Radnor Township, PA I (9/7/2020)

Monday, September 7, 2020

I found a listing of significant residences in Radnor, which now have an identifying plaque. We did not get close enough to see the plaques! And now I cannot find the list on the internet!

First stop: Cabrini University (founded 1957 as Cabrini College,
university status in 2016); Cavaliers mascot logo

Woodcrest (1901, 1907 alterations by Horace Trumbauer,
1914 modifications; Elizabethan Tudor Revival style) was
owned by Dr John T Dorrance, inventor of the process of
condensed soup and president of Campbell Soup Company

In 1953 the estate of Dr Dorrance sold the property to the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, the religious order founded by St Frances Xavier Cabrini. The Sisters used "The Mansion" as the nucleus of Cabrini College.

Woodcrest portal that overlooks the terrace

Woodcrest entrance

Cabrini College Peace Garden with Peace Pole (KSS)

Statue of St Cabrini

Frances Xavier Cabrini was born in Italy and wanted to become a missionary. She was denied from joining the Daughters of the Sacred Heart order due to her frail health. So in 1880 she founded her own order and managed to obtain an audience with the Pope for permission to go to China. However, Pope Leo XIII sent her to New York to tend to the Italian immigrants. Her focus had been to establish schools and orphanages, as well as hospitals, and she herself traveled throughout Central and South America, as well as Europe and the United States. She was canonized a saint in 1946, and is the patron saint of immigrants.

260 Chamonix Road/Thornhedge (1903, by Edgar V Seeler
in Elizabethan Tudor Revival style)

On the campus of Valley Forge Military Academy
and College, the National Monument of
the Battle of the Bulge (1994)

425 Chestnut Lane/Bon Air (1889-1890, in Queen Anne style)

113  W Beechtree Lane/Finley House (1789, alterations and
additions in 1840 and 1888) is the headquarters
of the Radnor Historical Society

134 Poplar Avenue (c 1904-1906, perhaps Gothic Tudor style)

124 W Wayne Avenue (c 1881-1884, Victorian style)

142 W Wayne Avenue (1881-1887, Victorian style)

108 Bloomingdale Avenue apartments (1918, Second Empire style)

221 Lenoir Avenue (c 1921-1922, Colonial style)

200 S Aberdeen Avenue (c 1890-1893, Gothic style)

There are several houses that cannot be seen from the road.

Newtown Road/Ardrossan Estate is the last of the great Main Line
properties that is being subdivided for development, and our
peek through the gate sees only one of the new mansions

The Ardrossan residence (1911-1913, Horace Trumbauer) is in the middle of 350 acres that was once an even larger gentleman's farm. There was a dairy including nine Ayrshire cows from the original owner's home in Scotland. Colonel Robert Montgomery was an investment banker who also had seven mares and a stallion brought from his homeland. The oldest daughter, Helen Hope Montgomery Scott, took over management of the estate. Her husband, Edgar Scott, had attended Harvard with Philip Barry, who later wrote the Oscar-winning film The Philadelphia Story (1940), basing the character played by Katherine Hepburn on Hope Scott. Parts of the movie were filmed on the Ardrossan Estate.

672 Conestoga Road/Isle Field/Almondbury House (1911,
by Horace Trumbauer) was another mansion that was home to a famous
socialite, Lucille Polk Carter Brooke, who survived the RMS Titanic
disaster by helping to row a lifeboat away from the sinking ship