See inside a $1.2M house for sale in Abington thought to have ties to a famous shoe heir
There’s a 1920s house for sale on Canterbury Road in Abington whose prior residents may include the heir to an internationally known local shoe company.
There’s a 1920s house for sale in Abington whose previous residents may have included a shoe heir.
The 4,328-square-foot-home has five bedrooms, three full bathrooms and two half bathrooms on just under an acre across from Abington Senior High School. One of the bedrooms sits separately above the three-car garage as a suite with a half-bath and a kitchenette. The asking price is $1.2 million.
The Canterbury Road house sits beside a wooded area owned by a property management company, according to county records, which describe the house as a Tudor.
But the house also has Norman Revival features, said Brian Whetstone, a historian at the University of Pennsylvania, including a rounded tower and stucco elevations: “This building is certainly taking a grab bag of references from Tudor and Norman influences in the final product.”
The two-story house is nicknamed “Tall Trees” for the woodsy feel it used to have, but anyone who’s ever paid an arborist can rest easy — the current owners have removed many of the trees.
An added bonus is how much sunlight now enters the house, said Tim Owen of Compass Real Estate.
“Often with Tudors, the houses feel really dark with the wood and all,” Owen said, but several potential buyers have mentioned how bright it feels inside, even on a gloomy day.
The home is filled with original amenities, including wood-burning stone fireplaces, hardwood floors, carved woodwork, and sconces that may date back to the late 1920s. The house was built by Tudor-loving real estate mogul Wayne Herkness.
Herkness “studied a great deal from books about English architecture,” reads the description of survey plans held in the Penn State University Libraries collection. “He developed the houses in his favorite styles, English Tudor and stone colonial, with grand center halls and on large lots.”
The current owners have restored original features and made several updates, Owen said, adding high-velocity central air-conditioning and a heated, in-ground, saltwater pool, replacing the windows, and re-staining the wood moldings.
“They’ve definitely been very busy in the 13 years they’ve been there,” Owen said. “It truly is a move-in ready home.”
The previous owners who sold the house in 2013 passed on a framed print from the early days of Laird & Schober Shoes, a Philadelphia company that rose to international prominence in the early 20th century, Owen said.
The company won an award from the Franklin Institute in 1900 for shoe manufacturing, and collaborated with famed Italian designer Elsa Schiaparelli.
The print may be a nod to one of the home’s first owners, George S. Laird. The name matches the son of the shoe company’s founder who also worked for the family business, according to a 1920 passport application.
“It’s a cool house and has a cool story as well,” Owen said.
Inquirer Greater Abington
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