Want to buy the Widener mansion on the old Main Line ?

It shall be my fourth child and my third parent.

A handsome edifice.

They're just not going to get 11 million for that.

I bet it goes for less than 4 million.

They wont even dare post an interior shot? How many dead cats do you think are in there?

I'm so curious about the interior but I don't want to see any dead cats.

The inside isn't all that terrible.

Interesting that at the time the video in R6 was made, the price they listed the house for was $20 million. Now down to $11 million. It's a great place that looks like it's in decent shape considering it's largely been abandoned. But hell, 110 rooms is a lot of dusting.

The first things on the inside to go in a house like that are the ceilings. Anything made of painted plaster will start failing first. The amount of stone work inside that house will be of great benefit to holding off deterioration. Unless someone is keeping the heat and air going the winter/summer temperature changes will really do a number on the paint and plaster inside.

OP and the 7 other respondents on this thread are typical northeast Philly rowhouse trash. Otherwise, they'd know Elkins Park is most definitely NOT on the Main Line.

Elkins Park is also where one Mr. Bill Cosby resided, until recently.

Bitch I live 1000+ miles from Philly. Check yourself before you start spouting bullshit.

That’s Dr. Cosby to you, R9.

Very sad. No billionaire is going to come along and buy and restore Lynnewood Hall. Super rich people want to live in the Hamptons, Greenwich CT and Nantucket MA, not Elkins Park.

Can it be converted to condos?

It is such a waste. While some crazy trash in Florida builds a new “replica” of Versailles, this sits empty. A bad location is part of the problem. Elkins Park area was the knockoff Main Line. More Jewish. The only way that house could get that money is if it was on the actual Main Line. Cutting it up to apartments is the only hope - but I assume the town doesn’t want / won’t allow that. And even then, there just isn’t enough demand for that area. Upper middle class people want the McMansions in Bucks and Chester counties.

Elkins Park isn’t really technically the Mainline

Only 20 bathrooms for 55 bedrooms? I think not.

It's rilly gauche

It would cost a small fortune to get it back to its glory days.

How sad.

It is a spectacular design by one of Philadelphia's best Beaux Arts architects. But I think institutional use is the only feasible answer, unless it can be reinvented as a destination hotel.

There was a vast house from nearby that a potential buyer had earmarked for a move to a location in Florida, so maybe something crazy like that could happen.

Would make a great insane asylum.

Perfect location for a Netflix/CW/Syfy werewolf teen drama or some such. Surprised a smart producer doesn't snap it up. Less set decorating costs and all the rehab can get rolled into the budget. Tax abatements for sure, especially if you can get an A-list star to cameo and also sway the county board.

I’ll buy it...

r16 "We don't want anyone to have an accident."

When is the last time anyone lived there?

I wouldn’t change the astroturfed main stairs. Would you? AstroTurf is under-appreciated as interior decor.

[quote]The only way that house could get that money is if it was on the actual Main Line.

Yes but my impression is that the Main Line isn't what it used to be because Philadelphia isn't as prosperous as it was in the late 19th and early 20th century. Newport RI and the North Shore of Long Island definitely aren't what they were a hundred years go. At least some of the historic mansions in Newport were restored and converted to museums and attract tourists.

Perhaps the X-Men can use it.

The answer is very simple. The federal and state governments should start a GoFundMe page. If every American donated a $1, there'd be enough money to buy and restore the house and run it as a museum for some time. You're welcome.

Museum of what, R28? And your idea is stupid.

Agree the Main Line, like the North Shore, has passed its prime. Now everyone wants a McMansion in the exurbs. The estates have moved out to Newtown Square, Chadds Ford and Chester County.

[quote]Museum of what, [R28]? And your idea is stupid.

Well, the mansion costs $11 million. One person in the wikipedia article about Lynnewood Hall says it would cost $50 million to restore the house properly. The rest of the money could be used to purchase paintings, tapestries and antique furniture and run the place. Heck, Americans shouldn't be so cheap. They should donate $5 each.

My idea is tongue in cheek. It will never happen.

It will probably continue to deteriorate and be demolished eventually. Or maybe some institution will buy it and do a cheap, slapdash renovation but the place probably costs a fortune to heat. I wonder if the roof is leaking.

Lynnewood Hall in its glory days.

A little too ornate.

It's actually surprisingly well-proportioned, and has real potential. Shame it's going to ruin.

R33. That is not Lynnewood, that is a house in NYC.

Zoned for Mixed Use.

55 bedrooms, JFC.

I did a google image search and that's how it's marked, R37. I guess the person could have misidentified the photograph. What house in NYC do you think it is?

Such a shame there's not more land. A house like that should be on 100 acres. I know originally there was much more land but it was sold off in later years.

That guy in the video with the sunglasses and hat is HOT.

If I had any energy, I’d turn it into a boarding school.

R36. I lived in a room like that, minus the art, in North Philadelphia in the Baird Mansion. It was beautiful but the neighborhood was nothing but hookers and drug dealers, so I only lasted a year there. Ceiling was huge and a skylight all the way down the room, entry on an enclosed courtyard at the back of the building. This was about 30 years ago.

The big money is in high-end opiate rehab. That's where this is headed. 99%

What does main line mean? I Googled and got "a chief railroad line" or inject a drug intravenously.

R39 Google image searches pull up all kinds of incorrect shit. That staircase is in the demolished William Salomon mansion which was on Fifth Avenue, one of my favorite lost houses.

Here, R46, although you're probably joking.

[quote]55 bedrooms, JFC.

Back in those days, these mansions not only housed the families but were also, basically, hotels for the rich. If you were on the social register and planning a trip to Philadelphia, you would place a newspaper item about your journey (I'm sure these trips were announced in other more private ways as well). I, Mr. Widener, on the social registry myself, would see or hear of your trip and invite you and yours as guests in the mansion for your stay. You would dress for dinner with us, you might partake in outdoor activities on the grounds, etc. Not sure if money or trade would be exchanged - but you certainly wouldn't have to stay in a hotel with the masses. It's all very gentile, very Downton Abbey. Those people coming to stay with the Crawleys were basically hotel guests they may have hardly known.

It would be a good project for Harry and Meghan.

Make a museum with a cafe, a gift shop and an outdoor garden that sells plants

It would make a fine retirement home for rich old gays...

How depressing. There is no one who knows how to live the way the house was designed to live. Can you imagine how many servants it would take to care for the house and the family?

The sad little sofas in the main hall almost want to make me kill myself. Not to mention the astroturf smothering the stairway.

Harvard should buy it to protect the name of Harry Elkins Widener

Do people really buy $11M homes based on a description as scant as this:

Lynnewood Hall one of the largest surviving Gilded age Mansion in the Philadelphia area..... 2 parcels 310000820004 and 310000823001 ( 33.85 Glorious Gated Acres ) Endless Possibilities For Development in MU 3 ( Mixed Use Overly District ) Museum location, Condo conversion with clothing shops, restaurants, banks, music venue ,Hotel, Hospital, Town center with stores/townhouses/condos/apts. Nursing home with life care center , Movie studio production center etc.. This 110 room Neoclassical mansion was designed by architect Horace Trumbauer for industrialist Peter A.B.Widener

That would be a fun bathhouse.

[quote] It's all very gentile, very Downton Abbey

Oh dear.

[quote]R39 Google image searches pull up all kinds of incorrect shit. That staircase is in the demolished William Salomon mansion which was on Fifth Avenue, one of my favorite lost houses.

It looks like you're right, R47. I assume that the person who writes the "Daytonian in Manhattan" blog checks things out carefully. You have a good eye and a good memory.

I love that blog.

I wonder if all 20 of the shitters still work.

I love that blog too, R59. I've looked at it many times. Great way of finding architecturally and historically significant buildings in Manhattan.

Rich people in the Gilded Age did actually have bearskin rugs with intact heads, like Mr. Burns on "The Simpsons" or the house in the recent TV adaptation of "And Then There Were None".

Here's the one in the main hall of Lynnewood Hall.

It's actually a very good piece of architecture. The. exterior is beautifully proportioned. The architectural detailing is beautiful.

Tear it down and build a park...or an arboretum. We need more spaces like that.

Americans have no desire to preserve any history. Just tear it down and build a Walmart.

[64] Speak for yourself.

pfft...too small

Elkins Park was never on the Main Line. I live in Philadelphia and this area has gone downhill in a lot of parts. No way will they get 11 million for that area.

So if it was me, I'd have a demolition sale so that the fireplaces, marble bathtubs, and anything else worth salvaging could be taken. The place has a lot of parts worth saving, but the deterioration to the entire structure is probably too extensive to save and even if you did maintaining it would be prohibitive.

I'd demolish it and do a mixed use, condos, shops, offices, e tc.

I wonder if the portico and other exterior details could be incorporated into a more manageable house elsewhere. I'm thinking a temple-front Greek Revival like the grand houses of the 1830s.

Depressing in a very cold, elegant way. The outside is beautiful yet institutional. Miss Havisham.

Did the center hall have a grand skylight at one point? Painted over? It looks like it's lit by the sun in the old black and white photos.

[R70] It would actually make an awesome high school.

Wasn't there controversy about naming the Widener Library at Harvard because Captain Smith had gotten drunk at The Wideners' dinner party and his ensuing negligence contributed to the tragedy?

This mansion reminds me of a movie I saw ages ago.I think it was a Merchant Ivory film. It was called The Golden Bowl. If you can find it watch it. Nick Nolte plays this incredibly wealthy American industrialist who travels with his daughter looking for rare artworks. Uma Thurman and Jeremy Northam are in the movie. Kate Beckingsale plays his daughter. Jeremy plays (very badly) an Italian count who is penniless.

Needs repurposing as a corporate HQ or medical facility.

r73 Captain Smith wasn't even on duty when it struck the iceberg, he was asleep

R74, yes. Beautiful picture, execrable acting by all.

[quote]R36. I lived in a room like that, minus the art, in North Philadelphia in the Baird Mansion. It was beautiful but the neighborhood was nothing but hookers and drug dealers, so I only lasted a year there. Ceiling was huge and a skylight all the way down the room, entry on an enclosed courtyard at the back of the building. This was about 30 years ago.

It must have been a cool place to live, R44. Too bad about the seedy neighborhood.

The picture galleries in Gilded Age mansions all look similar to me - paintings covering every square inch of dark walls with a skylight. Here's a particularly grand one from the Astor house at 840 Fifth Avenue in New York, demolished in 1927.

[quote]Yes but my impression is that the Main Line isn't what it used to be because Philadelphia isn't as prosperous as it was in the late 19th and early 20th century. Newport RI and the North Shore of Long Island definitely aren't what they were a hundred years go.

Everybody wants to live in NYC and LA now.

Things were pretty dodgy in New York during the 70s, with lots of crime and the city on the verge of bankruptcy, but somehow it's recovered. Not exactly sure of the reasons why. Maybe Philadelphia relied a lot on old fashioned industries which left permanently in the second half of the 20th century and it has struggled to find new sources of income. Boston seems to be doing well -- maybe because it's a centre for innovation in medical technology.

As I said before, super rich people like to have country houses in places like the Hamptons, Greenwich CT, Nantucket MA, Palm Beach FL and Montecito on the West Coast. There $10 million houses, or even $20 million houses, aren't so rare.

Man, if you look at some of the houses in the Hamptons they are obscene. Jerry Seinfeld's place for example.

12 acres, $32 Million dollar house in Amagansett. Seinfeld and his slutty wife.

I could never live in that blighted disgusting mansion in Philly. But. There are so many wealthy people with "summer places" in the Hamptons, that, if I was a homeless person, I would just kind of slip in to the back door, and live there from October until April. Who'd know?

I wonder how many gardeners, maids etc. Seinfeld has to run a place like that.

Philly never got new industries - except pharma. Despite all the higher ed and medical institutions, biotech, tech and finance were always focused elsewhere. Philly was also known as a conservative town that didn’t like change which contributed to its difficulty changing with the times. Lots of blue collar jobs related to industry disappeared but nothing really replaced them. NYC is the finance capital, SF the tech capital and LA entertainment and media.

Most old-time Main Liners started leaving by the 60s/70s for more vibrant places like NY or CA. The 80s were the last gasp of classic WASP culture. Like Chicago or Detroit, it’s heyday may be over. However, the huge number of higher ed and medical institutions will always provide a base - so even without a lot of new industries, there is potential for growth.

See you could get a job with one of those companies that manage the property for the owner, or work for the landscapers, or WTF ever and just squat there all winter long.

I think the Center City in Philadelphia has bounced back considerably. The colonial remnants and grand old 19th century buildings have been renovated to a surprising extent. But I agree that a small-town insular and snobbish mentality has prevented the place from realizing its potential as fully as other similar cities.

Speaking of Main Line mansions, what became of the Barnes after the museum moved to Philly?

Hotel and spa?

[quote]Philly never got new industries - except pharma. Despite all the higher ed and medical institutions, biotech, tech and finance were always focused elsewhere.... However, the huge number of higher ed and medical institutions will always provide a base - so even without a lot of new industries, there is potential for growth.

U.S. News and World Report still ranks the University of Pennsylvania quite high.

That dead bird in that old dank mansion creeps me out, and it's a bad omen. I mean why were the previous owners in such a rush to bail that they couldn't maintain the place while it's on the market.

I would cut off half of each wing.

I looks, even in death, very cold and institutional. How could people live in such a building. It resembles a huge hotel or even an old bank building from the 40's.

Dear R85. Philadelphia is the home of Comcast. The company just finished building a 2nd skyscraper in Center City. A 3rd is rumored to be in the pipeline and will effectively create a real estate parcel not unlike Rockefeller Center.

If you look the other way long enough you can miss a lot.

It’s beautiful, but for less, I think I’d rather live in England. Check out this place!

Here’s one in Villanova, actually on the Main Line. Built in 1930, it’s been maintained. The Georgian and stone country places have survived more than the severe neoclassical ones.

The chintz is out of control, but the property is beautiful and a lot of the house is great. Needs a new kitchen.

R95, that place is unbelievable. There's a greenhouse as long as a football field.

Bunny Mellon's property had a hangar and a runway for her private jet. Yes, really.

Now THAT'S rich!

Another old Main Line mansion built in the French Norman style -- Linden Hill or Cedar Crest at 1543 Monk Road in Gladwyne.

One of the most famous Main Line mansions is Ardrossan at 811 Newtown Road in Villanova.

Ardrossan

Shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in three generations.

True. A family is very unlikely to be super rich generation after generation.

If the kids don't work and are lazy trust fund layabouts, family wealth rarely lasts after three generations.

It's not just that, R104. Certain families made tons of money by establishing department stores, and now, one department store after another is going bankrupt. Times change.

r105 the smart ones diversify into other industries. They go into hedge funds and whatnot.

What are the key businesses in Philly?

What does the University specialise in?

Is it financial services, manufacturing, or a science city?

Even though it's not exactly a booming city, I enjoyed my visit to Philadelphia because of the historical buildings. I love the area around Rittenhouse Square.

All over the country there are beautiful homes built by powerful and wealthy industrialists and what have you. Fortunes made and lost. It’s interesting to ponder.

R83 there’s a movie that is shown on TCM a lot around Christmas time built around that premise.

You mean "It Happened on Fifth Avenue". The difference is that the mansion in the movie is in perfect condition.

I wonder if the house could be renovated as a series of townhouse-like duplexes - or apartments with amazing shared spaces? That worked for the Green Mansion in Connecticut, which is nearly as large (if not larger).

R95. I’m surprised Athelhampton is for sale, i think it’s been in the same family for centuries, and open to the public at least part of the year. Sad that the family is letting go of it.

Philly has arguably the best architecture in the US. Much larger number of 18th and 19th century buildings than Boston. Some interesting modern architecture - including the 2 new Comcast skyscrapers. And some of the most beautiful suburbs in the country directly linked to the city by train. Not as rich or dominant as it once was - or as other US cities. And some really depressed, ugly areas. But great architecture.