Whitemarsh Hall

December 12, 2011

Whitemarsh Hall

Some of you may have heard of a wonderful little estate entitles Whitemarsh Hall. Located in Located in Pennsylvania the home was constructed from 1916 to 1921 for wealthy banking executive Edward Stonesbury. The mansion was designed in the Beaux Arts style with 147 rooms, 45 bathrooms 100,000 sqft (had it survived it would have been the 3rd largest mansion in the US) and was presented as a wedding present to his second wife, Eva. Along with the mansion the grounds contained numerous out buildings including 4 large greenhouses which more than 70 gardeners maintained to keep fresh flowers for any occasion that may arise. Edward once said that the mansion costs more than $1 million dollars a year to maintain. The house was fully enjoyed for 9 years with grand parties and balls, but the great depression soon took it's tole on the wealthy family. With the depression, the death of one of Edward's daughters and then Edwards death in 1938 Eva discovered she was realitively without funds to keep the same lifestyle up. Eva closed the mansion and moved to one of her other estates in Florida. An interesting note is that during World War II the mansion was used to house the collection of art from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York to keep it safe from potential German attacks

The mansion was put on the market for sale in 1938 but did not sell until 1943 when it was purchased by a company that turned the building into a research lab and subdivided the grand grounds. In 1963 the company who occupied the home moved out to a new building and the hall was sold to an investment group. As the investment group began planning what type of wonderful luxury apartments they could build after the mansion was turned down, they left the mansion to be vandalized, vacant and destroyed. In 1980 the home was torn down and new town homes were placed there.

For more information please visit: http://www.serianni.com/wh0.htm