A Gilded Age mansion, sold and saved | Real Estate Newsletter
And mobile homes in urban and suburban areas
Lynnewood Hall, the 110-room mansion and sprawling estate in Elkins Park, has been on and off the market for nearly a decade.
YouTubers have trespassed over the years to take peeks at the vacant 123-year-old mansion, which has been deteriorating since the 1970s. Two years ago, I was assigned to look into a rumor that the property had been sold. It hadn’t.
But now it has. And we have an inside look at how the sale happened.
Keep scrolling for that story and to learn from the first statewide report on a low-cost housing option, find out how to protect yourself and loved ones from door-to-door scams, and peek into a Chestnut Hill garden that groups come to tour.
📮 Do you have a garden you think we should feature? Let me know by emailing me.
And travel around the world with Craig LaBan, our restaurant critic, who soon will be launching a newsletter highlighting some of the cultures and communities that make Philadelphia’s food scene what it is. Over six weeks, you can join Craig as he talks to chefs and home cooks and gives you history lessons and restaurant recommendations.
I made sure to tell my foodie brother about this. You don’t want to miss it.
Sign up here for the Taste Philly with Craig Laban newsletter.
— Michaelle Bond
A recently formed nonprofit bought the storied 34-acre Lynnewood Hall estate in Montgomery County just as its mansion was — according to the nonprofit’s executive director — “getting to the point of no return.”
In the words of my colleague Jenn Ladd, who recently took our first tour of the property since 2012:
“Though limited to the first and second floors, the visit elucidated two truths that [Lynnewood Hall Preservation Foundation] staff and board members have emphasized in interviews: The mansion is still breathtaking, even after losing much of its luster; and this deal couldn’t wait any longer if the building was to be saved.”
The nonprofit hopes eventually to open up the estate to the public.
Some fast facts about Lynnewood Hall:
📐 The mansion is 100,000 square feet.
🏗️ It was built in 1899 for $8 million.
🏛️ The previous owner got the estate through a sheriff’s sale in 1996.
💰 Over the years, the property’s listing price has ranged from $20 million in 2014 to $11 million in 2019.
The journey to last week’s sale began when a 25-year-old Realtor from Central Pennsylvania built a rapport with the then-owner, Richard S. Yoon of the First Korean Church of New York. Read how the new nonprofit owners plan to restore and preserve the estate.
When I came to The Inquirer 10 years ago, I started as a Chester County reporter.
Across the county’s diverse landscapes, I visited all types of homes, including farmhouses, apartments, single-family homes along winding forested roads and in manicured housing developments, and a memorable home that was a historic former watermill.
I’d also see communities of manufactured homes — houses built in a factory and then transferred to a home site.
Turns out that in the five-county Philadelphia region, Chester County has the most manufactured housing communities where residents own their homes but rent the land. That’s according to a new report by the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia — the first statewide look at these communities.
Some highlights from the report:
Although manufactured housing communities are disproportionately in rural areas, a slight majority in Pennsylvania are in urban areas, especially in suburbs outside cities.
Owners in these communities who rent land are among the lowest-income homeowners in the country.
A lack of research about manufactured housing communities has left residents vulnerable and excluded from policies that help homeowners in general.
Read on for more details like this: One manufactured housing community in our area has more than 1,000 homes.
The latest news to pay attention to
Pennsylvania homeowners are facing foreclosure while they wait for aid from the state that’s meant to help them pay their mortgages.
A former warehouse in North Philly may transform into homes for low-income seniors.
Certain neighborhoods are “heat islands.” Here’s what Philly’s doing to address the hot spots.
A newly rehabbed three-story house in North Philly is home to formerly incarcerated women starting over.
A historic office building on South Broad Street has found a new path forward in Philly’s uncertain office market.
After a developer sued a Philly neighborhood group over its opposition to a warehouse, it looked like the end of the group. Here’s what happened instead.
On the former site of a sod farm in Far Northeast Philly, a developer is planning to build 90 apartments surrounded by green space.
House of the week: For $420,000 in Manayunk, a three-bedroom end-of-the-row home.
My colleague Erin McCarthy talked to an East Germantown woman who got scammed by energy salespeople who showed up at her door.
They told her they were working to lower energy bills for residents in low-income neighborhoods. But instead of falling, the woman’s electric bills skyrocketed to at least double what they had been. One month, her bill jumped from around $50 to more than $200.
To help people avoid these types of scams, which increase in the summer, Erin put together some tips from experts. One piece of advice: Ask to see the required ID badge, which has to have specific information on it.
Read on for more tips for protecting yourself from door-to-door energy scams.
Nina and Eric Schneider bought their 1,800-square-foot, mid-century modern Chestnut Hill home in 1989. It sat on an overgrown half-acre property.
Nina spent so much time getting the yard into shape that friends joked that she wore a head lamp to keep working after the sun went down.
Now, Nina, a corporate interior designer turned garden designer, gives tours of her colorful and meticulously planned garden full of lilies, petunias, ostrich ferns, and other plants. (Personally, I can’t name many types of flowers, but I know when they look nice.)
Peek into the Schneiders’ world of plants and learn how they incorporated inspiration from a trip to a garden in Scotland.
🧠 Trivia time 🧠
A Man Full of Trouble Tavern in Society Hill is Philly’s only surviving Revolutionary-era dive bar. A real estate investor recently purchased the bar and the adjoining Colonial house.
Question: What does he plan to do with the property? (Choose two.)
A) Live there
B) Turn it back into a bar
C) Reopen a museum
D) Add apartments
This story has the answers.
📷 Photo quiz 📷
Do you know the location this photo shows?
📮 If you think you do, email me back.
I stumped you with last week’s (admittedly hard) photo quiz. That Center City plaza is Jefferson Plaza at the corner of 12th and Chestnut.
―
Any fans of the show Million Dollar Listing on Bravo? I haven’t seen the show, but I do know that across the country’s 50 largest metro areas, the share of million-dollar homes is rising, according to an analysis by LendingTree.
As you can probably guess, the top three metros for these high-priced homes are all in California.
One metro in Pennsylvania had the third-lowest share of million-dollar homes: Pittsburgh, with 0.9%.
Some interesting facts for you to share at your next cookout. Enjoy the rest of your week.