Information on Buildings in the Chestnut Hill Historic District
National Register of Historic PlacesWelcome to the Chestnut Hill Historic District of the National Register of Historic Places, compiled in 1984/1985 by Jefferson M. Moak. Most of Chestnut Hill is included in the Chestnut Hill Historic District, listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1987. This designation recognizes the historic significance of the neighborhood and its architectural heritage.
The National Register nomination for Chestnut Hill includes a brief narrative of the area’s history and a description of the architecture of the neighborhood. A pdf of this narrative is available here.
The district boundaries are Northwestern Avenue to the north, Cresheim Valley Drive to the south, the Wissahickon Creek to the west, and Stenton Avenue to the east. The Chestnut Hill Village and Market Square, two 1960s and 1970s developments, are not part of the Historic District. Chestnut Hill consists of over 2,600 buildings, ranging from 1744 to the present.
How to use this document
All the streets in the Chestnut Hill Historic District are listed below in alphabetical order. The buildings are described in house/building number order with those on the even side of the street listed before the odd side of the street. Cross streets are recorded at the end of each block to orient the reader. The format used in this inventory appears as follows:
Address; date; owner or developer; architect; contractor
Description
Evaluation
Annotation
Address: Usually the common address of a building appears rather than the assessed address, although on occasion, the assessed address has been used. As much as possible, cross references from one to other are included.
Date: The date, or dates, of construction are given, if known. A firm date is derived from a building permit, newspaper clipping or other sources recited in the annotation. Building permits will give a beginning date for construction, as do many of the other sources researched for this project. Circa year dates, and between year and year dates, represent the closest fix which the research allows for these buildings. Often, information from one source, i.e. deeds, is matched with another source, i.e. atlases and maps, to ascertain an approximate date of construction.
Owner: The owner or developer is generally that person listed on the building permit as the owner. For buildings constructed before 1895, the owner or developer is the owner of record of the property as listed on the deed.
Architect: The architect or architectural firm listed on the top line of each entry is the original designer of the building. If an architect designed subsequent alterations or additions to a particular building, some mention of his or her work may be found within the description.
Contractor: The contractor listed on the top line of each entry is the person or firm listed as such on the building permit or cited as such in a news item. If a carpenter, builder, or any person active in the building trades appears as the owner of record of a house built prior to 1889, this person also receives credit for its construction unless other documentation proves otherwise.
Description: A brief description of the building with any mention of any significant alterations and/or additions which may have occurred to the building since its construction.
Evaluation: An evaluation of the relative significance of this building in relation to the district as a whole. In addition, if the building appears on any Federal, state, or local survey, this information follows the evaluation. Properties that might have been considered Significant or Contributing but for their age are described as “Less than 50 years old at time of designation.”
Annotation: A short bibliography of the major sources used in the research of each individual building or complex.
Key to Symbols and Abbreviations
Both the evaluation and annotation of each entry contain abbreviations of either the major existing surveys or major research documents used in the identification of each property. A key to most of these abbreviations is found below. Some sources are completely cited in the annotations due to their unique use. Others appear only in the annotation and not in the general bibliography accompanying the Chestnut Hill Historic District Nomination.
AABN: American Architect and Building News (date of issue)
AR: Architectural Record (date of issue)
B.P.: Building permit (year and number)
Baist 1895: George W. Baist. Baist’s Property Atlas of the City and County of Philadelphia. Philadelphia, 1895
Bromley 1889: G. W. and W. S. Bromley. Atlas of the City of Philadelphia, Volume 7. Philadelphia, 1889
Bromley 1899: G. W. and W. S. Bromley. Atlas of the City of Philadelphia, Volume 7. Philadelphia, 1899
Bromley 1911: G. W. and W. S. Bromley. Atlas of the City of Philadelphia, Volume 7. Philadelphia, 1911
Bromley 1923: G. W. and W. S. Bromley. Atlas of the City of Philadelphia, Volume 7. Philadelphia, 1923
Bromley 1923-1928: G. W. and W. S. Bromley. Atlas of the City of Philadelphia, Volume 7. Philadelphia, 1923, corrected to 1928
CHHS: Chestnut Hill Historical Society files.
Deeds: Deeds of property on record at the Philadelphia Registry of Deeds
Ellet 1843: Charles Ellet, Jr. A Map of the County of Philadelphia. Philadelphia, 1843
Franklin Survey Company 1955: Franklin Survey Company. Atlas of Twenty-Second Ward. Volume 11. Philadelphia, 1955
GW, Inc.: George Woodward, Inc. files
Gtn. Ind.: Germantown Independent (weekly) (date of issue)
HABS: Historic American Buildings Survey
HHH: Henry H. Houston papers (at the University Archives, University of Pennsylvania)
Hopkins 1876: Griffith M. Hopkins. City Atlas of Philadelphia Volume 1, 22nd Ward. Philadelphia, 1876
Hopkins 1885: Griffith M. Hopkins. Atlas of the City of Philadelphia, 22nd Ward. Philadelphia, 1885
Hotchkin: Samuel F. Hotchkin. Ancient and Modern Germantown, Mt. Airy and Chestnut Hill. Philadelphia, 1889
Lake and Beers 1861: D. Jackson Lake and Silas N. Beers. Map of the Vicinity of Philadelphia. Philadelphia, 1861 (Germantown inset)
MacFarlane: John J. MacFarlane. History of Early Chestnut Hill. Philadelphia, 1927
Moses King: Moses King. Philadelphia and Notable Philadelphians. 1902
NR: National Register of Historic Places
PHC: Philadelphia Historical Commission Register of Historic Places
PHRS: Pennsylvania Historic Resource Survey
PI: Pennsylvania Inventory of Historic Places
PRERBG: Philadelphia Real Estate Record and Builder’s Guide (date of issue)
Philadelphia City Planning Commission files: Subdivision and Wissahickon Watershed files in the Projects Division of the Planning Commission.
Roach: Hannah Benner Roach. “The Back Part of Germantown,” The Genealogical Society of Pennsylvania Magazine
Sidney 1849: James Charles Sidney. Map of the Township of Germantown with the Names of the Property Holders. Philadelphia: ca. 1848-1849
Smedley 1862: Samuel L. Smedley. Smedley’s Atlas of the City of Philadelphia. Philadelphia, 1862
Smith 1906: John L. Smith. Atlas of the 22nd & 42nd Ward. Philadelphia, 1906
T-Square: The Yearbook of the –th Annual Architectural Exhibition of the Philadelphia T-Square Club. (year of exhibition)
Tatman-Moss: Sandra L. Tatman and Roger W. Moss. Biographical Dictionary of Philadelphia Architects: 1700-1930. Boston, 1985
Tinkcom: Harry M. and Margaret B. Tinkcom, and Grant Miles Simon. Historic Germantown From the Founding to the Early Part of the Nineteenth Century. Philadelphia, 1955.