sporadic research and even though I've found quite a bit, there is still alot of homework to do in order to be more thorough and to get the type and depth of information I seek for my house history. You might have noticed I slipped in some additional online research in there-- this exercise has proven useful in that it has identified additional tasks I can perform from home and still make progress. I intentionally left off continued searching and prying the details of my house-- sometimes I wish I could do more invasive investigation, but I don't think my wife would be too happy about that!

If any other seasoned house researchers have followed along with the journey and have additional tips, please let me know in the Comments section!

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Re-Examining the Previous Layouts of the House

As far as I have been able to discern thus far, the floor plan layout of my house has gone through at least four significantly different iterations. I took my first shot at one of these previous layouts several months ago, after discovering evidence of a now-abandoned kitchen at the back of the house. In hindsight, those conjectures were incorrect after further investigation. Now, given the benefit of a lengthy conversation recently with long-time owner Catherine Cantlin's daughter-in-law, I take pause to examine what I know in terms of the layout history. The evidence gathered has been documentary, anecdotal, and physical. The first floor has always been the only real occupied space, with the unfinished basement below and the attic above. What follows is my present understanding of how the layout has changed throughout ithe house's roughly 93-year history.

Original Layout (c. 1923 to 1940s)

During its first 15-20 years, this house was one of the only ones in existence on the block, and it was a very modest home at roughly 750 square feet. Although I do not believe it was a mail-order kit house, the design may have been found in a pattern book I have yet to locate. This kit model sold by Montgomery Ward in 1930 is very close to what I believe to be the original layout of the house. Here is my own sketch:

Throughout its existence, the left half of the plan has generally contained living spaces, while the right half has contained bedrooms. Originally, one entered from the front porch into a modest-sized living room. This room has always held a view through a large cased opening into what is now the kitchen but was originally the dining room. Beyond the dining room was an enclosed kitchen at the rear of the house, off of which was an exit to the backyard. These functions in these locations were confirmed by the Cantlin daughter-in-law. Just to the left of the back steps was an exit staircase from the basement (a set of steps which still exists today but is entombed beneath my living room). I consider it a pretty safe assumption that the stacked staircases to the basement and attic remain today in their original locations. On the right side of the house, the main bedroom was off of the living room, with a second bedroom at the back, and the house's only bathroom was sandwiched in between the two.

New Rear Addition; Duplex Phase 1 (1940s to early 1960s)

Perhaps ironically, I am a bit less sure about this iteration of the layout than I am of the original layout. The lack of clarity rests primarily in whether or not the rear addition was completed in one or two phases, and when. What I do know, positively, is that a rear porch, which constitutes the upper-left corner of the floor plan, was enclosed in 1946 to create more interior space (due to receipt of a copy of that 1946 building permit). The construction and design of the addition lead me to believe that the entire addition inclusive of the un-enclosed porch was built at one time, prior to 1946, with that porch enclosure occurring later. To date I have not been able to locate backup documentation. Here is what the plan may have looked like both before and after the porch was enclosed:

I believe that the gabled, primary portion of the addition may have included a third bedroom to the left and a second kitchen to the right. Off of the new bedroom would have been the porch-- and once enclosed, it expanded the size of the bedroom. During this time period, John and Catherine Cantlin's children were reaching adulthood and the parents portioned off half of their newly expanded house, creating a duplex for their family members. The second unit was not fully closed off from the main unit at this point, as it was family living there. According to their daughter-in-law, all three of the adult children lived in the apartment at some point. The left-side (main) unit contained the connected living/dining room, the original kitchen, and the near rear bedroom. The right-side apartment contained entry from the rear into a new door at the new kitchen. Then, progressing towards the front past the attic steps was the apartment living room, which could also double as a bedroom if required. The original bathroom may have been shared across both units during this time period-- the door opening accessing the hallway from the dining room may or may not have existed. Lastly, the original primary bedroom was now the main bedroom for the apartment.

Kitchen Relocated; Duplex Phase 2 (1960s to 2001)

Also according to the Cantlins' daughter-in-law, Catherine made some further changes after husband John's death in 1961. Most significantly, the house's original kitchen was converted into a new second bathroom. Permit records confirm this change and provide a date of November 1963. If there was indeed access to the original bathroom from the dining room at this time, it was closed off at this time. Kitchen cabinetry and plumbing was installed along the left-side wall of the dining room, turning it into an eat-in-kitchen.

The remainder of the duplex is as described in the previous iteration. The sketch above shows the Cantlins' newer rear bedroom expanded into the area of the porch enclosure.

Re-Birth as a Single-Family House (2001 to Present)

After Catherine Cantlin sold and vacated the house towards her later years, a young couple took ownership and set to work re-establishing functionality of the house as a single-family home.

The function of living room was relocated to the larger back room of the house, into what was previously Ms. Cantlin's bedroom. The second rear door off of the apartment kitchen was filled in. When exactly this kitchen was converted into a bedroom is unclear at this time, but the daughter-in-law reports that the house was still presented as a duplex when she helped sell the house in 2001, so it likely was not abandoned until that time. Both bathrooms were updated, and I believe it was during this ownership that the window at the original bathroom was filled in. An exterior deck was built at the back of the house, covering over both sets of concrete steps.


What exists now is a 3-bedroom, 2-bathroom single-family home of approximately 1,100 square feet. For now, this layout works pretty well for us. We'd like it to be perhaps a bit larger, and I have some designs in my head, but we'll get to those in due time. This house is over 90 years old and has seen significantly more change than I realized when I set out on my research. Yet, the journey and the in-progress results are fascinating, as the house has shifted and morphed along with all of its occupants.

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Information From a Former Occupant of the House

Just before the New Year, I penned an article here called "The Importance of Contacting Your House's 'Descendants'" which described why it is so important for you to attempt to contact living persons who are connected to your house's history. This is THE most likely way to find the most elusive types of information-- about layout (or other physical) changes, the personalities/lives of former owners and occupants, and perhaps even photographs. The article also described ways in which you can go about finding these living sources and how to respectfully approach them. Finally, I presented an intro to what has led to some of my most important discoveries to date:

"The most successful result, however, was with one of the daughters-in-law (edit: of my house's longtime owners John & Catherine Cantlin), who by chance has lived within my same neighborhood for decades. I found contact information including the telephone number and address in a phone directory, and started off by writing a simple letter and including some current photographs of the interior and exterior of the house. I did not receive a response, so after a couple of months I made a simple phone call. On the receiving end was the daughter-in-law, who was delightful to talk to, who HAD received my letter (but had not responded only because she assumed she had no useful information for me), and who proceeded to have a very nice conversation with me about what I've found to date and about what she recalled."

I sent my initial letter to the daughter-in-law (who I believe is in her 70's) towards the end of the summer of 2015 (around when I started Home Scribe History) and decided to make the cold call in early November. We spoke for roughly 20 minutes and I kept very detailed notes. What follows here is a brief summary of what I found out from her in the first of what is hopefully multiple conversations with her:

• The daughter-in-law herself, who was married to John and Catherine's (now deceased) youngest son, lived in the "apartment" side of the house from 1958-1961. This confirms that she has some serious memories and knowledge about the house.
• She confirmed that the house, for a significant part of its history (as early as the 1950's through to at least 2001), was a duplex and not merely a single-family home as it was originally and is today. This is something I discovered previously and detailed in my post from late September "This Single-Family Was Once a Duplex" and was triggered by the discovery of a piece of duct tape in the basement labeling piping for the "Old Kitchen". The layouts I presented in that post were far from correct, largely due to the fact that the layout had changed much more than I realized. She did, however, confirm that what is presently my 3rd bedroom was formerly the apartment kitchen.
• She confirmed the youngest Cantlin son's (her husband's) birth year as 1933. Additionally, she informed me that he was born in the home.
• She and her husband had helped sell the house in 2001 after Catherine moved out to a nursing home at the age of 95. At that time, no significant changes were made in preparation for selling the house beyond some new carpets and minor cosmetic improvements. She confirmed some termite remediation which was found during my home inspection.
• I was informed that after John Cantlin's death in 1961, Catherine Cantlin undertook additional layout changes on the half of the house where she lived. Most significantly, I learned that what is now the second bathroom (between the current kitchen and the current living room) was previously the original kitchen of the house. After John's death, this became a bathroom, and the former dining room became what is today Kitchen/Dining.
• Her understanding is the same as mine that the house already existed when the Cantlins bought it in 1932. She relayed an anecdote that was told to her that the Cantlins had lived in Philadelphia previously (which I knew from census research) and had moved out to Glenside, at one point renting a house on Roberts Avenue less than a mile away from my house. Catherine had been trying to decide between the Roberts Avenue house and this one, ultimately choosing this one. She believes they rented the house before buying it, as I suspected based on their purchasing deed.
• The neighboring lot used to be owned by Catherine Cantlin as part of her lot. This lot now contains my neighbor's house. According to the daughter-in-law, Catherine sold the lot off 30 or so years ago. Records seem to indicate that it may have been sold in 1973, 43 years ago.
• She confirmed that the old stone stove in the backyard has been there since at least when she lived here, so she pegged it as at least as early as 1956-57. She was not sure who physically built it, and did not believe her father-in-law did. She relayed that it was heavily used, and that the Cantlins liked to entertain, especially on July 4th.

This single conversation gave me alot to work with-- alot of new leads to research further. It gave me alot of detail that I likely would never have learned without contacting former occupants of the house. I will say that I probably caused this woman to be confused more than a few times, referring to a living room that she never knew as a living room, and I kept thinking she was referring to rooms in the back of the house when she meant the front. This confusion was simply because the house has seen a significant number of changes, so both of us had come from it based on our own understanding of the house. I did ask her if she could recall any photographs which might show the house in some of these earlier decades. She said that she would check, and would also check with her sister-in-law (the other living Cantlin daughter-in-law) who might be more likely to have such things.

I followed this phone call up with another letter shortly thereafter, enclosing a few sketched out floor plans asking some additional questions and to ensure that I understood our conversation correctly. I will post more about any follow up information as it arises, but I hope this demonstrates the potential value to your house history research!

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2015 In Review: Home Scribe History's First 4 Months

As we head into the New Year, it is my intention here at Home Scribe History to continue offering tips and suggestions for all those who wish to conduct research on their own house in the future. Many of these posts will continue to star my own house, built in the 1920's, as the backdrop and primary case study. As many of you have found, some of the record types and methods offered here can be helpful in other types of historical research as well, namely in researching your genealogy and family history. You might have discovered some record types you may not have considered or thought of previously. In 2016, in addition to offering new posts of this type and continuing to report on my own house history research, I intend to expand into new types of posts as well; with some guest posts from other researchers here and there, and some interviews with professionals dealing with some of these document types.

It's been enjoyable to see the readership here expand, and I wish to take a moment to thank all those who have followed this blog, and especially those who have actively spread the word by sharing on Facebook or on their own websites. I do very humbly thank you.

Looking to close the book on 2015, I've published 40 posts prior to this one over the course of 4-1/2 months. Depending on when you began following Home Scribe History, you may have missed some of my earlier posts which you may find relevant or of interest to you. Below I present links to some of my favorite posts dating back to August 2015. The intent of this is not to ask you to go back and make sure you've read every single post (although that would be great! haha) but to put some of the topic headers in front of you so you can peruse some of the older posts if you like. As always, my archive of posts is always available in the left sidebar of the Home Scribe History website.

So take a look below, stay tuned in the future, and many thanks again. Happy New Year!

Let The House Blog Begin!

Using Maps to (More Closely) Date the House

Census Records- An Essential Building Block For Your House History

Browsing On-Line County Databases for House History Information

Examining a 20-Year-Old Photograph of the House

Finding Physical Evidence: Old Kitchen?!?

This Single-Family Was Once a Duplex

Are There Permits or Drawings For Your House? Visit the Local Building Department

Learning About the Home's Expansion By Looking at the Building Permit

Finding Physical Evidence: The 1946 Addition

Piecing Together a Chain of Title For a House's Land

Extracting Clues From Property Deeds

Fire Decimates 1927 Tudor-Style Clubhouse at LuLu Country Club

The Origins of Ferguson's North Glenside

A Walk Through the Ardsley Neighborhood (Ferguson's North Glenside)

Past Ownership and the House's Chain of Title - Part 1 (Pre-Construction)

Past Ownership and the House's Chain of Title - Part 2 (Post-Construction)

Past Ownership and the House's Chain of Title - Part 3 (Adding Mortgages to the Mix)

Finding Physical Evidence: Original German Siding

"Husealogy": Genealogy For the House

How Obituaries (Both Old and New) Can Be a Boon to Your House History

Is There a Ghost in the House?!? What Death Certificates Could Reveal

Previous Owners: Frederick & Bertha Brandes (1920-1922)

Perusing Your Municipality's Archive of Annual Reports for Neighborhood History

The Importance of Contacting Your House's "Descendants"


...and much more to come in 2016!

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The Importance of Contacting Your House's "Descendants"

In some of my other posts here, I have championed the importance of learning the personal histories of those who have lived in your home in the past. Doing so will bring life to the facts which you are compiling about your house's history. This exploration, of course, extends beyond the legal owners of your property-- to their children and their parents who may have also lived in the house. The "FAN Club" Principle, as explained by well-known genealogist and historical researcher Elizabeth Shown Mills, describes how the seeking out of documents for your subject person's Friends, Associates, and Neighbors can lead you past sticky "brick wall" type problems to take it a step further.

All of this is to say that you must go beyond those property owners whom you find in your title chaining. In most cases, especially if your house has some age to it, those past owners are no longer with us. However, those past owners have children, grandchildren, nieces, nephews, and in-laws who just may have spent significant time in your home or even lived there. If you can locate these living "descendants" of your house's ownership history, you just may find yourself on the track to gaining first-hand knowledge about the way your house was several decades ago. I can almost guarantee that you will NOT find much of this information in any other way. This is also the single most likely way in which you might find older photographs of your house.

Note: This is a photo of my grandmother Virginia Gillooly when she was a toddler in the early 1930's, held by her great-aunt Emilie Louden, who raised her. In the background you can see not only their home at the time, but the neighboring house in the Germantown section of Philadelphia. The present-day owners of these homes might be interested in them! 

Locating Living "House Descendants"

Excusing the continuation of the pun, you should "fan" out starting with one of your house's previous owners. You might find it easy enough to build a small family tree or pedigree chart for them on Ancestry.com or on another genealogical website or software. Instead of going backwards in time, you will be looking to move forwards in time towards present-day.

The most useful documents for heading in this direction might just be census records and obituaries. Census records (currently available up to 1940) will help you build the makeup of the household in question. For my home's longtime owners, John and Catherine Cantlin, I know from both the 1930 and 1940 census schedules that they had three children: Jean (aka Claire, born c. 1927), John Jr. (born c. 1929), and Robert (born c. 1934), all of whom lived in this home during their childhood.

1930 Census schedule enumerating John and Katherine (Catherine) Cantlin in Philadelphia, with daughter Clarie (Claire) and son John.

1940 Census schedule enumerating John and Catherine Cantlin on Central Avenue in Ardsley, with daughter Jean C (Claire), son John, and youngest son Robert.

Using some simple logic and pretending I know nothing else, head of household John Cantlin would be 114 years old if living today, while Catherine would be 108-- not very likely that they would still be with us, and in fact they are not. Extending to the children, they would potentially range from ages 81 to 88 if living today, which is much more realistic. All three children could be sought out to see if they might still be with us. Search more recent public records and Google to find out. As crazy (and perhaps unsettling to some) as it may seem, nearly every person living today in this internet-age has unwittingly or not created some form of online footprint. You may be able to find out relatively easily if they are living or deceased. I will spare you further suspense in this example and inform you that all three of the Cantlin children have passed away previously.

Although you may not find living descendants in this first portion of the search, remember that you must expand out further beyond the immediate family. Your first searches may lead you to recent obituaries online, or you may need to seek older obituaries out in other repositories. See my previous article on obituaries for the types of information you will find within them. The most important portion of the obituary for locating living persons is where the decedent's survivors are listed. In this case, I located an obituary for John Cantlin's grandson who passed away within the past decade, and in it were listed two living daughters-in-law as well as four now-adult living grandchildren of John and Catherine Cantlin. (Note: I wish not to reproduce this obituary here, bearing in mind privacy concerns for the living persons listed in it). After locating the obituary, I now had as many as six living persons I could consider contacting to see if they were willing to share any memories of not only the house, but of John and Catherine themselves.

Making Contact

Once you've got some names, you might again turn to Google to seek out their current mailing address and/or telephone number. You might also consult current telephone directories. Further, in this digital age, Facebook might yield a current profile for living descendants. In my case with the Cantlins and the six living family members, I initially was able to find Facebook profiles for several of the grandchildren still living in the area, and did reach out to one of them several months ago, with no response as of yet. I may delicately try again to reach out, or may try to contact one of the other grandchildren.

The most successful result, however, was with one of the daughters-in-law, who by chance has lived within my same neighborhood for decades. I found contact information including the telephone number and address in a phone directory, and started off by writing a simple letter and including some current photographs of the interior and exterior of the house. I did not receive a response, so after a couple of months I made a simple phone call. On the receiving end was the daughter-in-law, who was delightful to talk to, who HAD received my letter (but had not responded only because she assumed she had no useful information for me), and who proceeded to have a very nice conversation with me about what I've found to date and about what she recalled.

I'll remind you to approach living persons respectfully, of course. After all, they are not at all expecting it. I find that most people are receptive to reconnecting with the past and to sharing with you, but it's worth reminding that some may not. The ideal scenario, of course, is that the descendants you contact are as excited to share what they know as you are to hear it. In these cases you will likely need to do little to spur the floodgates to open. If they are less enthusiastic or responsive, I find it worth giving folks some space if they are not immediately forthcoming with a ton of information. Make it clear that you are willing to bear the cost of reproducing any documents or photographs they are willing to share. Whether you initially make contact via telephone, snail mail, or email, send them a gentle reminder letter/email, perhaps with a single new question. Asking 20 different questions all at once may be too overwhelming. If you write, include a self-address stamped envelope for them to write you back (this may have been helpful for me to include on my first letter)-- make it as simple as possible for those you are corresponding with to write you back. Be patient, and you will likely be rewarded. You MAY even be rewarded with some old photographs of your home!

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Perusing Your Municipality's Archive of Annual Reports for Neighborhood History

This tip may take some digging or some asking around at your local municipality government office, historical society, or library. However, it might be a source you did not previously consider, and can provide you with local historical information which can further enrich your house history. I'm speaking of Annual Reports for your local government entity. Yay! Sound dry? Well, they certainly can be, but if you look past the blocks of financial stats and scan for relevant information, you just may find very useful details about the origins and development of your neighborhood or even your particular street.

As with a corporation or any other organized entity, the Annual Report is created to apprise shareholders, residents, or other interested parties of the finances and major efforts of the organization from the previous calendar or fiscal year. While it may be relatively easy to find recent Annual Reports, what you will find most useful for your historical research are those reports from the time period within a decade or two of when your house was built, or when your subdivision was created. There is no one consistent place to find such reports across all types of municipalities, but you should start off by contacting the Town Clerk office, or the staff for the local Board of Commissioners or Supervisors. In larger cities, you might seek out the Annual Report for the city's Planning agency or commission. These older reports might also be housed at a local historical society or the public library.

What Abington Township Annual Reports Told Me

My local municipality is the Township of Abington, a first class township (in Pennsylvania, a township is either a first-class or second-class township). And wow! The Township's official website includes a "History" page which includes every single Annual Report prepared by the Board of Commissioner from the years 1917-1962, plus 1914. Call me lucky.

You should be looking for any information related to your street or your subdivision. Of course, if you are like me, you will probably find most of the information on your entire locality interesting as well. Going back to, say, the 1920's when my house was built, you will be able to learn of how Township leaders dealt with rapid growth. street expansion and repair; grappled with funding police and fire departments properly; and you will likely also see the names of leaders whose legacy may continue on in the form of street or park names.

In Abington Township, by the time the "Roaring 20's" hit town, the exploding use of the automobile in combination with the growth of the suburb made street conditions the topic du jour, and it remained so for several years thereafter. Macadam streets were clearly incredibly worn down, and township leaders had immense trouble keeping up with the costs of repairs. Much effort is made in the reports of the years from 1918 to the early 1920's to convince residents that their tax dollars simply were not sufficient to keep up with the exponentially increasing costs of road work.

A clip from the 1918 report expresses the need to create an ongoing budget for more permanent road reconstruction. Note that auto traffic has doubled in the Township since the year 1916.

A clip from the 1920 report conveys that by this time, auto traffic has now tripled since 1914. Real estate investors are subdividing the township land at an alarming rate, laying out new streets without paving them in any permanent way.

A clip from 1922. Now, although the Township has the power to approve new subdivisions before they can legally be recorded at the County Recorder of Deeds, most development is still occurring without sufficient permanent roads. The Township Commissioners make clear to the newer lot owners that this work will need to be done at their own expense.

Speaking specifically about the immediate area where my house is located, Reginald Ferguson's North Glenside subdivision was filed with the county in 1919, before the Township had the oversight it established in 1921. A significant amount of maintenance and improvements appear to have been performed on Central Avenue in the years 1924, 1925, and 1928. Although it is possible that some work was done to the 400 block (and, if you'll remember from my deed analysis, the house may have been constructed in 1922-1923), I believe it more likely that most or all of this work occurred just to the south, in the stretch from Spruce Street to Limekiln Pike, an older subdivision. During this time period, this block of Central Avenue only housed a handful of homes, and according to the 1927 map, no water service existed on this part of the street. Also by 1927, we are starting to see some road improvements on the north side of Jenkintown Road, in Ardsley proper, the area subdivided by Ferguson.

Description from the 1924 report of road surface treatment on Central Avenue.

A breakdown of 1924 streets spending in the North Glenside section.

A breakdown of 1925 streets spending in the North Glenside section. Notice it has quadrupled from spending there the year before. Most or all of this likely occurred between Spruce St and Limeklin Pike, south of our house.

By 1927, new road construction is beginning to occur in Ardsley just to the north of my house.

As you can see, much of the reports from the decade deal with road construction and improvement. However, as the Township continued to grow, it began to create new regulations and flex more oversight over the increasing construction and development. A building code was adopted in the early 1920's, along with plumbing regulation, increased police forces, and the expansion of public amenities such as the creation of a Parks department.

This clip from 1924 is a testament to how much the Township has grown in such a short time.

By 1922, township leaders sought to preserve some land for public use. As described in this clipping, the southwestern part of the Township, where my house is located, had been nearly completely subdivided.

Yet, by 1930, the Great Depression had hit, and in combination with the fact that not many large tracts of land were left, development had slowed down to a near halt...

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