Tag Archives: Beechwood House

don’t be a revisionist history practitioner in bryn mawr…

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Beechwood House, Bryn Mawr, PA.

PREFACE….

This is not a dig at Shipley. It’s a simple desire for part of the history to be told more honestly than it is being told.

There were loads of media articles back then about this topic, and they ALL told this story: the school under the direction of former headmaster wanted to tear down Beechwood. Alumni and neighbors (who were also alumni and parents of alumni and students) wanted to save Beechwood. All of these people (myself included) were made to feel like PARIAHS as a result for a good part of this and weren’t made to feel too terribly comfortable AFTER like me who had a reunion not too long after completion.

It was very hard to take a stand back then over this. So hard. But this was the pivotal event that made me personally realize standing up in your community and for community and for things like historic preservation are important.

Acceptance is important as well. This was not a pretty time, but the events happened, and they mattered. And in the end it was positive. So truly positive.

The Shipley I have seen under the current headmaster is honestly magical. It is so good it even brought me back to campus. I believe in and support my alma mater.

I wrote this post to correct the record. After all, history is important. This is not burning down the proverbial house.

Now for the post:

In 2020, I wrote a post about Beechwood House in Bryn Mawr, PA. It is a completely restored adaptive reuse. This architectural gem is located on Shipley’s lower school campus. And I was a member of the group led by Heather Hillman which saved it. You see, the former headmaster literally wanted to pave paradise and put up a parking lot…a pool…etc.

what’s your preservation inspiration?

Our teachers at Shipley taught us not all of our history is convenient, that it’s the reality of what happened. They were also the ones that helped me write better and frame my arguments. My journalist mentors alway have said to write what I know. And I do know this I was there. It was a slog of a battle to save a beautiful home fallen on less than glorious times which had been designed by Addison Hutton. Yes, the same architect who designed Loch Aerie. But Beechwood was my first Addison Hutton love.

In between 10th and 11th grade I had a summer job on the Lower School campus of Shipley. I worked for the day camp there. When the little monsters, err darlings, were having naps I would explore non-renovated Beechwood which was part of the space used. It was fascinating to me back then because it had been almost crudely adapted to classroom space but you could see the bones of the original house when you did things like peeked in closets and behind shelves. It was the ultimate if these walls could talk.

We all have that one building or place that makes us look at the world differently. That one inspiration that makes us realize we can’t just sit idly by as our history disappears building by building, acre by acre.

For me, it was Beechwood House in Bryn Mawr. This was my first foray into community activism when I heard in the late 1990s that Shipley wanted to tear her down. It was because of this house that I spoke in front of people at a township meeting for the very first time all those years ago. Seriously, I had never even been to a meeting at my township building or spoken in front of everyone in a crowded room. But this place mattered to me and I joined Friends to Save Beechwood in their early days.

They wanted to tear Beechwood House down. It spread like wildfire back then. It was instantly polarizing in the community at large. Alumni of Shipley were in an uproar as well. This required professional mediation. Eventually Shipley said they would keep Beechwood if money was raised to save it by a certain deadline in 2001. To this day, I still think the school thought it would never happen. But it did.

Heather Hillman was the main driving force along with Jean Wolf (Wolf Historic Preservation) a preservationist who has done amazing things. (The saving of Beechwood was kind of a big to do at the time. There were many articles about it in multiple publications.)

As mentioned, I had never gone to a township meeting or spoken out in public. It got easier with time, but at first I was terrified. And in awe of these fierce women who did literally so much with a smile on their face and I don’t recall them raising their voices. I raised my voice, I was somewhat appalled by my alma mater when this started, and even when it was over – kind of like when they basked in the glory of the end result which was a successful restoration and adaptive reuse of a building we had to fight them to save because they didn’t think it was worth saving. (You can also read about Beechwood here.)

In 2006 when we had our 25th class reunion, we were able to get Beechwood House for our reunion. A lot of my classmates had contributed to the fundraising and along with me were listed up on the brass plaque inside the building. The headmaster at the time was making the reunion party rounds and was talking about the restoration of Beechwood with my class. He got heckled by one of my classmates because he didn’t mention me but mentioned almost everyone else on the Friends to Save Beechwood committee. But it was sadly a penultimate example of we might not as well have been there.

But we were, and saving that structure still brings me joy every time we go by. Shipley has the glory of a beautiful and useful structure. And loving Beechwood introduced me to Addison Hutton. But while Shipley does have the glory of the structure being saved and we raised all the money for it at the time, they need to be accurate in the retelling of the story. Not revisionist history. How we got there is important. So Shipley’s historians need a wee bit of grace here I think.

Like I said at the beginning of this post, we are taught by our teachers that not all history is convenient, and history can be uncomfortable. If you went to Shipley or live around it, the school thing with Beechwood is a little uncomfortable for some people. But sadly that is exactly why it should be discussed more honestly. Talking about it helps and it’s the right thing to do.

In 2021 when my class had their 40th reunion it was life in COVID. So our reunion was canceled. We had an online zoom reunion which was actually pretty fun and there were also online events offered for alumni who were interested. One was a history of Shipley. The lecture was given by the alumnus who re-wrote the history of Shipley, originally written by another alumnus and teacher of ours. I actually have both books.

Anyway, when the part of the school’s history reached the saving of Beechwood House, there was some coloring outside of the lines. At that time I politely asked for the historical record to be corrected to reflect what actually happened. Well when I attended some of the Shipley reunion activities last weekend I attended an in person lecture of the history of Shipley given by this same alumnus who was also I think having her 50th reunion. Once again, she colored outside the lines with the lecture. This time she actually credited the former headmaster who wanted to tear down Beechwood with saving her. Sorry it was a bridge too far for me, so here I am again. He did a lot of positive things for the school, but saving Beechwood wasn’t one of them. We saved it for him, for Shipley, and for Shipley’s history…and that’s an important distinction.

Yeah, ok, maybe I shouldn’t have, but when she asked if there were questions or comments at the end I raised my hand and politely reminded her that in 2021 I had asked her to amend the historical record as she recounts it on Beechwood House. She really didn’t like that and she said it was correct in the book. Well actually I beg to differ it is not completely correct in her book. It’s kind of fluffed over in my humble opinion. Technically, she included most facts, but she kind of glossed over the issue. I don’t think it should be glossed over, it should be discussed honestly. Don’t be a revisionist history practitioner.

In addition, to say that the lower campus project was “complicated“ by neighbors’ opposition is a little snotty to those neighbors, some of whom were either alumni or parents of alumni and students. You can’t blame neighbors for not wanting institutional, commercial, or residential infill development to drown their neighborhood and dwarf it out of human scale. And I have to be honest, since I still lived on the Main Line at this time, and not too far from Shipley, I can tell you the expansion conversations were always contentious. A lot of the meetings were ugly. And not just concerning Beechwood. At times, I barely recognized my alma mater during those years. It was hard, and if you were an alumnus it left you torn. It left me torn.

Beechwood House taught me about getting involved in your community. It reminded me of what some Shipley teachers had taught me long before about the importance of fighting for what you believe in and taking a stand.

Not every academic institution has 100% bright moments, and as much as I love Shipley, I have not always liked Shipley. And when they wanted to tear down Beechwood I definitely didn’t like Shipley very much. But part of our education there was teaching us right from wrong, and what is right is to set the record straight here and be honest. It does not hurt the school to admit that originally they were not correct and this was a place worth saving. But they also have to admit they didn’t actually do the saving, a small group of determined alumni and neighbors with a fearless leader did.

When I have tried to explain this before, even people at Shipley haven’t really understood. Some because they weren’t here then, and others because it makes them uncomfortable. Like the author of the updated Shipley history, for example. I know part of it is that she doesn’t care for me as a person and I’m fine with that, but I think the other part of it is she’s not comfortable with the whole truth of what happened. And while I get that, it’s not the worst thing in the world and it doesn’t tarnish the reputation of the school, it is merely one story of the thousands of stories dating back to 1894. It’s all part of the motto we learn as soon as we enter the school: Courage for the Deed; Grace for the Doing. (Fortiter in Re; Leniter in Modo)

Beechwood House also shows you what is possible with historic preservation. It’s a shame but if there hadn’t been such a swirl of BS around Oakwell in Villanova, maybe Oakwell and her property could have become a preserved gem. But sadly we’re talking about Lower Merion School District, and they will never have an iota of what makes Shipley so special. Oakwell will not have the preservation happy ending because not only doesn’t Lower Merion School District NOT give a damn about preservation, but people interested in preserving Oakwell couldn’t ever really become a cohesive unit of a unified vision. And well the guy who set Oakwell all into motion originally ? Well never mind about him.

Learn from the Beechwood Houses and the Oakwells of this area.

Thanks for stopping by.

inside and outside: visitng loch aerie/lockwood mansion/glen loch

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DSC_2996Today I went to the open house at Loch Aerie.

I went all the way up to the top of the house to the cupola and the widow’s walk, and down to the somewhat creepy root cellar. It is truly an amazing house and considering all the abuse it is taken over the past few decades, it is in remarkably decent shape.
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I took hundreds of photos and also talked to people going through. Some were local people who read this blog and had seen me discuss the mansion, also a lot of regular people who like myself just always wanted to see the inside, and quite a few people that actually seemed interested in preserving the mansion. There were also developers and developer representatives and lots and lots of contractors.

DSC_2783I met a woman from far away with a big family that includes a lot of adopted children and grandchildren who is looking for a place to call home.

I also met a guy who grew up near the mansion and told me stories of when he and his siblings were little. He told me how they saw the bikers drive up to the house when they were squatting in the mansion in the 1970s I think it was. He also said that the bikers would ride their motorcycles up the front steps and up the staircase. And that kind of makes sense because there are marks and some of the floors upstairs that look like tires. He also told me of when the bikers had left and the kids in East Whiteland used to use the pool tables and pinball machines that were on the first floor.

DSC_2859Another lady wrote to me and said:

As a young boy my father, now deceased, worked making sandwiches at the Lockwood Mansion. Two elderly sisters employed my father. One of their relatives, Leaugeay, helped my father make sandwiches which were taken to the train station nearby for the soldiers. As the years gone by, my father married and named my sister, Leaugeay as a namesake of a family who helped dad. Growing up on Morstein as a young girl our large clan passed by the mansion many a Sunday on our visits to other family members. Really hate seeing another landmark in Chester County being replaced by commercial buildings. WHAT is going to be left for OUR GRANDCHILDREN to visualize HISTORICAL LANDMARKS……..What a shame that opportunity and money pass over our History.

 

I was amazed at how few people actually knew any of the history of the house they were just drawn to it. It really is a landmark. And an emotional pull back to the area for others.
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Someone from East Whiteland Historical Commission  was there. A woman whose name escapes me. I don’t think she was particularly thrilled to meet her friendly neighborhood Chester County blogger, and I’m sorry for that but I am not sorry for my opinions necessarily. She said they were meeting next week, but to what end? Do they have a preservation buyer with deep pockets to bid on Loch Aerie come April 21st? When I asked her about Linden Hall, she assured me it would be preserved but that old porches not historically authentic would be torn off. I told her Linden Hall already looked like demolition by neglect, but she assured me I am wrong so we shall see. I hope I am wrong.
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If this beloved mansion Loch Aerie can find the right buyer future generations will be talking about her in years to come.

Here is an article from 2010 about Addison Hutton:

ML History: Addison Hutton, the Quaker architect

Published: Wednesday, August 25, 2010

By Kathy O’Loughlin Main Line Times

What a perfect fit for a historic architect: designing the building for the Historical Society of Pennsylvania at 1300 Locust St. in Philadelphia in 1902.

Known by many as the Quaker architect, Addison Hutton was a popular and prolific professional who designed palaces on the Main Line and in surrounding communities, and grand college buildings on campuses including Bryn Mawr, Haverford and Swarthmore colleges and Lehigh University, as well as adding his talents to the designs of courthouses, museums, libraries and religious institutions.

Many of his most famous Main Line mansions have served double purposes. The Waverly Heights home of a railroad executive is now an upscale retirement community in Gladwyne. Ballytore in Wynnewood first served as a home to the co-founder of the Strawbridge & Clothier department store, then lived its second life as the home of a private school and is now in its third life as an Armenian church.

Hutton also used his talents for designing religious sites. In 1872 he designed the rectory for the Church of the Redeemer on Pennswood Road in Bryn Mawr. The original portion of St. Charles Borromeo Seminary in Wynnewood was built in 1871 with Hutton and fellow architect Samuel Sloan designing the building where the preparatory college and theology divisions were joined in September 1871….

The Main Line Times article is quite long and well worth reading in it’s entirety.

Addison Hutton is a favorite architect of mine and his work can also be seen in Bryn Mawr on Shipley’s campus – the landmark mansion known as Beechwood. I know that Addison Hutton mansions can be saved and repurposed as adaptive reuses because I was on the Committee to Save Beechwood. And while Shipley basks in all the glory of this successful old house rescue, it was a committee independent from the school who save it, not the school. The headmaster (who is still there today) wanted to tear Beechwood down for a parking lot or a pool (I forget which.) Here is an article from when it began (the renovation was complete around 2002):

Shipley School Is Taking First Step For Beechwood House Renovations

By Stephanie A. Stanley, INQUIRER SUBURBAN STAFF
POSTED: March 25, 1999

BRYN MAWR — If you renovate it, we can use it.

That’s the word from the Shipley School, which recently relented on its controversial plan to demolish a 19th-century building on its campus after a prolonged battle with local historic preservationists.

Yesterday, the school welcomed several architectural firms into the aging Beechwood House and asked them to pitch their best ideas for how to renovate its rooms for school use.

However, the school did not ask the architects to pitch their bills for the work to Shipley’s accountants. Someone else will be paying for the renovations.

As agreed in negotiations with the school, a group of Shipley alumni, preservationists and others who want to save the building have the job of raising the necessary money – possibly as much as $1 million – by Jan. 1, 2001. If they fail, Shipley reserves the right to tear Beechwood down.

But if the group can leap that hurdle, school officials are ready to make good use of the old building.

(Here is a link to another article on what happened with Beechwood)

Frens and Frens were the Philadelphia architecture firm which did the restoration of Beechwood. They won numerous awards as a result. Another Addison Hutton home, also in Bryn Mawr on the corner of Montgomery Avenue and Bryn Mawr Avenue is another more recent and successful adaptive reuse. It was restored and converted to a handful of luxury condominiums.

Follow THIS LINK TO GET LOCH AERIE/ LOCKWOOD MANSION  AUCTION INFORMATION. There is one more property preview next Wednesday April 6th, 2016 from 12 pm to 2 pm.

Her is the link to all of the photos I took today: CLICK HERE

DSC_2555Here is something I found on the Internet I *think* from the 1950s that the Chester County Historical Society did:

Loch Aerie by Chester County Historical Society

It was done for The Historic American Buildings Survey Heritage Conservation and Recreation Service Department of the Interior Washington, D.C.

DSC_2780Something interesting in the paper was that it was part of the Welsh Tract:

The estate was formerly a Welsh tract of 500 acres, and the title deeds say it vas held on a lease from W. Penn to Peter Young and from Peter Young to Hugh Roberts , of
whom President George 3. Roberts of the Penna. PR, is a lineal descendant. The tract has been subdivided and has been in the possession of General Persifor Frazer
of the Revolution and also of the family of ?. Frazer Smith. The purchase of the estate was made by Elon Dunbar, Mr. W. 2. Lockwood’s step-father, from estate of
William Harmer, in I8U9, and Mr. Lockwood from Mr. Dunbar in April 1863. When Mr. Dunbar purchased there was 113 acres. Mr. Lockwood has been making purchases
adjoining the original tract at different times and from 136 acres it has increased to 680 acres.

 

DSC_2841And it had quite the famous landscape architect:

Loch Aerie was designed by architect Addison Hutton in
1865 for William E. Lockwood, who made his fortune manufacturing
paper collars and folding boxes, and lost much of it promoting local railroads. The house remains with few changes. The fine landscape was designed by landscape architect Charles P. Miller. 

The paper continues:

Mr. Lockwood began to pay some attention to live stock in i868,when he purchased tventy five head of Ayrshires, but about that time he was elected president of the Union Paper
Collar Co. and had to reside in Sew York for ten years. He was thus forced to relinguish the raising of stock, but he secured the services of competent farmers who
attended to what stock he required for domestic purposes. Mr. Lockwood intends to divide his tract into three small farms, consisting of the property south of the
Penna RR and will include twelve acres of woodland,, which will be kept to preserve thewater supply. Pour hundred acres north of the Penna RR will be retained as the
homestead farms of two hundred acres each. On the western most tract is St. Pauls Episcopal Church erected in 1828 by the Rev. Dr. Levi Bull and which was improved in
1874 at an expense of $8000. A fine parsonage will be erected during the coming summer.

 

DSC_2904And these last excerpts:

2. “Daily Local News,” West Chester, Pennsylvania,
October 19, 1877
Wm. E. Lockwood, of Glenlock, has a telephone in his house also one in the P.R.R. tower so that in case of invasion of his domicile by burglars or tramps he can call the P.R.R. hands to his assistance. The Railroad Company also keep a police car on the siding there to lock up all loafers and tramps found in the vicinity. Mr. Lockwood also has a very complete “burglar. alarm»”which connects with every door and window in his house, and borrows his neighbors “bull dogs” for outside alarm at night. Also he has a formidable array of repeating revolving and breech-loading pistols and rifles and we understand he thinks of adding a gattling gun and jackass howitzer, and yet he retires to his little bed very uneasy as to his safety during the night.
We should think the tramp would give his place a wide berth in their travels but through his influence they are gobbled up at the rate of a dozen per night in and
about Glenloch.
3. “Daily Local News,” West Chester, Pennsylvania,
May 1, 1936
One of the most interesting houses in the Chester Valley is that of the late William E. Lockwood, at Glen Loch. It was built in the year 1865, with its towers and bull’s-eye windows. William A. Stephenson, late of West Bernard street, West Chester, was the boss stone mason, and the walls were well built. The architect was Addison Hutton, who, five years later, designed the first building for what is now State Teachers College. Mr. Hutton, as the story goes, was on his way to Glen Loch in response to a summons from Mr. Lockwood to consult with him in regard to the plans, when he was told that Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, had been shot.
All the people were so shocked and horrified that there was no talk about house plans that day, and the dwelling was not erected until some months later. One of the art
treasures in the home today is a painting of George Washington on horseback – a handsome piece of work which once was loaned to the late John Wanamaker, long ago, to be exhibited in his Market street window.

 

People, we need to save the grande dame. #ThisPlaceMatters and she needs a preservation/adaptive reuse buyer. Not just some developer who wants the other 4 acre parcel that goes with the house and the 2 acres it sits on. Loch Aerie has so much potential still. I can totally see a boutique hotel with a marvelous little restaurant on the first floor.

Thanks for stopping by.

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