Congratulations to our newest members of the Chestnut Hill Architectural Hall of Fame!
Thousands of public votes were cast to induct these treasures onto the Hall of Fame. Thank you to everyone who participated.
View the complete list of Hall of Fame inductees HERE.
Half Moon Houses
7919 – 7925 Lincoln Drive (1916; Duhring, Okie and Ziegler)
Half-Moon Houses, or the “half-moon group” is composed of four properties with a twin house in the center arranged in a crescent shape around an open court. This is one of several residential groupings by developer George Woodward as part of the creation of a Pastorius Park Group development. These groupings were crafted to embody ideas found in many English villages of a park or common area surrounded by dwellings. Houses were built of rough-cut local stone and topped with steep roofs that recalled the cottages that Woodward had admired during his trips through England’s Cotswold hills. Woodward worked closely on these and many other developments with his three favorite architects – Louis Duhring, Robert McGoodwin, and Edmund Gilchrist. According to Woodward, the four of them would meet in his office once a week, and would submit designs for all in the group to critique.
Chestnut Hill College-Historic Complex
9601 Germantown Avenue (ca. 1850-1961; various)
Founded in 1924, Chestnut Hill College is bounded by Germantown Avenue, W. Northwestern Avenue and the Wissahickon Creek. In 1929, Building Magazine described it as “one of the finest group of buildings erected for any educational institution in the entire country.” Significant buildings include the 1903 French Gothic St. Joseph Hall, designed by noted ecclesiastical architect Edwin Forrest Durang. Inside there is a five-story, 95-foot high rotunda complete with a vaulted ceiling, balconies and a stained glass skylight. An observatory is located on the roof and has been in use since the building’s inception.
Fournier Hall, with its Italian Romanesque architecture and red terra cotta-tiled roof, features an exterior portico of twelve arches and an entranceway topped with an Eastern Byzantine style tympana combining both Christian and classical imagery. Decorating the West Door are the signs of the zodiac and the symbols of the four Evangelists as well as the mythical griffin and the college’s seal. The interior consists of five sections connected by corridors, a foyer with terrazzo floors and wood wainscoting, and a dining room. There is also a Romanesque-style chapel; it was finished sometime after 1891 and built in a neo-Gothic style to resemble the Sainte Chapelle in Paris. It features vaulting, pillars and pointed arches. The main altar is replete with Gothic spires, which recur in the surrounding stained glass windows. It is paved in Italian marble, and the altar rail is made of Mexican onyx. The altar itself is constructed of Italian marble, while its pillars are pink Numidian marble.
Chestnut Hill Baptist Church and Cemetery
2 Bethlehem Pike (1835)
On May 23, 1835, the cornerstone was laid for the Baptist Church of Chestnut Hill at the southeast corner of Germantown Avenue and Bethlehem Pike. The original 40- by 45-foot structure, the first single-denomination church built in Chestnut Hill, was enlarged in 1857, and a clock tower and bell were added in 1874. At the time, the Presbyterians were considering adding a clock to their nearby steeple. When the Baptists built theirs first, the Presbyterians concluded that a second one would be superfluous and resigned themselves to going to church on “Baptist time.” The building was among the first to be declared historic by the Philadelphia Historical Commission in 1974. According to the Church, the congregation was part of the Underground Railroad in the early 1860s (there may have been a tunnel that ran under Bethlehem Pike and ascended beneath the floor of the church — where there is still a hatch). The cemetery (the oldest in Chestnut Hill) contains the graves of several Civil War soldiers.
Abraham Rex Store (Woodward offices)
8031-33 Germantown Avenue (1762)
Originally built in or before 1762, the Abraham Rex Store is one of Chestnut Hill’s oldest remaining historic buildings. Built by Abraham’s German immigrant father when Germantown Avenue was a dirt road, the building sits in part of Chestnut Hill that was then called Sommerhausen and was the most prosperous of several area “great stores” during the latter part of the eighteenth century. These local stores were rendered less important over time as improving road networks allowed farmers to bring their produce directly to city markets. The building stayed in the Rex family until the 1850s, and was bought in 1884 by Henry H. Houston; his daughter Gertrude Houston Woodward inherited the building in 1921. The north section was built in 1818, and other alterations occurred in 1903, 1908, 1939, 1941, and 1965. Stucco was removed from the front of the building in 1971, revealing the beautiful original stonework underneath. The building now houses the offices of George Woodward, Co. and the Woodward House Corporation – an early example of successful adaptive reuse.
Water Tower Recreation Center Complex
209 E. Hartwell La (1889, 1919, Robert McGoodwin)
The Complex consists of the historic Water Tower built in 1859 by the Chestnut Hill Water Company, and a Recreation Center and public playground built on a former pumping station and reservoir site. Philadelphia Water Department took possession of the Chestnut Hill Works on January 20, 1873. The reservoir and Tower, originally capped with a wooden water tank, were built because Philadelphia’s water system did not extend to Chestnut Hill until 1904, at which point this pumping station became obsolete. The Water Tower Recreation Center was built in 1919 by architect Robert McGoodwin in memory of Henry M. Houston Woodward, the eldest son of Dr. George and Mrs. Gertrude Houston Woodward, who was killed in the line of duty during World War I.
The Woodwards ensured the plot’s future role as a recreation site through an earlier donation of property located at 22nd and Huntington Streets to the City as a public playground (now Cecil B. Moore Recreation Center). The bequest was contingent on the City’s agreement to redevelop the six-acre reservoir site as a public playground and to operate and maintain the site in perpetuity. In 1910, the City agreed to these conditions and the Woodwards financed the redevelopment of the site. Within two years, a modest facility known as the Gravers Lane Playground provided the children of upper Chestnut Hill with a place to exercise and play. In 1919, the City transferred ownership of the property from the Department of Public Works to the Bureau of Recreation under the auspices of the Department of Public Welfare. The Woodwards continued to support the Center, partially financing two additions in 1929 to house an auditorium, gymnasium, and public meeting space.
By the mid-twentieth century, the Water Tower Recreation Center site had expanded, with the addition of two parcels enclosed by East Hartwell Lane, Winston Road, and Ardleigh Street, totaling two acres now housing six tennis courts. The modern facility also includes a batting cage, a hockey rink, one general playing field, two ball fields, and three basketball courts.
Nearby, overlooking the site of the reservoir and playing fields, are two stone pillars constructed as a war memorial with bronze plaques dedicated to those who died during World War II and containing the names of 81 individuals from local families