Saturday Spotlight- Circa 1926 Dutch Colonial Revival in Havertown

This week's Saturday Spotlight takes us into Delaware County for the first time, with this Dutch Colonial Revival in Havertown, PA.

Image via listing of Erica Deuschle, BHHS, Fox & Roach Realtors

The 2,500 square-foot home is a quintessential example of this Revival subtype, ubiquitous in the northeast United States in the first half of the 20th century. The gambrel roof (with a steeper pitch at the start of the second floor, meeting a shallower pitch up top) is what defines a Dutch Colonial Revival. True Dutch Colonials from the colonial era sometimes utilizes a gambrel roof with flared eaves. You will generally see the Revival houses either with the long gambrel roof facing the street (common from 1895-1915, with a fairly prominent centered entrance) or the other way with the shorter end (the gable end) facing the street. Here, the gable is facing the street and the side of the house includes a long shed dormer on both sides at the second level. This orientation to the street prevailed in the 1920's and 30's. The gambrel roof is quite steeply pitched, thus allowing another 1/2 story at the attic level.

Masonry was used quite often in Dutch Colonials, especially at the ground level. In this example, brick faces the first story, with cladding above. The front chimney, centered on the facade and splitting the windows evenly, was very common as well. In addition, many homes of the style, especially those of this gable-front facing variety, incorporated a front porch, as we see here with a hipped roof over it meeting the pent roof within the gable.

Origins

This house sits on land between Cobb's Creek and Saint Denis Church at the eastern end of Havertown. Situated so near to the creek, this vicinity became the locale for a number of early 18th century industrial mills-- in fact for decades, a successful wool mill sat just to the east of where the house now sits. Early owners of this land included enterprising miller Dennis Kelly, and later a Patrick Boyle. By the 1880's, and for the next 30 or so years, the mill and its land were under the purview of a Todd & Murphey Company. But the milling industry had mostly passed-- by 1908 the wool mill building itself was down to ruins only. This local milling history was chronicled in 1917 by John W. Eckfeldt in his "Cobb's Creek in the Days of the Old Powder Mill". In that year, not many before the Dutch Colonial's construction, Eckfeldt lamented:

"Nothing of the people, places or industries is left to mark the day of prosperity. The landmarks have become greatly changed to the eye by destruction. The magnificent old trees have reached their limit of life and gone, and the familiar places in many instances are dumping grounds. Modern improvement has come to the valley, but the real beauty of the place has vanished."

Part of that modern improvement was new residential streets and subdivisions. The old wool mill property was developed in the 1920's as Merwood Park. Mixing Dutch Colonial Revivals with Tudor-Style home every other lot, the creation of Merwood Park also included winding the new roads of Poplar Rd, Linden Drive, Cherry Lane, Rosewood Lane, and Wynnefield Drive inwards and outwards of each other to the east of the Saint Denis Church property. The subject house of this article is seen as one of the first phase of houses built in Merwood Park along the western half of the subdivision in a 1926 atlas map and a 1928 aerial photograph.

Merwood Park in 1926 atlas map, portion of map via Franklin Maps. Dutch Colonial house highlighted with purple arrow.

Aerial view of the neighborhood, circa 1928. Via PhilaGeoHistory.

1930s to Present

One of the earliest owners of the house, if not its first, was a railroad engineer named Fremont Harry Tietze. As of the 1930 census, Fremont was 43 years of age, and was living in the home with his wife, 39-year-old Kathryn, and their 10-year-old daughter Dorothy. The family came to Havertown by way of North Philadelphia, where the couple had lost multiple children in infancy during their earlier years of marriage. Dorothy was their only surviving child. Although this area would remain their long-term permanent home, they would move from this house to nearby Turnbull Avenue by 1940.

By 1954, linotype printing specialist Edward Iannacone had come into ownership of the home, along with his wife Elizabeth. The couple had at least one child, a daughter Rita Anna, who would have been about 15 years old at this time, The Iannacones owned the property for over 45 years, until 1991. The house went through three more owners during the 1990's, until its current owners purchased it in 1999. The Dutch Colonial is currently on the market, seeking a new old-house lover to steward its historic charm!

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Saturday Spotlight- 19th Century Folk Victorian (Turned Colonial Revival) in Roxborough

This week's Saturday Spotlight house is one with a storied past, a Folk Victorian in the Roxborough section of Philadelphia. It dates back to the latter half of the 19th century and was renovated and expanded in 1935-36 as a Colonial Revival.

Image courtesy of The Sivel Group

Architectural styles can be tricky sometimes. They change over times, of course, and sometimes a homeowner will want to update or expand a home significantly, incorporating details and stylistic trends of the day. The physical evolution of a home may fool one into thinking that the currently presented architectural style was always so. Fortunately here, the current owner of this home has a few historical photos which their listing agent was kind enough to pass along.

Image of the rear of the house, prior to 1935 addition. Courtesy of homeowner.

The house as shown in this older photo is clearly a folk, vernacular form, presenting as a two-story I-house with a side gable on one side and rear and front-facing gables at the other end. Tales of this house have its origins as far back as the 1850's. The intricate turned porch posts and the brackets at the roof eaves, however, suggest a few decades later to me. While a Victorian-style porch was a very common addition to existing earlier Folk homes of this time period and could have come after the original construction, I'd still wager that this house was constructed closer to the 1870's due to the eave detail. The simple frieze trim over the windows also was more likely to have occurred a bit later than the 1850's. This historical photo gives us a fantastic demonstration of how shutters were actually functional back in the day. Second floor window shutters were louvered, allowing a breeze to enter on a warm day, while first floor shutters were often comprised of solid raised panels to increase privacy. This arrangement was thoughtfully extended and maintained in future additions.

The facade shown in the historic image above is the current rear of the house. Take a look at it compared to a present-day image of the rear facade (below) and notice the asymmetrical window pattern largely intact, albeit with a door replacing one of the first floor windows, another door added, and the cross gable removed as part of an extensive 1930's renovation. Today we see much more of a Revival style, with the original house down to side gables on both ends, now accompanied by lower-height additions continuing the side gable form. Dormers are added on both the front and back at roof level to continue the rhythm of the facade's fenestration pattern. The white German siding set off with dark-painted shutters gives the house a classic farmhouse look.

Current rear of the house. Image courtesy of The Sivel Group

Origins

The home currently sits on land at what is modern-day Andorra, in Upper Roxborough. However, this was not its original location; more on that in a moment. At the edge of northwestern Philadelphia, this area was largely undeveloped through most of the 19th century, with groupings of houses along Ridge Pike surrounded by larger ownership tracts. As of 1875, this immediate area was still referred to as “Manatawna”, a name which persists today in the form of Manatawna Ave. The exact land on which the house exists today is marked by the ownership of a Mr. Sebold in that same year. A structure is shown on the 1875 map further northeast of the home which is the subject of this piece, existing close to the corner of Spring Lane and Ridge Pike. According to the current owner, the original frame structure of our feature house may have been sitting further to the south along the banks of the Schuylkill River at this time, to be relocated to its present site later on.

Aerial image from 1930. The house, pre-addition on its new (and present) site, is marked with the red arrow to the west of Ridge Pike, the main north-south thoroughfare.

In the last decades of the 19th century, local railroad executive and philanthropist Henry Howard Houston began acquiring many of the large tracts of land in Upper Roxborough. Houston had already burgeoned the adjacent neighborhood of Chestnut Hill as an upper class haven, having amassed a wealth of land and establishing his own mansion residence there (Druim Moir). By the time of his death in 1895, Houston’s holdings in Roxborough had yet to be developed to a significant extent. That would change, however, with the efforts of his son Samuel Frederic Houston, who took over the Estate’s real estate holdings. The younger Houston set out to replicate the section as an elite residential area similar to Chestnut Hill, with grand ambition to construct a cross-country parkway from Chestnut Hill, with a large bridge over the Wissahickon Gorge and through Roxborough, connecting to the Main Line to the west. Those plans never materialized, nor did S.F. Houston’s hopes for a massive Cathedral in Andorra a few blocks away from our subject folk house.

Samuel F. Houston, circa 1900. Image courtesy of UPenn Archives

Instead, smaller-scaled plans did materialize in the core of the neighborhood. This occurred largely through Houston’s commissioning of professional architects, such as Robert Rodes McGoodwin, to design elegant residential houses, including what is now the Renfrew Center further down Spring Lane. This, too, is where the tale of the white folk house picks up. According to the owner, the original house was relocated from its location along the Schuylkill River to a new foundation on its present site on Spring Lane. The house, missing from a 1910 property atlas, may have been moved to this site shortly thereafter. It appears with its smaller, original footprint in a 1930 aerial photograph (seen above). A large-scale renovation and addition was then executed by R.R. McGoodwin, commissioned by Samuel F. Houston’s wife. The Houstons never lived at this home, but merely commissioned its expansion. Fortunately, building plans have survived for this work and are in the care of current ownership. The addition and alterations nearly doubled the footprint of the house, to its current 4,930 sf, and altered the exterior style to its present appearance.

Left: The title block portion of a drawing sheet for the addition of the house, courtesy of the owner. Right: Robert Rodes McGoodwin, architect of the modified end result. Image via UPenn Archives.

1950s to Present

This house continued its expanded existence into the next few decades and eventually came under the ownership of George S. Greene, a financial investment banker. Greene performed some alterations of his own, hiring contractor William Milton in 1959 to remove an existing porch (in the location of, and perhaps the same porch shown at the left side of the historical image) and to add a small one-story cinder block addition. This addition is manifested as the infilled-corner portion at the far right of the house when viewed from the street.

Building permit drawing for small addition, 1959.

Ownership changes continued through the latter half of the 20th century, with a Harry & Susan West selling the house to Frank & Elizabeth Blair in 1973. Mr. Blair was a medical physician. The Blairs owned the home until 1991, at which time they conveyed the property to Paul Tucker and Mary Rugala who held it for the next twenty years. 

The current owners have owned the home since 2011 and have performed a number of tasteful modern improvements, including upgrades to multiple bathrooms and a master bath. Yet, at the same time, the historic character of the house itself has been maintained, and it awaits a new owner to carry on the legacy.

Interior images courtesy of The Sivel Group

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Saturday Spotlight- Circa 1879 Gothic Revival in Plymouth Meeting

This week's Saturday Spotlight is a bright yellow Gothic Revival home in Plymouth Meeting, PA. It is a contributing structure to the Cold Point Historic District, listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Image via Google Street View

Measuring in at approximately 3,800 square feet, this property also has a fairly large barn structure behind the main house. Built with an L-shaped plan, the main form is a cross-gabled Gothic form. In the straight-on photo of the front facade seen above, we see the hallmark of many Gothic Revival houses with a steeply pitched, centered front gable that dominates the roof line and incorporates a single pointed arch window. A simple king post truss adorns the primary gable as well as the two side gables.. This example, built during the tail end of this style's popularity, includes a relatively small number of Gothic detailing and even includes some Italianate roof eave bracketing. The existence of a full-width porch at the entry is indeed common to Gothic Revivals, however.

Taking a spin around to the right side, we see that the house presents two facades of architectural interest to the street. The front porch wraps around to meet the rear ell, which rises the same 2-1/2 stories and terminates with a secondary gable and a palladian window. Above the porch are two symmetrical projecting bay windows, and directly above those we see some further late-19th-century Victorian-era influence with arch top windows. The single-story piece extending from the house out to the right seems to be an addition, as one is documented as having been performed in the late 1980's.

Image by author.

Origins

This house was constructed approximately in 1879 by carpenter Charles B. Camburn. Born in 1853 and having been raised in the area, Camburn built this as a home for he and his wife, Emma. Having acquired the land in 1879, Charles and Emma are listed at this location in the 1880 census, along with two other young carpenters, George W. Janes and Edward Coulston. Perhaps these fellow carpenters were boarding in Camburn's house to help him finish the job.

Carpentry was a trade which ran in this family: in 1900, Charles has a nephew, Joseph, who was also a carpenter and was living with them for some time. Charles and Emma's only child, daughter Elsie, married a man named George Matz, who was also a carpenter. Although Charles Camburn was a skilled builder, he also seems to have enjoyed his diversions, taking out a patent for a checkers-like solitaire game in 1897.

Camburn's patent for a "game apparatus" from 1897. Image via Google Patents.

George and Elsie Matz remained at the Camburn house through at least 1910, having produced two grand-daughters for Charles and Emma-- Eleanor and Hazel, before eventually moving on to their own house in Upper Dublin. Charles Camburn passed away in 1914, at the age of 61, of stomach cancer, and Emma Camburn followed in 1918. Their final resting place is very nearby, only a few doors down at the Cold Point Baptist Church cemetery.

1919 to 1960

The next several decades proved to be find relatively stable ownership for this house. George and Elsie Matz sold it in 1919 to William Hemphill Potts. Potts, age 42, was a manager at the Germantown facility of Abbott's Alderney Dairies, a highly successful company distributing butter, milk, cheese and other dairy products which had several locations in Philadelphia. Potts had a wife, Jennie, and three children, Helen, Alice, and William, Jr, with him at the home. A third daughter, Marion, was already married by the time the Potts family moved in at the end of 1919.

William Potts would continue his job with Abbott's Dairy for several more years, commuting from the Gothic home at Cold Point. He likely was accompanied daily by his daughters Helen and Alice, who took up jobs as bookkeepers at the dairy. In 1938, matriarch Jennie Potts passed away after battling a strep infection in her throat for several weeks. Soon thereafter, William appears to have retired from Abbott's. As of the 1940 census, now-grown children Alice and William Jr. remained in the house with their father, and Marion had moved in as well along with her husband and two children. William H. Potts sold the property in 1944, and later died in 1948.

The next 13 years saw the house owned by a John C. Fetter, and his wife Helen. Fetter, having lived most recently in nearby Conshohocken, was an inspector at a glass factory. The Fetters had at least one child, daughter Helen-- making a total of at least three Helens to have lived in the Gothic home.

1960s to Present

At some point, most likely upon his sale of the property in 1961, John Fetter subdivided his 4+ acre land into two parcels. The other parcel saw a one-story ranch house erected, which was later demolished for a new home in 2003-04. As for the Gothic Revival house, it stood the test of time, owned by Bernard and Mercedes Pannone from 1961-1972. The current owners have continued to hold the mantle of long-term and stable ownership for nearly 45 years, giving them the longest term of ownership in this house's 135+ year history. And I'm thrilled that despite the missing shutters at the pointed arch Gothic window in a 1990's photo of the house, these owners have replaced or repaired them in an architectural accurate manner.

Circa 1990's photo via Montgomery County.

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Saturday Spotlight- Circa 1890 Queen Anne Victorian in Schwenksville

This week's Saturday Spotlight house is a Victorian house with a perch overlooking Main Street in Schwenksville, PA.

Driving down the Gravel Pike through Schwenksville at some portions transforms one back to the late 19th century. There are various Second Empire and Italianate buildings pressed up against the main road, and multiple large Victorian homes like this one and its neighbor sitting upon the hill. The history of this house is seeped with several names contributing to the development of the borough itself.

Measuring in at about 4,900 square feet, this is a Free Classic variant of a Queen Anne Victorian, with more classical porch columns as opposed to turned spindlework posts. Many of the prototypical elements of the style shine through here, most prominently the round tower with an S-curve roof and finial. Queen Anne homes look to avoid flat facades through many devices, and here we see asymmetry created by the tower and multiple small porches and bays around the entire house. The roof form is a cross-gable, with the front gable dominating. Yet, this shingled gable is broken up by two projections in its upper half, and a pent roof sloping at the bottom of the gable underneath the triple-grouped windows. The solidly brick first and second stories has several ins and outs, and the centered front porch picks up the shingled materiality to lighten up the solid mass. A relatively recent paint job seeks to re-establish the sunburst pattern in both the main and porch gables.

Origins

According to A Schwenksville History by the Schwenksville Bicentenial Committee, although founded by German settler George Schwenk in 1756, it was his grandson Jacob Schwenk who built a hotel and store in the first half of the 19th century laying the basis for a permanently settled town. The Victorian house here now sits on a portion of the land inherited by Jacob's daughter, Elizabeth Zeigler (Schwenk) Strassburger. Widowed at the time, Ms. Strassburger sold this parcel extending from Main Street to 2nd Street in 1888, to Valentine G. Prizer, and left the town her family established, moving to Norristown to live with her daughter.

It is likely within the next few years thereafter when Valentine Prizer erected this home in a common style of the time. The house appears both on an 1893 atlas map, as well as an 1894 drawing sketch of the town.

1893 atlas map of Schwenksville, with the house of V.G. Prizer highlighted. Map via Ancestry.

Portion of an 1894 bird's-eye sketch of Schwenksville, highlighting the Valentine Prizer home in red. Sketch via Historic Mapworks.

Prizer had been part of the business venture of McNoldy and Prizer's Store in town, at the location of Jacob Schwenk's original store. Valentine Prizer lived in 1900 at the Queen Anne home on Main Street with his wife, Sarah, and their 26-year-old adult daughter, Bertha.

1910 to 1940

In 1907, Prizer and his business partner sold their store to another partnership, which included Jacob Andrew Bromer, according to A Schwenksville History. Jacob Bromer was not only the son of longtime successful businessman Alfred Bromer (proprietor of the Perkiomen Hotel), but he was also the brother of Valentine Prizer's immediate neighbor, William Bromer, and the newlywed husband of his daughter Bertha. As of the 1910 census Jacob and Bertha Bromer are living in the Prizer's Victorian home, along with Valentine and Sarah Prizer. The Bromers now also had two of their own daughters in the home, Anna Maude, 6, and Mildred, 2. The family also housed a 23-year-old servant named Anna Schmidt. Valentine Prizer is listed as "postmaster" having been appointed to that position at Schwenksville's post office, whereas Jacob Bromer, of course, is listed as a retail merchant of general merchandise.

Ten years later, in 1920, Valentine and Sarah "Sallie" Prizer have the house to themselves, as Jacob and Bertha Bromer moved to their own home nearby. By this time, Jacob Bromer had gotten into the auto repair business, eventually building a new garage on the site of his father's Perkiomen Hotel. Valentine, perhaps minding the general store business, is listed in the census again as a store manager. On March 14, 1922, Valentine Prizer passed away after suffering a stroke, leaving the house and all of his property to his wife, Sarah. Sarah Prizer, upon her death on October 9, 1925, bequeath the house to daugther Bertha.

Jacob and Bertha Bromer, now in their 50's, moved back into the Victorian home on Main Street. Now, for a time, Jacob would again be adjacent to his brother William, in his own Queen Anne home next door:

The home of William Bromer, Jacob's brother, directly next door. Photo likely from 1990's courtesy of Montgomery County.

Unfortunately, the typhoid fever took away Bertha Bromer from this earth in 1933. Jacob, of course, was her beneficiary and became the sole owner of the home. That is, until he succumbed to his own illness, dying of a heart condition in March 1937. Valentine, Sarah, Bertha, and Jacob are all buried at the Keely's Church Cemetery down the road. As for the house, Jacob and Bertha's two daughters, Anna Maude and Mildred, conveyed it to a local bank, apparently as part of the settlement of their father's estate.

1940 to Present

The house's first owner outside of the Prizer/Bromer family was Ernest F. Royer, a bank clerk previously from Red Hill 10 miles to the north. Royer purchased the house and the full extent of its lot to 2nd Street in October of 1940. Ernest and his wife, Ethel, were both 27 years of age and moved to Schwenksville with their infant daughter, Fay.

In the late 1950's, the Royers apparently built a Cape Cod-style home at the back of the property facing 2nd Street. It also appears that Ernest and Ethel lived in the smaller Cape home later on in life, perhaps renting out the Victorian home as apartments. At some point they painted their monogram "R" onto the gable of the front porch, as seen in a 1990's photo on file with the County. In 1991, the Royers sold both homes and the land to the current owners, who in 2006 split the Cape-style house off from the property and sold it off, keeping the Victorian for themselves.

The home as owned by Ernest and Ethel Royer, complete with monogrammed entrance, circa 1990. Photo courtesy of Montgomery County.

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Saturday Spotlight- Circa 1915 Eclectic Home in Mount Airy

This week's Saturday Spotlight takes us across the city limits into Philadelphia for the first time, with an eclectically styled home on Lincoln Drive in the West Mount Airy neighborhood.

Image via Google Street View

Ever since I moved to Glenside, one thing I have very much enjoyed is that I no longer am forced to drive the hellish interstate that is the Schuylkill Expressway when I want to drive to Center City Philadelphia. Instead, I am treated to the meandering thoroughfares of the Cresheim Valley Road and Lincoln Drive. Any day of the week I'll trade the chance at a speedy trip downtown for these pleasant routes through some of Philadelphia's most established communities like Chestnut Hill and Mount Airy, and a plethora of homes built of Wissahickon schist stone.

This home is nearly 5,300 square feet, and its unusually eclectic architectural style is what caught my eye. It boasts a Lincoln Drive address, and although you may able to catch it as you zip by, it actually presents most of its frontage on the cross street of Westview St. A mostly symmetrical facade with a hipped roof and deeply bracketed eaves, I mostly see Italianate or Renaissance Revival coming through in the mix of styles. The fenestration pattern and chimneys at either end carry over Colonial Revival planning. The most interesting features of the architecture, however, are the uniquely shaped arch dormers at the attic level. I can't quite peg that particular shape to a specific influence, maybe Flemish, but the center dormer which breaks the deep cornice line of the house makes a strong statement. Shallow segmented arches carry through to the first floor windows, the center window of the second floor, and the main entry porch. The stucco facades are uniquely adorned with red brick belt-coursing and perimeter trim, and a decorative diamond motif manifests itself throughout the exterior.

Image via Google Street View

Origins

The land on which this home presently sits was once part of a vast 500-acre estate owned by a prominent Philadelphia scientist and druggist, George W. Carpenter (1802-1860). It also happens to sit within the southwest corner of a 100-acre portion of Carpenter's primary estate, named Phil-Ellena. In 1893, Carpenter's beneficiaries sold this land to a business interest which included all-time Philadelphia capitalists Anthony Drexel and Edward T. Stotesbury (I previously discussed E.T. Stotesbury in another Saturday Spotlight post on a property in suburban Wyndmoor). What followed was the planned development called Pelham. The area, with the Chestnut Hill train line running through it, became popular, giving rise to hundreds of architect-designed twin homes and mansion homes for successful businessmen of the mercantile trades. The first decade of the 20th century saw the creation of Lincoln Drive, an extension of the existing thoroughfare (then called Wissahickon Drive) that wound through Fairmount Park along the Wissahickon Creek. The extension cut through Mount Airy along the branch of the Monoshone Creek, and is today one of the main thoroughfares to the near-northern suburbs of Philadelphia.

1895 map of Mount Airy. "X" marking the future spot of the featured house. The name "Ed. T. Stotesbury et al" is sprinkled throughout the Pelham neighborhood which is springing up at this time. Lincoln Drive goes no further north than Carpenter Lane at this point. Portion of a map courtesy of PhilaGeoHistory.

The assumed construction date for this eclectic stucco house is sometime between 1910-1920. It is believed to have been constructed for a wealthy manufacturer of ladies' dresses, named Abraham H. Caplan. Caplan was a native Russian, born in 1870 in what is now Latvia, and emigrated to the United States in 1884, later becoming a naturalized citizen, and clearly, a successful entrepreneur. Caplan lived at this home with his wife, Lena, and their three children-- daughter Irena was the eldest, and two boys, Clarence and Harold. Caplan employed two African-American women in 1920 as a live-in cook, 41-yr-old Minnie Bevens, and a live-in maid, 23-yr-old Cora Williams.

Lena (left) and Abraham Caplan (right). Photos from their 1923 application for a U.S. Passport.

1930s to Present

Although it is unclear exactly what may have happened to Abe's dressmaking business, by 1930 he and his family have moved onto a rental apartment in Germantown, and Abe has now switched careers to become the manager of a real estate business. Whatever those possibly poor fortunes may have been, the Lincoln Drive house saw a new owner. This was a Mr. John M. Greene, a 72-year-old retired treasurer of a sugar refinery business, and formerly of Atlantic City. Greene occupied the abode with his 62-year-old wife, Cecilia Gertrude Greene, and reported a value for the home of $40,000 in 1930. Cecilia, apparently Greene's third wife, passed away only a few years later, in 1933, of a type of heart disease.

It did not take the womanizing John Greene too long to find his fourth bride, however, as he married Ellen Nordstrom, approximately 45 years younger, the following year in Manhattan. John and Ellen lived in Mount Airy at the Lincoln Drive home through at least 1940. At some point thereafter, the couple moved to Yeadon in Delware County, with John Greene eventually retiring in 1945 to a nursing home in Chestnut Hill. He passed away there in 1947.

As for the Lincoln Drive house, a Mrs. Roy S. Streeter is listed at the address in 1950. The house has been well cared for and has been owned by the current owners for the past 24 years, since 1992. A veterinarian runs his business from this address, specializing in making house calls to ailing pets in their own homes.

UPDATE: I was contacted by Margaret, a former resident of this house, who lived there from 1950 to 1991! According to her, the Bailey family was the first African-American family to live on Lincoln Drive. If this indeed the case, it is a fantastic and fascinating addition to the story of this house and to the history of Mount Airy. I'll continue digging, and when I learn more I'll be sure to share in a future post. Thanks to Margaret for writing in!

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Saturday Spotlight- Circa 1915 Craftsman in Souderton

This week's Saturday Spotlight house is a Craftsman bungalow just outside of the borough of Souderton, PA.

Image courtesy of real estate listing by Re/Max Reliance

We have here a fairly modest Craftsman of nearly 1,900 square feet which exhibits several of the typically common features of this Arts-and-Crafts-inspired home style. The most distinctive of these are the low-pitched roof of the front porch, anchored by tapered stone piers which touch the ground. Stonework is continued with a prominent external fireplace of wide and tall proportion. The short and long 8-pane window is a window shape typical of the style. Knee braces mounted just underneath the roof eaves are one of the hallmarks of Craftsman design. The diamond-shaped siding shingles are an interesting decorative feature for the gable facades, although these are likely not original to the house. A fresh paint job with historic colors could do wonders for this home. On the interior, we see more Craftsman details: coffered ceilings, built-in cabinetry, and stained wood trim throughout.

Image courtesy of real estate listing by Re/Max Reliance

Image courtesy of real estate listing by Re/Max Reliance

Origins

This Craftsman house is believed to be the earliest remaining home of about a dozen homes, on a stretch of road at the edge of town which is now peppered with a few small commercial buildings and a few sizable light-industrial properties. Yet, it was not always so of course. Although not constructed until the 1910's, the house sits on what was previously the 45-acre farm of Henry B. Sell. Sell owned and ran this farm at the edge of Souderton at least as early as 1877, living there with his wife Emeline. They raised at six children on the farm over the years, and eldest Harvey stayed on the farm through the early part of his marriage. Once patriarch Henry passed away in 1909 of a stomach ulcer, however, it appears that the Sell family moved off of the farm and into the borough itself.
Meanwhile, the bungalow featured here was built sometime within the next decade. A few other modest homes where built up along Hatfield Pike during the pre-war era as well. No major farm structures survive on the property, although their time of demolition is not known.

Location of the Henry B. Sell farm, along what is present-day Souderton-Hatfield Pike.

1950s to Present

Post World War II, the immediate area surrounding the Craftsman gained new neighbors in a few ranch-style homes, but the commercial/industrial nature of the Pike appears to have begun around this time as well. In 1966, Joseph Hoffmann, along with his wife Gertrude, purchased the neighboring ranch home, and in the 1970's built a small machine shop for his "J. Hoffmann Tool and Die Company" behind the house. In 1986, the Hoffmanns also bought our subject Craftsman house as well. As the larger of the two houses on their adjacent properties, it's reasonable to assume that they took up residency in the Craftsman at that time. Mr. Hoffmann has passed away within the past decade or so, and the house was sold to another couple. Apparently in a half-finished state of repair in a few of the rooms on the interior (namely the upstairs), it is currently on the market.

The commercial and light industrial properties has continued to be built up sporadically, and the house is now more or less surrounded by such properties. But the Craftsman sits, waiting for a new caretaker, to finish off some of the incomplete renovations and carry it into its next several decades.

Image view Google Street View

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Saturday Spotlight- Circa 1910 American Foursquare in Pottstown

This week's Saturday Spotlight house is a brick American Foursquare in the borough of Pottstown, PA.

The American Foursquare style is very common in more densely populated areas and is pretty easy to spot and identify. This particular house measures approximately 1,800 square feet. This type of house is also referred to as the "Prairie Box" or "Classic Box" because it, well, looks like a box. It was one of the dominant styles of house architecture during its peak in popularity from 1900 to 1920. As seen in this example, they are nearly always two stories, and two-ranked, with a hipped or pyramidal roof. There is usually a center dormer, as seen here-- this house has a dormer on all four sides of the roof. It is a symmetrical form, yet the symmetry is broken with an offset entrance.

The first floor is often raised up a bit from ground level in the Foursquare, creating opportunity for basement windows as well as a stepped entrance. In this example, the dimensional stone of the building's foundation is presented as its finished exterior material up to that raised first floor elevation, with the brick masonry above constituting the primary aesthetic. It is pretty rare to see an American Foursquare without a front porch, and here we see a porch roof supported by simple, classically inspired columns. The rear side of the house continues the basic box form and center dormer at the roof. There is a one-story ell, which, if I had to guess, was built later, since it appears to be sort of "squeezed-in" to the left of the first floor rear door. A second porch covers this rear entrance and creates a balcony off of the second floor. You can see from this photo that two of the original windows have been bricked-in.

Origins

While County information lists an estimated construction date of 1900, there are no entries in 1900 or 1910 census enumeration schedules for this address, while the immediate neighbors are listed. An 1897 map does corroborate that there was no house here at that time. I think that it is likely that the house was built between 1910 and 1919. The earliest known owners were John J. O'Connor, an English-born detective, and his PA-born wife Sarah O'Connor. They occupied the home, along with their adopted daughter Esther, as early as March of 1919, when John passed away after contracting a form of cancer. Sarah and Esther continued on at the brick house, and as Sarah did not have an occupation of her own at this time, the presence of two boarders at the house in 1920 may have been out of financial necessity. The boarders were 38-year-old Lawrence Walch, a civil engineer at a blast furnace, and 34-year-old James Maney, a mechanic at a tire factory. It is unclear at this time what happened to Sarah and Esther O'Connor after 1920. Sarah perhaps re-married and moved on with a new surname, while Esther may have found her own husband, making both less-easily found in later census records.

By 1930, Robert W. Evans had bought and moved into the Foursquare home along with his wife, Elizabeth. At that time they had a 1-year-old son, Robert Jr. Robert W. Evans Sr. was born in nearby Limerick and had a farming background, but after marrying Elizabeth, they moved to Pottstown, where Robert established a real estate brokerage and insurance agency in 1910. Robert W. Evans Real Estate and Insurance became a very successful family business, as Robert Jr. eventually joined as an adult in 1950 and later took over the business. The Evans family lived at this particular house at least from 1930-1940, but had clearly moved onto a different residence in the eastern part of Pottstown by the time of Robert Sr's death in 1955.

Vintage sign advertising one of Robert Evans' rentals; photo found on an Ebay listing

1970s to Present

In 1975, the home came under the stewardship of the Fagley family. Firstly, from 1975 to 1977 the house was owned by Pearle V. Fagley, who at the time was in her 70's. Although Ms. Fagley did not pass on until 1984, in 1977 ownership of the house transferred to her grandson, who owned the house until 2007. Unfortunately, in early 2015, the house appears to have fallen into a bit of disrepair and was foreclosed on. Fannie Mae became the new owner and based on the amount of consideration in the public record, may have offered the previous owner some considerations as part of its Cash for Keys program, or as a Deed-In-Lieu of Foreclosure, to speed up proceedings. It was listed for sale through Fannie Mae's HomePath program, and less than two months later, a business owner from a neighboring town purchased the house, perhaps with the intent of either flipping it for re-sale or renting it out to tenants. Based on some of the interior photos from the HomePath listing, most of the interior charm and character which likely existed throughout its earlier decades is either covered over or gone completely, likely in the 1970's and/or 1980's. However, I see some stained glass as well as the remainder of some staircase detail at the interior front entry! Here's to hoping this house has a bright (and hopefully restored) future.

Photo courtesy of HomePath. Some historical details DO remain! Great windows!

Photo courtesy of HomePath. Paneling, linoleum, formica, dropped ceilings = charm?

Photo courtesy of HomePath. Bay at the side of the first floor. The wall on the right covers over a former window,

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Saturday Spotlight- Circa 1928 French Eclectic in Wyndmoor

This week's Saturday Spotlight is a stately Depression-era French Eclectic style house in Wyndmoor, PA:

On a scallop-shaped lot tucked onto a quiet, curving side street, this home measures about 3,400 square feet. It is a formal, yet relatively simple example of the French Eclectic style which gained some popularity in the years between World War I and II. Like the many Colonial Revival variants, this is an interpretive style. However, rather than being based on earlier American colonial types, this style is an amalgamation of characteristics found in more recent French manors. As posited in A Field Guide to American Houses, Americans serving in France during WWI may have become familiar with the features, later adapting them into their homes built thereafter. This is not to say that the person who built this house served in WWI, but rather that this is what contributed to the popularity of the style.

The roof is steeply pitched and hipped, as is seen in nearly all examples of this type. The symmetrical arrangement of casement window fenestration on the stucco facade is common, and in this case, with lush landscaping folding away to a sloping lawn, produces a grand presentation of the house as one rounds the bend on the street. Symmetry is reinforced with a larger scale center entrance, embellished with stone decorative surround detailing, and a Juliet balcony with arched French doors over the front door. The windows are casements on the primary two stories, with three arched roof dormers containing double-hing windows projecting from the tall hipped roof. The one story wing on the left side is also hipped, and appears to have been incorporated into the house since its inception.

Origins (The brief version)

The French-inspired house dates to the later 1920's and sits on the former land of Philadelphia lithographer Walter Hahn Jarden. Jarden's family had owned this land as part of a larger tract off of Mermaid Lane for decades, and several former structures from the Jarden estate remain to this day. Jarden subdivided this portion of his land earlier in the 1920's, creating 18 individual home-size lots. For a much more extensive history of Walter Jarden and this Wyndmoor land, see my article from last Saturday here.

1930s to Present

The earliest occupants found at this address are the family of Lewis C. Dick, an investment banker. He lived there in the 1930s and 1940s with his wife, Florine, their only son, Lewis, three younger daughters (Alice, Florine, and Mary Jane), and a maid. It is quite possible that the Dick family were the original owners of the house, but that is unproven at this time. A bit curiously, the house's value is reported at $30,000 in 1930, but only $12,000 in 1940. Lewis Dick passed away in 1957, with his residence listed as the corner of Jarden Rd & Pine St, our subject house.

The 1960s and 1970s are a bit foggy, but a Tyson family may have lived here at one point. Although there do not appear to be any additions put onto this house over the years (there is a rear attached garage which shows up on a 1938 map), according to the county public records, a remodel was performed in 1990, during the ownership of Charles & Mary Sweet. This couple owned the home from 1984 up to 1999. Since 1999, the current owners have maintained ownership for the last 16 years through today.

Photo of the home, likely from the 1990's. Courtesy of Montgomery County.

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Saturday Spotlight (Rabbit Hole Edition)- The Jarden Family in Wyndmoor

This week's Saturday Spotlight house was supposed to be a Depression-era French Colonial in Wyndmoor, PA:

A charming French Colonial on Jarden Road in Wyndmoor. We will need to come back to this one...

It is a very nice house, with its own history, which will need to get back to in due time. However, once I started researching the development of the land upon which this house sits, I was led so far "down the rabbit hole", so to speak, that the history I unlocked deserved its own post. Thus, I present this Rabbit Hole edition of the Saturday Spotlight. Now, allow me to explain...

I suppose I could have expected this: I was looking to feature an architectural style which I have not yet discussed, and I often drive down Willow Grove Avenue through Wyndmoor and this French Colonial on a side street fit the bill. For those unfamiliar, Wyndmoor is a small and quaint suburb bordering the Philadelphia city limits, with a plethora of old housing stock. I personally am only dipping my toes into the local history of Wyndmoor here, but many of these houses are large, stately former mansions. This is, after all, the location where Edward T. Stotesbury, a very, very, very, very wealthy banker from the turn-of-the 20th century, commissioned prominent Philadelphia architect Horace Trumbauer to design Whitemarsh Hall, a mansion which was larger than the White House but sadly demolished in 1980. While Wyndmoor may not be the Main Line, the village remains one of the Philadelphia area's gems, and there is plenty of old money here. And with old money often comes old stories. The following is what I have been able to piece together, based on a few hours in the rabbit hole...

The Jarden Subdivision

So... The French Colonial home exists on Jarden Road, a winding side street which intertwines with Pine Road, off of the main road Mermaid Lane which heads into the city. The subdivision of land which created Jarden and Pine Roads is shown on a 1938 map, and based on County tax assessment records, appears to have occurred sometime in the 1920's. Here we have that 1938 map, labeling the subdivision as "Walter H Jarden Plan".

Clip from a 1938 map; overall map courtesy Franklin Maps

Directly below it in the image, to the east (north is roughly to the right), is the remainder of Jarden's land, labeled "Walter H Jarden Est.", the implication being that Walter Jarden passed away prior to the creation of this 1938 map. Back to that shortly. As an aside, Jarden's land is wedged between that of Randal Morgan, a gas utility executive who also owned land across Stenton Ave in Chestnut Hill, and the Winoga Farm, where the aforementioned Edward Stotesbury bred his horses. At the end of East Lane was a now-defunct rail station, reportedly built largely for the convenience of Stotesbury. The Winoga Stock Farm, in 1939, became the site for the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture's Eastern Regional Research Center, where apparently chemists developed technology which we can thank for the existence of Pringles and other convenience snack foods.

The Jarden Family

I will now revert back to about 1880, with Samuel H. Jarden, a retired Philadelphia brick manufacturer. Samuel, his wife Amanda, and their two sons Fred and Walter had lived in the city most of the previous decades, including in the Fairmount neighborhood on Green Street in 1880. Older son Fred, born in 1857, had by this time become a civil engineer. Younger son Walter, born in 1859, graduated as a chemist. Both sons graduated from the University of Pennsylvania the previous year, in 1879, as their father Samuel had done in 1843. While I'm unsure of when Samuel Jarden acquired the farm in what was then known as Spring Village (now Wyndmoor), he did own it at least as early as 1893. Having retired from the brick industry and gained some significant wealth, this may have been the property used by the family as a retreat from the city.

Amanda passed away in 1898, with Samuel following a few years later in 1901. Ownership of the farm in Wyndmoor fell to Walter Jarden. After spending a few years as a chemist upon graduation, Walter's career had taken a bit of a winding turn, with a brief stint in fruit preserving, before establishing a lithography and printing firm at 1215 Race Street, Philadelphia, in 1889. Walter married Gertrude Finley in 1898, and the couple had their first of 3 daughters, named Ellen, on June 12, 1901. Despite the availability of the Wyndmoor grounds, it appears that the Jardens may have maintained their primary residence in the Green St townhouse in Fairmount for at least a few years after marriage.

By 1910, however, Walter and Gertrude are listed in the census at Wyndmoor. By this time, Walter was 50-years-old, had owned his own business for 20+ years, and continued to live well with inheritance from his father Samuel's brick manufacturing career. A 1909 map shows that some of Jarden's land (it previously extended all the way to Stenton Avenue) had since been sold (or otherwise conveyed) to Randal Morgan, however Walter Jarden had also apparently recently built a new mansion on his property which he christened "Cherry Knoll". Thus, it appears that the family had moved permanently to Wyndmoor. They lived there with their daughters Ellen, Roberta, and Mary; they also housed multiple maids.

Clip from a 1909 map; overall map courtesy of Franklin Maps

Now, the dates on record with the county tax assessor office for nearly all of the homes in the future Jarden subdivision range from 1920-1928, yet the name of the subdivision bears Walter Jarden's name, suggesting that he created the subdivision himself. By 1930, Walter, Gertrude, and younger daughter Mary were listed in the census back in the city, in the Mount Airy neighborhood on Germantown Avenue. So what happened? Did he grow bored of the suburb? He reported the value of his home at a handsome $35,000, and although he subdivided his Wyndmoor land, he did not split some of it, and even built a home for his daughter Ellen and son-in-law Otto Frederick Nolde (who later became a nationally-prominent ecumenical diplomat) on the remaining land. An account of Nolde's life mentions that the Jardens also maintained a shore house at Mantoloking, NJ. So Walter Jarden had certainly not squandered his fortune. Perhaps he missed being closer to the action in the city, although Mount Airy is nearly as suburban as Wyndmoor despite its location within the city limits. One theory: Walter's middle daughter, Roberta, passed away in 1922 of influenza, at the age of 16. Perhaps the heartbreak caused by the sudden loss spurred Walter to sell off most of his Wyndmoor land, including the house where Roberta died.

Walter Hahn Jarden, lithographer and printer, passed away at Chestnut Hill Hospital on December 28, 1934 at the age of 75, of chronic myocarditis, an inflammation of the heart muscle. His wife, Gertrude, lived to the age of 94, passing away in 1970. Oldest daughter Ellen passed away in 1961 at the East Lane home that Walter had built for her. Finally, youngest daughter Mary passed on in 2000, in Arizona.

Jarden's Wyndmoor Land Today

As we know, most of Jarden's land in Wyndmoor was subdivided in the 1920's and was filled in with a number of well-size houses in the following decade. Here, again, is the map from 1938, this time with a few of the houses numbered:

House #5 is the French Colonial which we will re-visit next week, just for reference. The others, #1 through #4 are all structures related to the history of the Jarden family just presented herein. The 1909 map shown again, now labeled with the same structures numbered #1, #2, and #3 as in 1938:

And here is a recent aerial view of the former Jarden land, from Bing Maps, noting the same five structures still standing today. If you look closely, you can see the ghost of the former tennis courts shown in the 1938 map, near #3:

House #1 is Cherry Knoll, the mansion erected circa 1909 by Walter Jarden to serve as his family's permanent private residence, which it apparently only did for about 10-15 years before they moved on. Today it fronts on Pine Road:

Photo courtesy of Montgomery County.

House #2 is what may be the original farmhouse on the Jarden property, or at least original in the sense that it may have been the house used by Samuel H. Jarden as a suburban retreat when he originally acquired the property. Current property records date the house to 1830-- further research would be required to confirm the date. It survives today on East Lane, and was sold relatively recently, in 2013. Zillow still has some photos from that listing here:

Looks to be in fantastic condition; In the back, you can see House #3, a former barn. Not in such great shape. Photo courtesy of 2013 real estate listing via Zillow.

View towards 1990's addition. Photo courtesy of 2013 real estate listing via Zillow.

Parlor Room. Photo courtesy of 2013 real estate listing via Zillow.

House #3, may have been the former main barn on the property, converted at some point to a residential home. It is listed as such (converted barn, dated to circa 1880) in county records, and appears to have been passed down through multiple members of the Nolde family, until earlier this year when it was sold out-of-family to a Wyndmoor Court LLC. The expired listing, still available via Zillow, touted development opportunities via possible subdivision of the currently 2-acre property. While the listing also suggested restoration of the existing house, it appears that Wyndmoor Court LLC is planning to subdivide the land into 4 individual lots surrounding a cul-de-sac (presumably extending Pine Rd). The developer's plans, as of November 11, 2015 (video of presentation by the developer begins at 07:50 mark at this link), had not yet been approved due to a requested zoning variance being sought, but was on the agenda for a November 23, 2015 zoning board hearing. If anyone knows more about this or the result of the zoning hearing, let me know! It is quite clear that there are no plans to save the existing historic house. According to the developer, it is "dilapidated". It certainly is quirky and would take quite a bit to bring it up to snuff. I'd prefer to see the stone barn portion remain and incorporated, with the later additions torn down, but that is not happening.

Photo via Redfin.

Photo via Redfin.

Photo via Redfin.

Photo via Redfin.

House #4 is the home commissioned circa 1927 by Walter Jarden for his daughter Ellen and her new husband, Otto Frederick Nolde, upon their marriage. As mentioned, Ellen passed away in 1961. Fred Nolde remarried in 1966 and passed away in 1972. His second wife, Nancy Lawrence Nolde, continued to own the house until 2007:

Photo via Google Street View.

Okay. I think that's enough of that rabbit hole. It was fun. Next week-- the French Colonial (House #5).

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