I have been in love with North Wayne, PA for years. It’s an amazing and historic area, and ironically was a quasi planned development in the late19th century. The North Wayne Historic District is actually a national historic district. Most houses were built between1881 and 1925, and include notable examples of Shingle Style, Queen Anne and Colonial Revival architecture. Among the famous area architects who contributed to this were the Quaker Price brothers (William and Frank, who also did a lot of Rose Tree in Media.)

Allow me to share something I wrote many years ago in 2011:

https://patch.com/pennsylvania/radnor/north-wayne-worth-preservingbetter

Allow me to quote myself but click on the above link for photos I took years ago as well:

I first became a fan of North Wayne when I was a kid. The fanciful Victorian architecture in particular had me at hello, just like Cape May, NJ.

North Wayne has grand Victorian homes with sweeping porches and smaller homes of a more fanciful bungalow style. Many of these homes have been lovingly restored. You see Queen Anne, Second Empire, Tudor, shingle style, stick style, craftsman, and colonial revival homes dot the streets neatly laid out on a grid pattern.

Like many other towns on the Main Line, Wayne popped as the Pennsylvania Railroad developed and connected Philadelphia to points west–Harrisburg and Pittsburgh. The Main Line itself received its now famous name as a result of this train line.

Wayne as we see it today can be ironically described as an early planned development. Streets were orderly and on a grid. Houses were large, but convenient to downtown Philadelphia. They embraced the Victorian sensibilities and importance of hearth and home, yet were so modern. Steam heat, the train, public water and sewer, electricity, indoor plumbing, paved roads. There were even swimming pools–like the famous Wayne Natatorium.

The Wayne Natatorium, which was recognized in the fall of 2010 with a historical marker from the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, was located in North Wayne on what we know today as Willow Avenue. Among the largest open-air, in-ground swimming pools in the United States, and some still argue the world, this Victorian folly existed between 1895 and 1903. It was 500 feet by 100 feet and played host to national swim meets during its existence. And in the winter, when this fresh water pool froze over? There was ice-skating and winter carnivals held under colorful lights.

The area in which the Wayne Natatorium sits is in North Wayne, but outside the boundaries of the historic district. The historic district in North Wayne only extends so far, and doesn’t encompass a lot of the more modest streets with working class roots that abut the Wayne train station, and I think that is a mistake. For example, if it hadn’t been for vigilant neighbors who live on some of the streets NOT in the historic district, 236 North Aberdeen Ave. might have been lost a couple of years ago to ill-fitting new development.

What was so special about 236 North Aberdeen Ave.? It was the home of builder Jonathan Lengel. Lengel was a builder who brought a lot of the whimsical architectural visions of such greats as David Knickerbocker Boyd. Lengel was responsible for the construction on some very interesting Radnor landmarks.

North Wayne not only boasts the homes out of the imagination of David Knickerbocker Boyd but also among others, the Price brothers–William and Frank Price, Philadelphia Quakers who were originally protégées of Frank Furness before venturing out on their own starting in 1881…..Radnor residents, take the time to become more active with your local Radnor Historical Society and get to know your local streets. They are delightful and charming, offering a real sense of community. Get out of your cars and walk these streets if you haven’t in a while. You’ll be glad you did.

https://explorepahistory.com/hmarker.php%3FmarkerId=1-A-400.html

The Radnor Historical Society has tremendous archives of the area. Here is their website:

Home

There is also the North Wayne Protective Association:

https://www.northwayne.org/default.php

Both organizations continue to do their thing, although I wish they would be less insular and more active.

One house that got torn down just outside the historic district of North Wayne a few years ago was the one built by Jonathan Lengel for his own family on N. Aberdeen. I had helped stop the demolition a bunch of years ago, but Radnor Township didn’t give a damn a few years ago and down it came. I wrote about it:

it’s just ugly in north wayne.

Here is the 1985 application from when North Wayne formed a historic district:

Also see:

https://delcohpn.wixsite.com/dchpn/national-register-sites-3

Here are some photos I took of North Wayne from around 2007:

Oh and what else did I do back in the day for North Wayne? Well I got stormwater improvements out of Septa and some safety issues addressed with a giant drainage pipe that frequently flooded out parts of Pennsylvania Avenue.

How did I do that? The lead engineer for Septa at the time was a super nice man named Jeff Knueppel. (Yes, the one guy in recent past who was eventually the general manager of Septa before the wheels fell off and people like former politician or perennial politician Leslie Richards came to be there.) Jeff Knueppel was a great General Manager and accessible to the public. But I digress.

Anyway, I had written an editorial for Main Line Media News when Tom Murray was the editor, and Jeff Knueppel read it and contacted me. At the time, Wayne train station and their parking lot was getting a makeover. Jeff Knueppel said the budget had room for added stormwater infrastructure underneath the parking lot, and they did some stuff with the embankment facing Pennsylvania Avenue and put a grate over the giant pipe to keep dogs, cats, and kids out of it (which had been a problem.) Next photo is what this looked like before Septa added the grate cover thing and did improvements.

So this was something I did with my writing and activism because it was the right thing to do.

I used to belong to the Radnor Historical Society because I loved North Wayne so much. (I am thinking of rejoining, actually.)

Anyway…. before Christmas I was over there and I took photos of some of the houses on Poplar Avenue because it is one of my favorite streets back in North Wayne. In an other life, I almost lived in North Wayne, a couple of streets removed from there.

Now I hadn’t posted most of these photos yet because I had not gone through them and was editing a lot of December photos and still am from volunteer non-profit photo taking amounting to a few hundred photos. When I started going through the photos from Wayne, I shared one particular house on my blog’s Facebook page:

The ONLY thing I said of the above house is “this house in North Wayne could be fabulous….”

Nothing else. It’s one of my favorites and is one that I have watched for YEARS. For years it has gone through phases where it was tidier and repairs were happening but over the past couple of years in particular it has devolved into this. Here are photos going back to 2007 where you could see the house, 2012 when there was gardening going on, and 2017 when it started to slide into the condition you see today in 2025. These photos incidentally are from Google:

This house was fabulous and could be again if the decay is stopped. It was built around 1905-1906 by Jonathan Lengel whom I mentioned earlier in this post. Here is a screen shot from Radnor Historical Society of Poplar:

So yeah…I posted about this house because it is one of the quirky houses of Wayne I think are so cool. But of course the moral judgement squad of a lack of reading comprehension on Facebook jumped on my back:

So yeah, I love the judgmental who can’t read. Literally ALL I said was the house could be fabulous. The Judgey Judgersons came from West Goshen, Downingtown, Malvern, and I don’t know where else…but none from near this house in North Wayne. As a matter of fact a woman who grew up across from there left a comment saying the house was once fabulous.

All of these people completely missed what the post was about and decided I was targeting whomever lives there. I mean HUH? I was talking about the house, no clue who lives there or what is going on. All I said is the house could be fabulous.

But if we are going to talk about the deterioration, it is happening. Like I said, I have been watching this house from the early 2000s. For a while it looked like repairs were happening, and gardening was happening so it was a shock when I went down this block this holiday season and saw it. This is a neighborhood of old house proud and other houses disappeared for McMansions literally have appeared across the street and down.

I was not doing anything other that taking photos on a public street. I wasn’t peering in windows although with this down on her luck North Wayne house the windows aren’t clear on the second floor. I saw it when I was taking photos and chose not to take that photo. But if the inside indeed resembles the outside then whomever knows the owner maybe should help them?

I am sick of people who lack basic reading comprehension and interpolate whatever is on their mind, not mine, as my actual thoughts or reason for writing about something. This happens with almost everything and it’s old. I am not going to stop writing and people did this when I started writing about Loch Aerie before she was restored, and even more recently the Joseph Price House in Exton.

Get. Over. Yourselves.

No one has to read what I write, and no one has to comment on my blog’s Facebook page or here. And if you don’t even know what it is you are bitching about, it’s even more pathetic.

I am talking old houses here, in an area I find immensely special in spite of the crazy municipality it is in. And Jonathan Lengel? The guy who built the house I spoke of having the ability to be fabulous? In the area he was also responsible for The Saturday Club, Waldheim mansion – (VFMA’s Sullivan Hall, torn down in 2001), Walmarthon estate (Now still there minus historic log cabin), and Waynewood Hotel – (Still standing AKA Wayne Hotel.)

Check out the history in North Wayne and better yet check out the Radnor Historical Society at Finley House. The Finley House is open Tuesdays and Saturdays from 2-4 p.m.
113 West Beechtree Lane, Wayne PA. They also have amazing photo archives. (https://radnorhistory.org/archive/photos/)

I take photos. A majority involves old and often historic houses.

Ciao haters. Go look at some cool old houses and enrich your sense of why they are important.