Whitemarsh Hall was a huge estate

Estate (house)

An estate comprises the houses and outbuildings and supporting farmland and woods that surround the gardens and grounds of a very large property, such as a country house or mansion. It is the modern term for a manor, but lacks the latter's now abolished jurisdictional authority...

 located on 300 acres (1.2 km²) of land in Wyndmoor, Pennsylvania

Wyndmoor, Pennsylvania

Wyndmoor is a census-designated place in Springfield Township, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, USA. The population was 5,498 at the 2010 census.-Geography:...

, USA, and owned by banking executive Edward T. Stotesbury

Edward T. Stotesbury

Edward Townsend "Ned" Stotesbury was a prominent investment banker, a partner in Drexel & Co. and its New York affiliate J. P. Morgan & Co. for over fifty-five years....

 and his wife, Eva. Designed by Horace Trumbauer

Horace Trumbauer

Horace Trumbauer was a prominent American architect of the Gilded Age, known for designing residential manors for the wealthy. Later in his career he also designed hotels, office buildings, and much of the campus of Duke University...

, it was built in 1921 and demolished in 1980.

Despite the name, Whitemarsh Hall was located in Springfield Township

Springfield Township, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania

Springfield Township is a township in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, United States. The population was 19,418 at the 2010 census. It includes the villages of Wyndmoor, Erdenheim, Flourtown, and Oreland...

, not in Whitemarsh Township which borders Springfield to the west.

Construction and appointments

Built by Beaux-Arts architect Horace Trumbauer between 1916 and 1921, Whitemarsh Hall consisted of 6 stories (3 of which were partly or fully underground), 147 rooms, 45 bathrooms, 100000 square feet (9,290.3 m²), and specialty rooms including a ballroom

Ballroom

A ballroom is a large room inside a building, the designated purpose of which is holding formal dances called balls. Traditionally, most balls were held in private residences; many mansions contain one or more ballrooms...

, gym

Gym

The word γυμνάσιον was used in Ancient Greece, that mean a locality for both physical and intellectual education of young men...

nasium, movie theatre, and even a refrigerating plant. The neo-Georgian mansion

Mansion

A mansion is a very large dwelling house. U.S. real estate brokers define a mansion as a dwelling of over . A traditional European mansion was defined as a house which contained a ballroom and tens of bedrooms...

 had been a wedding

Wedding

A wedding is the ceremony in which two people are united in marriage or a similar institution. Wedding traditions and customs vary greatly between cultures, ethnic groups, religions, countries, and social classes...

 present from Stotesbury to his second wife, Eva (the former Lucretia Cromwell, née Roberts).

The mansion was lavishly decorated with statue

Statue

A statue is a sculpture in the round representing a person or persons, an animal, an idea or an event, normally full-length, as opposed to a bust, and at least close to life-size, or larger...

s, paintings, and tapestry

Tapestry

Tapestry is a form of textile art, traditionally woven on a vertical loom, however it can also be woven on a floor loom as well. It is composed of two sets of interlaced threads, those running parallel to the length and those parallel to the width ; the warp threads are set up under tension on a...

 that Stotesbury had collected over the years, a collection later bequeathed to the Philadelphia Museum of Art

Philadelphia Museum of Art

The Philadelphia Museum of Art is among the largest art museums in the United States. It is located at the west end of the Benjamin Franklin Parkway in Philadelphia's Fairmount Park. The Museum was established in 1876 in conjunction with the Centennial Exposition of the same year...

. The French 18th-century furniture

Furniture

Furniture is the mass noun for the movable objects intended to support various human activities such as seating and sleeping in beds, to hold objects at a convenient height for work using horizontal surfaces above the ground, or to store things...

 was purchased through Lord Duveen, who had guided Stotesbury in assembling the second of America's great collections of English portraits, and the floor was lined with exquisite Oriental rugs

Oriental rug

An authentic oriental rug is a handmade carpet that is either knotted with pile or woven without pile.By definition - Oriental rugs are rugs that come from the orient...

, also purchased under the guidance of Duveen. Duveen also advised Stotesbury in purchases of French sculpture to decorate the huge mansion.

The gardens and landscaping were designed by the great urbanist and architect Jacques Gréber

Jacques Gréber

Jacques-Henri-Auguste Gréber was a French architect specializing in landscape architecture and urban design. He was a strong proponent of the Beaux-Arts style and a contributor to the City Beautiful movement, particularly in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and Ottawa, Ontario.-Early life and...

, whose designs in the grand manner of André Le Nôtre

André Le Nôtre

André Le Nôtre was a French landscape architect and the principal gardener of King Louis XIV of France...

 for the Philadelphian P.A.B. Widener

Peter Arrell Brown Widener

Peter Arrell Brown Widener was an American businessman and head of the prominent Widener family of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.-Biography:...

 at Lynnewood Hall

Lynnewood Hall

Lynnewood Hall is a 110-room Neoclassical Revival mansion in Elkins Park, Montgomery County designed by architect Horace Trumbauer for industrialist Peter A. B. Widener between 1897 and 1900...

 had recommended him to Trumbauer and to Eva Stotesbury, who moved into a house next to the estate to follow the progress of construction at close hand.

Life at Whitemarsh Hall

The estate also included several lesser houses and utility buildings spread over the 300 acres (1.2 km²), as well as four large greenhouses for growing trees and ferns. Smaller greenhouses were used for growing the many flowers needed to decorate the house for the lavish parties the Stotesburys liked to host. More than 70 gardeners worked at maintaining the grounds. The inside staff usually numbered forty, but many of them would follow the Stotesburys as they made their yearly pilgrimages to their Florida mansion, El Mirasol

El Mirasol

El Mirasol is a village and municipality in Chubut Province in southern Argentina.-References:...

, for the winter and to Wingwood House

Wingwood House

"Wingwood House" was a neo-colonial home in Bar Harbor, Maine.The house was built in 1927 for Edward T. Stotesbury as a summer "cottage", and was designed by architects Magaziner, Eberhard & Harris. The 80-room mansion had a 30-room servants’ wing and was heated by 56 electric wall heaters, five...

, their mansion in Bar Harbor, Maine

Bar Harbor, Maine

Bar Harbor is a town on Mount Desert Island in Hancock County, Maine, United States. As of the 2010 census, its population is 5,235. Bar Harbor is a famous summer colony in the Down East region of Maine. It is home to the College of the Atlantic, Jackson Laboratory and Mount Desert Island...

 for the summer.

In addition to E. T., Eva and their servants, Whitemarsh Hall was also designed with Eva's two children in mind (adults by the time it opened), who were given their own rooms in the house. Her son Jimmy

James H. R. Cromwell

James Henry Roberts Cromwell was an American diplomat, candidate for the United States Senate, author, and one-time husband of Doris Duke, "the richest girl in the world".-Biography:...

 frequently resided within, as did (to a lesser extent) her daughter Louise

Louise Cromwell Brooks

Henrietta Louise Cromwell Brooks was an American socialite and the first wife of General Douglas MacArthur. She was "considered one of Washington's most beautiful and attractive young women" .-Biography:...

.

For about nine years the mansion was the site of lavish balls and receptions. The intensity of the party life dropped a bit after the Great Depression

Great Depression

The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...

 in 1929, and fell even more after 1933 when the Stotesburys were openly criticized for enjoying a life of splendor while most of the country suffered the hardships of the depression. The death of one of E. T. Stotesbury's own daughters in 1935 continued to dampen the Stotesburys' enthusiasm for festivities.

Whitemarsh Hall had often been called the "American Versailles

Palace of Versailles

The Palace of Versailles , or simply Versailles, is a royal château in Versailles in the Île-de-France region of France. In French it is the Château de Versailles....

", because of the level of attention to detail in the gardens and in the main building. The nickname was not meant to elevate Whitemarsh Hall to the level of Versailles, however, especially since its prominence (such as it was) did not outlive E. T. Stotesbury.

After Stotesbury

Eva Stotesbury discovered, after the death of her husband in 1938, that she was relatively broke

Insolvency

Insolvency means the inability to pay one's debts as they fall due. Usually used to refer to a business, insolvency refers to the inability of a company to pay off its debts.Business insolvency is defined in two different ways:...

. Stotesbury had once declared that it cost him over a million dollars a year to maintain the house and the extensive property surrounding it. As a result of the Great Depression, the value of Whitemarsh Hall and its opulent furnishings was significantly lowered. Eva closed the mansion and moved to one of her other mansions, El Mirasol in Palm Beach, Florida

Palm Beach, Florida

The Town of Palm Beach is an incorporated town in Palm Beach County, Florida, United States. The Intracoastal Waterway separates it from the neighboring cities of West Palm Beach and Lake Worth...

. She donated the two mile (3 km) long, 8 feet (2.4 m) steel fence to the War Department to be turned into metal for 18,000 guns.

During much of World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

 the property was used for warehousing the bulk of New York

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

's Metropolitan Museum of Art

Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Metropolitan Museum of Art is a renowned art museum in New York City. Its permanent collection contains more than two million works, divided into nineteen curatorial departments. The main building, located on the eastern edge of Central Park along Manhattan's Museum Mile, is one of the...

 art treasures as it was feared that the Germans

Nazi Germany

Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...

 would bombard Manhattan from U-boats or warships

Kriegsmarine

The Kriegsmarine was the name of the German Navy during the Nazi regime . It superseded the Kaiserliche Marine of World War I and the post-war Reichsmarine. The Kriegsmarine was one of three official branches of the Wehrmacht, the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany.The Kriegsmarine grew rapidly...

. Eva Stotesbury had already put the property on the market after her husband's death, but there were no buyers. The property did not sell until 1943.

Transformation, then abandonment

Whitemarsh Hall was finally sold for $167,000 to the Pennsalt Chemical Corporation (today part of ATOFINA) who transformed the building into a research laboratory. Much of the grounds surrounding the mansion were sold for real estate development, which was quickly realized after the war ended. Pennsalt kept the mansion and its remaining grounds maintained and modernized, and constructed some new facilities on the property as well.

In 1963, the company, by then known as Pennwalt, built a new research center in the King of Prussia

King of Prussia, Pennsylvania

King of Prussia is a census-designated place in Upper Merion Township, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, United States. As of the 2010 census, its population was 19,936. The community took its name in the 18th century from a local tavern named the King of Prussia Inn, which was named after...

 area, and moved out of Whitemarsh Hall, which was sold to a property investment group. Efforts to preserve or sell the mansion intact by this and successive owners were unsuccessful, and as the property became neglected and vandalized

Vandalism

Vandalism is the behaviour attributed originally to the Vandals, by the Romans, in respect of culture: ruthless destruction or spoiling of anything beautiful or venerable...

 over the following years, demolition became the only feasible option. Disputes over the form of residential redevelopment to be undertaken (especially plans which envisioned luxury apartment towers) delayed demolition for a number of years.

The site today

The mansion, which was larger than the White House

White House

The White House is the official residence and principal workplace of the president of the United States. Located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., the house was designed by Irish-born James Hoban, and built between 1792 and 1800 of white-painted Aquia sandstone in the Neoclassical...

 in Washington, D.C. was demolished in 1980, and a development of modern townhouses called Stotesbury Estates was built on the property. The massive limestone pillars which were part of the mansion's front portico

Portico

A portico is a porch leading to the entrance of a building, or extended as a colonnade, with a roof structure over a walkway, supported by columns or enclosed by walls...

 were left in situ as a tribute, along with the large belvedere

Belvedere (structure)

Belvedere is an architectural term adopted from Italian , which refers to any architectural structure sited to take advantage of such a view. A belvedere may be built in the upper part of a building so as to command a fine view...

at the back of the home. No homes occupy the footprint of the mansion itself, whose basements and foundations were simply backfilled. Small remnants of the huge gardens still exist today, including a fountain, several statues, stairs, and pieces of low stone fence and walls. The twin pillars of the estate's main gate, which was one mile (1.6 km) from the back of Whitemarsh Hall, are still standing on Douglas Road off Willow Grove Avenue, minus the steel gates. The gatehouse on Douglas Road, behind the main entrance pillars, also remains, converted to a private residence.

External links

• www.serianni.com/wh.htm Official site (delinkified since browser reports site as malicious)