What’s your favorite treasured place in Chestnut Hill?
THE VOTES ARE IN!
Thank you for your votes! The winners will be revealed at our Architectural Hall of Fame Virtual Celebration on Saturday, May 22.
Chestnut Hill is among the nation’s most architecturally distinguished communities, home to outstanding examples of architecture from three centuries. The Architectural Hall of Fame is a distinguished list of Chestnut Hill’s most treasured significant buildings, structures, and landscapes, chosen by the public. These properties represent groundbreaking approaches to planning and design; are significant for their design, materials, craftsmanship; or as an exceptional example of their style; or are of historic significance because of an association with an event, a person, or by virtue of age. Thousands of public votes were cast to induct the current members into the Hall of Fame.
Residential Finalists
William Streeper House
9198 Stenton Avenue at Bell’s Mill Road (late-18th century, 1926, 1951; J. Linerd Conarroe, Architect)
The William Streeper house at 9198 Stenton Avenue is built on land acquired by William Streeper in 1765. A historic stone barn sits in the rear. Architect J. Linerd Conarroe designed an addition to the house in 1926 and to the barn in 1951 for the Van Sciver family, who still maintain ownership. These historic treasures sit on several acres protected as open space by the family, with conservation easements donated to the Conservancy. The site embodies an enduringly representative gateway to the past, present, and hopeful future of Chestnut Hill.
Photo by Bradley Maule
Evergreen Place
8612-8622, 8613-8623 Evergreen Place, (1887-1889, 1925; John Hottenstein, Original Contractor; Robert Rodes McGoodwin, Alterations Architect)
Henry Wharton constructed six pairs of identical Second Empire twin homes at the subdivided rear of his home at 8623 Germantown Avenue. This early example of a court arrangement was constructed by John W. Hottenstein, and altered together in 1925 by architect Robert Rodes McGoodwin. Their sustained uniformity is a testament to lastingly functional design and neighborly collaboration.
Photo by Bradley Maule
Keewaydin
W. Moreland Avenue, Cherokee Street, W. Mermaid Lane (1889; 1909-12; George T. Pearson, Architect)
Keewaydin, named for the northwest wind in “The Song of Hiawatha” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, was originally a five-acre estate built in 1889, for E.W. Clark, an investment banker in Philadelphia, and his wife, Lydia Jane Clark, by architect George T. Pearson. Additional construction continued until 1912, and the estate stayed in the Clark family until 1946.
In 1948, it was subdivided into several parcels, and the ballroom and kitchen and service wing were converted into single-family homes. These remain connected to the main house through basement passageways and garden archways. After a February 2019 fire in the Moreland Ave Kitchen and Service Wing, and subsequent sale to a developer intent on teardown redevelopment, the owners of the ballroom and main house joined with the Conservancy to protect the complex through designation to the Philadelphia Register.
High Hollow
West Hampton Road (1914-1917; George Howe, Architect)
George Howe’s spectacular High Hollow was built in 1914-17 as the architect’s personal residence. Its design is derived in part from Howe’s student thesis at the École des Beaux-Arts in France. It is often regarded as Howe’s most significant residential work and viewed by many as setting the standard for house design in the region through the early 20th Century. In his rapturous 1920 review of the home in Architectural Record, architect Paul Phillipe Cret declared “to find so perfect an example of a complete group, and above all a group where the gardening, the architecture, and the smallest details are exactly fitted to the importance and the character of the whole, is far from common.” The property is currently under renovation by its dedicated owner.
Photo by Bradley Maule
Institutional Finalists
Chestnut Hill Women’s Center (aka Julia Hebard Marsden Residence)
8835 (formerly 8811) Germantown Avenue (1903; Charles Barton Keen, Architect)
Built for wealthy socialite Julia Hebard Marsden and her new husband Dr. Biddle Reeves Marsden, the house is a distinctive and characteristic example of the Colonial Revival style as applied to the suburban “country house” of the early 20th century, and a significant local example of the work of Philadelphia native Charles Barton Keen. The commission was one of Keen’s earliest large country houses, and was widely published in national architectural journals and publications upon its completion.
The house passed through a series of private owners before its eventual acquisition by Chestnut Hill Hospital, which converted the home into seven staff apartments in 1959. Today it serves as the hospital’s Women’s Center. Although changed inside, the house’s exterior remains much like it did when the Marsdens lived there.
Photo by Bradley Maule
Jenks Wall and Children’s Park
Germantown Ave at Southampton Avenue (ca 1827, 1997)
Henry Lentz bought a tract of land in 1827 and built a large house on the northeast corner of Germantown Ave. and Southampton Avenue. On this property he ran a marble yard, selling tombstones and other marble products. The Johnstone family lived here in the 1880s. The property was later called Hampden Place. By 1904, it had become the Shady Hill Country Day School, which moved to 8836 Crefeld Street in 1922. In 1921, the local board of education purchased the house and demolished it to build the John Story Jenks School. The stone wall that bordered the property is still there.
The Children’s Park of Chestnut Hill, better known as Jenks Playground, was built in an 11-day community effort in 1997 after months of planning and fundraising. The playground and gardens are maintained by Friends of the Children’s Park in Chestnut Hill to be enjoyed by Jenks students, residents, and visitors from afar throughout the year.
Photos by Bradley Maule
Chestnut Hill Friends Meeting
100 East Mermaid Lane (1931; Heacock & Hokanson, Architect; Melvin Grebe, Builder)
The Chestnut Hill Friends Meeting was the first to be formed as a “United Meeting” following the 1827 schism that divided Friends into Orthodox and Hicksite factions. The Meeting House reflected changes in Quaker faith and practice to a less hierarchical form, built to resemble residential architecture. The design of the Chestnut Hill Friends Meeting House suggests a connection between meeting houses and homes, perhaps a nod to Friends’ meetings having been initiated within the homes of its members.
Photo by Bradley Maule
Commercial/Public Finalists
Valley Green Bridge
Valley Green Road crossing Wissahickon Creek near Valley Green Inn (1832, 1915)
Constructed in 1832 by Philadelphia County, the Valley Green Road Bridge predates the creation of the Wissahickon Turnpike, (the toll road that would become Forbidden Drive), its namesake the Valley Green Inn, and the creation of the park itself. Prior to being acquired by Fairmount Park who has maintained it over the years, the bridge served the busy mill community and was part of a 236-acre tract owned by the Livezey family. Known for years simply as the “Stone Bridge” on the earliest area maps, the bridge was also known as the “County Bridge,” and “Springfield Avenue Bridge.” Wissahickon historians have determined it is one of the oldest and most celebrated features of the park. Indeed, with its picturesque single span, the bridge became a popular subject of both amateur and professional painters, photographers, as well as postcard companies. Images often show the reflection of the arch in the Wissahickon creek framed on either side with greenery. The bridge’s only known major rehabilitation occurred in 1915.
Photo by Bradley Maule
Woodward Community Centre (aka Redheffer House)
8419 Germantown Avenue (1854, 1925; H. Louis Duhring, Alterations Architect)
Once the home of Charles Redheffer and his perpetual motion machine, (Hoax! A man was turning a crank!), Gertrude Woodward purchased and donated the building to the community as a hub for all Chestnut Hill non-profit organizations in 1916. The National League of Women’s Service members gathered in the building during World War I to repair soldiers’ overcoats and provide other aid to American soldiers, refugees, and the city’s disadvantaged. The building may actually date to 1803 with a remodeling done in the mid-19th century. The 2-story rear brick addition was built in 1918-1919 and architect H. Louis Duhring designed a number of alterations in 1925. The building was renamed the Chestnut Hill Community Center after WWI, and is now known as the Woodward Community Centre.
Photo by Bradley Maule
William A. Kilian Hardware Co.
8450 Germantown Avenue (1925-27, possibly originally early 19th-century; Melvin H. Grebe, Builder)
Kilian Hardware was started in 1913 and was first owned by William Kilian and his wife, Minnie Goudy Kilian. Their first store was at 8611 Germantown Ave., and then moved to 8441 Germantown Avenue (Minnie Goudy did much of the moving by wheelbarrow), before settling at its current location in 1923. The current building may contain elements of an early 19th-century (or earlier) stagecoach stop – first as Donat’s Hotel and then Gaiser’s Saloon. Kilian’s hardware store opened for business in the front part of the building in 1923, but the original building was substantially torn down in 1925 and replaced with the current building by 1927. Since before the First World War, Kilian’s has served local residents and tradesmen seeking everything from hammers to housewares, and has provided a traditional anchor to Germantown Avenue’s “Main Street” character.
Photo by Bradley Maule