Yep. That’s part of the regular view at 249-269 Lancaster Avenue in Malvern, East Whiteland. This week it’s a dumped mattress and some other stuff a couple of weeks ago. It was bags of trash, just sitting in the middle of their property. As in somebody dumped trash, it wasn’t collected there. A lot were white kitchen trash bags.
The property is rotting. It looks like hell. Why should residence and anyone that drives by look at new slumlord city there? And what about the businesses nearby? Don’t they deserve better?
I seem to remember that when the property sold around 2019, we knew that the buildings were going to be torn down and at first we were told a Lidl Market was going there.
Lidl went elsewhere. Then there was this whole thing about putting apartments there. East Whiteland Township did not want that and I don’t remember what happened but the apartments didn’t happen (thank goodness.)
So every once in a while, you hear a little rumor but mostly it just sits in rots and becomes a trash dump.
I took some moody photos in 2020 because I wanted to record the vintageness of both locations.
I don’t know about my readers, but I am of the opinion that these developers and property owners shouldn’t just be allowed to let locations rot because they can’t get their own way. Can you agree on that? I mean, if you want another example, look at one of my favorites, the farmhouse at Clews and Strawbridge with boats in front of it half of the time, right?
Would it be too much to ask if they would tidy up their properties while they are pending whatever is going to happen? And is there other stuff going on with that property that people need to know about?
Would the property owner like to look at this if it was sitting on his front lawn or whatever?
I took this photo in March, 2025. It continues to rot.
Let’s go back to East Whiteland. To 310 Lancaster Avenue in Malvern, you know where Clews & Strawbridge Boats is?
Once upon a time that farmhouse looked normal. It is part of 3 separate parcels of land totaling about 5 acres. Main Line Watercraft Realty is the name, but looking into the deeds and mortgage, a name emerged. I will post those documents and you can look for yourselves. But hey, this man sits in a very nice house on pricey real estate in the region (not Chester County), while one of Chester County’s historic assets just ROTS and that is so truly terrible isn’t it? And if this property owner cared about the house and historic barn, wouldn’t they be better looked after? Now I am not writing this man’s name, although he has appeared in many public facing media things, especially for his day job so to speak right? No he’s not a real estate developer is he?
All I know is this historic house was once owned by artist Margaret Strawbridge Clews, who died at 91 in 2010. She must be turning over in her grave at the condition of that house, right?
I found her obituary. Here is a link and allow me to share from it:
HANOVER – Margaret Strawbridge Clews died August 6th at the age of 91 – just six days after she warmly welcomed each of her children, grandchildren, and all eleven great grandchildren as well as nearly 100 friends to the opening of her one-woman art show at the Howe Library in Hanover, NH. Born into the postwar debutante world of Philadelphia in 1919, the year women got the right to vote, she was a life-long activist and artist – devoting much of her art to her favorite causes of women’s rights and peace.
Mrs. Clews was the granddaughter of the founder of Philadelphia’s landmark department stores, Strawbridge & Clothier. With Mancha Madison Clews, her husband of 66 years, she was the proprietor of their family boat business, which thrives to this day in Malvern, Pennsylvania. Their company, Clews and Strawbridge, was the only combination marine & Saab automobile dealership in the USA.
She was a graduate of The Shipley School and of Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. Exhibiting her first work at the age of 16
Do we think Margaret would love this decay? The decay of a once lovely 18th century farmhouse? She came up in a post I wrote in 2019:
Now Lincoln Highway/Lancaster Pike/Lancaster Ave was laid out in 1732 according to the Tredyffrin-Easttown Historical Society. This farmhouse I was told years ago was built in 1734. And the current property owner just lets it sit and rot? And the rest of the property looks pretty shabby too, doesn’t it? I remember how nice it once looked because years and years ago when the Saab dealership was there, I had friends who got their Saabs there.
I found a brochure advertising the property from a realtor. Don’t know if this is still being marketed by this person or not. So who else is concerned about this property? It narrowly escaped being a very dense residential development a few years ago correct? So now what?
The house COULD be saved, but not unless the owner sees the light right? He lives far enough away he doesn’t drive by it every day so it’s just something in an investment portfolio, correct?
Is there anyone who can encourage him to see it as the valuable historic asset that it is? Maybe he can make an old house call? Do the right thing?
To follow are the deed and some other things found on public records. Perhaps some reporter somewhere will be inspired to write a real story about the history of this house and the current ownership?
If not, tick tock East Whiteland. It’s time for this guy to respect Chester County’s historic architecture, right? And yes I can have that opinion.
First I will start with somewhere under ALL of this mess is supposedly a house built in 1890. It was bastardized in the 1960s. I wonder what it originally looked like? Someone had said it was possibly a stable or livery originally, so an adaptive reuse would be normal for modern living but LOOK at what neighbors have to literally look at today?
I went looking in ChesCo Views to see who owned the property and obviously it’s an investor or investment group. There are a few properties involved.
Here’s what I found in public records:
Dilapidated property
I don’t have all the details but I asked around and apparently 32 Waterloo was part of an original plan for an office building?
Local scuttlebutt has it that they weren’t actually able to do what they originally wanted to do. So houses that they owned were rehabbed and rented out I have been told.
So here’s an excerpt from a 2008 article in Main Line Media News (you know back when our local news was actually reported by our local papers and not disemboweled by hedge funds):
Anger was the word of the evening – or at least the most memorable word – at Tuesday night’s Easttown Planning Commission meeting when Michael McNulty, who is applying for land-development and conditional-use permits for the proposed Waterloo Complex on his property in Berwyn, became upset with the commissioners and stormed out of the room.
Because only two members of the Planning Commission attended Tuesday’s meeting, there was no quorum, and it was unclear why the absent members did not show.
However, chairman Mitch Shiles and commissioner Joe Tamney stayed to hear requests and presentations from community members.
OK so apparently this guy McNulty’s entity still owns these properties correct? I just pulled the records today off of ChesCo views, right? So it kind of makes me laugh because it’s almost like when people threaten to leave a Facebook page or a Facebook group, but they never do?
I remembered when all of this was happening at the time I just never knew what happened to it as an issue until someone posted a picture of 32 Waterloo Ave. over the weekend.
Back to local scuttlebutt. Somewhere along the line, thank heavens, plans for an office building in the middle of Berwyn‘s historic village fell apart. Now, if I recall correctly, when this first started, some of the people in Berwyn came to us at the then Save Ardmore Coalition (now defunct) to ask us how we organized. I also seem to remember now that I’ve started digging back into this that this was covered at the time on the Save Ardmore Coalition blog because we did cover other areas. And at that point the site had multiple bloggers.
So I found all the articles that exist on coverage of this issue of these properties being consolidated for an office building in Berwyn’s historic village. What I was told by locals is that at some point after all of this, the man that owned the properties fixed up all the others and rented them out.
However this one property at 32 Waterloo Avenue has something wrong. I don’t know what the deal is but sitting like this you know something happened right?
So Easttown what is the deal? Intentional blight? Demolition by neglect? It’s also concerning because this is an area of Berwyn that has a lot of investment properties. And if one gets to slide by on subpar standards of property upkeep, the others might follow? Or one would think a real estate holding company like Eadah, that takes reasonably decent care of their properties and has property in that neighborhood might also be bothered by this ?
I honestly don’t know what’s going on, but I will close with a little montage of Google Earth photos of this property at different times over the years.
It’s an 18th century farmhouse. There is at least one barn to go with it, but in order to see the barns, you have to be on the property, and that would be trespassing.
This farmhouse is on the Clews & Strawbridge/Clews Boats property. Here is the current property ownership information on the three parcels that comprise this property:
So this property came up as a topic of conversation locally within the past couple of years because the developer wanted to put a giant apartment building right there. The developer at that time said they would restore the farmhouse, and even back then I questioned it because it was like the building envelope was compromised or pierced.
In the end East Whiteland said no they didn’t want apartments right there, so there was no zoning change and it’s still the boat dealership. I looked on Google and the boat place has rather mixed reviews, so I don’t really have a feel for the business there.
Truthfully, I don’t care about the business there, but I really wish they cared about the farmhouse on their property. It’s a historic asset.
It’s total demolition by neglect and it’s horrible. And it’s NOT East Whiteland Township’s fault. They can’t control this. But they could check on the house to make sure it’s secure, given all of the broken windowpanes, etc.
For the first time my blog’s header photo is from another photographer other than myself. Thank you Henry Alonzo Longabaugh
I want you to see how bad it has gotten at Lloyd Farm in Caln Township.
A new photographer friend, Henry Alonzo Longabaugh, sent in photos.
This is again, land that was part of an original Penn land grant. This farm existed before the USA was a country.
As residents of Chester County, Pennsylvania, we really need to start standing up for these properties and open space better. We are falling down on the job, quite literally.
This is yet another reason why I am saying that for election 2024, we need to make development, over development, lack of historic preservation, not enough open, space, preservation, and not enough agricultural conservation in Pennsylvania counties known for farming election issues.
Enjoy and learn from the photos.
And because of a greedy developer, and that is an opinion that we are allowed to have under the U.S. Constitution, this is not only demolition by neglect, but quite frankly historic destruction. And Caln Township is allowing it.
⚠️Correction: I wanted to get this video out there, and it has been a federally listed historic resource since the early 1980s not the 1960s⚠️
The Joseph Price House. 401 Clover Mill in Exton, West Whiteland Township, Chester County. The corner of Clover Mill Road and S. Whitford Road. Historically rotting since we can safely say 1988 when the current owners acquired the property.
I actually know people who tried in recent years to purchase the historic house to save it but present owners can never seem to sell, can they? Do they think they will get millions of dollars more than property is worth? And if I am honest, part of what I fear with this property is not only the house, completely falling apart to the point where it can’t be saved, but the possibility of this property ending up in some weird tax sale, and someone unscrupulous getting the property and then just tearing down a legit and registered historic house.
I have made a black-and-white photo of this house in its current state the banner for this website and the Chester County Ramblings social media channels. The reason I did that in June is because I think it’s beautiful and needs to be saved, and I keep hoping if people keep seeing the house, it will provoke conversations, and folks will ask questions, send me old photos and history. Recently, someone did. Their dad was born in the house in 1926.
South side of Joseph Price House 1926.
I took exterior shots with a zoom lens from across the road earlier this year in June. I did not trespass. The house as previously mentioned is in grave peril.
I had questioned before if the house was secure. At one point it did have a caretaker but after what I saw through the lens of my camera I do not see how it is possible for anyone to live in that house safely or legally. But I suppose anything is possible?
Interior Joseph Price House, date and photographer unknown. BUT believed to be only a few years old.
However a couple of years ago I was sent a couple interior photos of recent vintage. I do NOT know how they were obtained. I also don’t know who sent them to me and I have searched to find the old message and it is long gone. I have never posted these images but I think it is time. Maybe it will of help to motivate West Whiteland to get the owners to properly secure the structure or even help someone, anyone to get a conservation/preservation buyer? I figure the current owners have to be getting up there in age? I also found a random and old court docket with the owners on it, have no idea what it was about does anyone?
Anyway this house is glorious and if Loch Aerie in neighboring East Whiteland could be saved and repurposed with a new life, why not this place too?
#thisplacematters #history #historichouses
I mean are there ANY reporters TV or print media with the gumption to cover this? It’s not a human bleeding and dying, it’s just a house. A historically noted house. We can’t save everything but we should save some things, right?
Save the Joseph Price House in Exton. But please don’t trespass there, it is still someone else’s property.
I just posted about the Oaklands Estate Tenant Farm House after driving by a couple of days ago. I said in that post, I feared it would just be torn down. I didn’t know. Now I know that it’s actually true I am going to say that out loud.
A bit after I posted my post, some of the family that used to live in that beautiful farmhouse posted some photos. Of a pool refurbished in 2021 and things like that. The house had huge beautiful gardens and a wonderful library in the house. It was a home, a much loved home.
The refurbished pool around 2021
1-28-1950 .. looking down Whitford Rd towards the house
1-28-1950 in front of the barn looking west on Rt 30
Some McIlvaine family members were living on site until they had to leave after the sale. They have been kind enough to give me these photos to show all of you.
Our farm sign selling milk. I still have all the Oakland’s farm milk containers. My granddad started selling turkeys too.
I get that a car dealership probably doesn’t care about an old farmhouse but we in Chester County should care about our old farmhouses, and I want the memories to survive through photos. The descriptions on the photos have been provided by a family member and I would like to thank Shane McIlvaine in for sharing his precious memories. And these are precious memories for these people.
My Grandad in the middle with his brothers at a farm show in the 50’s – Shane McIlvaine
But when estates have to be settled and there are a bunch of relatives involved, properties sometimes have to be sold. And given the absolute insanity of the real estate market and how developers on a quest to play PAC MAN and gobble up land all over, it makes it hard for individuals to compete to try to save these properties, let alone family members who want to hang on to familial homesteads and be able to afford to buy out other family members.
Shane McIlvaine : “ this was closing day last spring… My final picture at the house. Couldn’t believe they still wanted to buy it since it had 4ft of water in the basement. I have pictures of the property in all its stages dating back to 1707 and kept all the old farm equipment. Storing it across Rt30 at the main house and barn (Oakland’s farm). We still sell honey here!”
So when someone else asked Shane McIlvaine about the situation, we all learned some interesting information and the reality of the damage overdevelopment does over time:
“I moved out last year when we sold it to Exton Nissan. The chimney never caught on fire…it was an electrical fire from a poor stucco job exposing a wire…Even though I had just recently refinished the pool, the property was slowly sinking into the wetlands because of surrounding development. It needed hundreds of thousands in repairs. Decided it was time to go when yellow jackets were discovered within the entire back wall of the home. In the 70’s it never flooded and it had a useable pasture for farm animals.…Brand new pool put in 2021. It does make me a bit sad since it had been in the family since the 1700’s. My grandmother lived in the guest house and was the owner. When she recently passed her estate was divided, and I couldn’t afford to buy everyone out of their share of the acreage.”
Property around the farm house 1950s
The house and/or the spring house is sinking slowly into wetlands because of surrounding development. That old phrase you hear about water seeking it’s own level strikes me as apropos in a sad way. This is a real cost of over-development, which sadly is somethings the West Whiteland corridor has plenty of. Water no longer has anywhere to go because of all of the development. And with climate change and increasingly obnoxious weather patterns, where we never had flooding, we have flooding.
And if there was more open space, water would have a place to go. They can engineer stormwater basins and whatnot all they want, but it doesn’t really replace old fashioned open space with room for water to go.
Back to death of a farmhouse….
So Shane McIlvaine is the nephew of former State Representative Barbara McIlvaine Smith who was also Vice President of West Chester Borough Council once upon a time. Shane’s father was her older brother. His dad passed away in 2012, so his aunt became the Executrix.
Other information: Shane McIlvaine has the original deed, William Penn land grant paperwork, and some pictures of the farm workers from long ago.
Let that sink in: this is yet another property that was a William Penn land grant being destroyed for development. (Yes, that is my opinion that too much land, too many farmhouses, farms, open space, etc are being destroyed.) Lloyd Farm in Caln is also crumbling by the minute, was a William Penn land grant. Our history of Chester County, of Pennsylvania, of this very country is lbeing destroyed and for what?
1-28-1950 ..corner of Whitford Rd & Rt 30 looking down at that house
If you look at other countries like the one we spring from originally, England, they value their heritage. In this country, it’s super sad but we do not. Not all of us, but too many decision makers for sure in Harrisburg, for example.
So maybe, just maybe if state representatives and state senators could get off their collective political asses in Harrisburg and do their jobs, which includes updating the Municipalities Planning Code comprehensively to protect the constituency they are supposed to serve as opposed to special interests, that would be awesome. And it’s not all of the state representatives and state senators, but there are so many that are in with all sorts of obvious that they forget whom they’re there to serve.
So hypothetically, speaking, maybe if the Municipalities Planning Code had been updated, there might not be so much development in West Whiteland, and this farmhouse and William Penn Land grant remainder would be worth maybe saving?
We all need to do better. We can’t keep standing idly by as our very history disappears.
Here in Chester County we keep losing what makes this county special. Farms, land, open space, history. We loose it with every devil of a development project we don’t really need – you know like that warehouse development project being discussed at present in Uwchlan Township? Or any of the apartment and townhouse developments we don’t actually need more of in a county once known for farms and open space. It’s all bullshit being shoved at residents as the latest and greatest until it’s not. And it’s not.
I don’t think any bells can be unrung here with this historic farmhouse that’s part of a historic William Penn land grant. That actually upsets me. To follow in screenshots is all the West Whiteland stuff talking about the demolition execution timeline.
One last comment from Shane McIlvaine about all of this development. It makes me sad. He literally has been someone in a farming family who has grown up watching farms disappear. Imagine what he has seen. Chester County has lost so much. When will it stop?
“ It is sad. In the early 90’s when my Grandad and his brothers sold the 300 or so acres between Whitford and Rt100 (becoming Waterloo Blvd and a bunch of condos), I knew it was all downhill for Exton as peaceful farmland. A few yrs later Waterloo gardens sold to a developer when the matriarch of the Le’Bouttlier family passed and that property had to be split between siblings. So will go every other last chunk of Chester County land. Honey Brook is the next target for developers. Our other family farm called Springton Manor towards that direction was sold as well but partially preserved luckily.”
I have written about both houses before and they are neighbors. First is the Joseph Price House at 401 Clover Mill Road in Exton. It’s on the corner of S. Whitford Rd.
Supposedly it has a caretaker, but there seem to be so many holes in the house as it sits and rots, that you have to wonder if it’s safe. There are constant rumors that the guys who own it have sold it, but it never seems any sales go through, so are they just a pair of house hoarders? (You can look up the owners, it’s public record.)
Then there is the neighboring and equally rotting old farmhouse at 105 S. Whitford Road in Exton. It’s an old tenant farm from what was the Oaklands estate once upon a time. Supposedly dates from 1750 and this is the respect it gets? (Again, you can look this house up, it’s public record.)
Yes fuzzy photos taken in the rain as a passenger in a car yesterday and there was traffic, so not the best photos.
I don’t really have much more to add. I’ve written about these properties before. And it always gets me when you go up S.Whitford Road that these two historic properties are so close to each other. I will note that the white farmhouse looks like something is going on to the side- the right side when driving by to meet Route 30.
Both of these houses in my opinion are demolition by neglect. What is happening to both of these houses is criminal. The Joseph Price house in particular will shortly reach the point of no return if someone can’t convince those owners to sell to preservation minded people. I don’t think there’s any hope for the beautiful old farmhouse and My guess is that will be torn down. I predict with both these houses someday we will all say to one another “Do you remember those really cool houses?”
I really hope that the West Whiteland Historic Commission is able to fully document these properties inside and out before it’s too late.
Today was the last day standing in Chester County for this once beautiful farmhouse. Another historic structure bites the dust and this farmhouse had a slow decline and was it initially demolition by neglect?
You have to wonder why so many of these beautiful old houses have to go bye bye around here? What ugliness will replace this?
I am also including the rotting historic farmhouse with a fabulous probably rotting barn behind it at 310 Lancaster Avenue in Frazer (East Whiteland Township) which I have been writing about for years (like the Joseph Price house at 401 Clover Mill Road at the corner of South Whitford in Exton, West Whiteland Township.) 310 Lancaster Avenue is the Clews & Strawbridge property, which if I recall my research correctly is three parcels under the same entity name.
What is interesting about the Clews and Strawbridge property is I found a website today for self storage units there. I hope the storage is an inside the historic farmhouse given its dilapidated condition.
What I don’t understand with this location like the other two in this post is why people can’t take care of them? Why the demolition by neglect? And these are hardly the only examples in Chester County, either.
Joseph Price House 401 Clover Mill Road, Exton (West Whiteland)
The Joseph Price House at 401 Clover Mill Road is so sad. That is a magnificent property, and it appears to be on still buy two old men in Ambler. I think at least one of them used to live around maybe? I also know they have had offers for that property for restoration/preservation but in this case it’s demolition by neglect meets greed isn’t it?
Today it looks like some kind of cheap roofing material was being thrown up to cover the holes in the roof and some of the porch roof. So is that because they’re trying to sell it or is there actually still a tenant/caretaker living there? There used to be but the more it deteriorated, people just wondered but Loch Aerie had a caretaker living there as that was rotting up until the end. And Loch Aerie is a prime example that restoration and a viable adaptive reuse is entirely possible. Loch Aerie went from a proverbial lump of coal for decades to a glittering diamond.
Joseph Price House, Exton (West Whiteland Township)
And the farmhouse at 105 S. Whitford is also legitimately historic. It’s even recognized by West Whiteland Township as such. It was part of the Oaklands estate. And was it also not once also a family home to a very popular former Chester County State Representative?
When I went by both houses along South Whitford Road today I was astounded by the condition of the property at 105. The farmhouse looks sad but not completely dilapidated yet. But give it time because if no one pays attention it will get that way.
Demolition by neglect is an old unpleasant thing in so many communities. A few years ago you even saw foreclosure versions of that when banks would come in and take over the properties and just leave ghost houses, or whatever the correct nickname was.
I don’t know what the future holds for that farmhouse but shouldn’t it matter somehow? Shouldn’t the condition of the property matter somehow? And that’s the whole thing: you get that not every historic house can be saved or every old house or every beautiful swath of land, but this whole demolition by neglect and chest high weeds thing is ridiculous. Don’t the people that live in the area already matter? Shouldn’t these property owners at least be respectful of the township in which they have these properties?
It’s just that in spite of how difficult Pennsylvania seems to make historic preservation because they just don’t offer nearly what a lot of other states offer, there are people who still want to restore these properties. It would just be nice if there was more restoration and less demolition by neglect.
105 S. Whitford Road Exton (West Whiteland Township)
