Whitemarsh Hall

Whitemarsh Hall was an estate in Springfield Township, Pennsylvania, that was built by architect Horace Trumbauer for wealthy banker Edward T. Stotesbury. Stotesbury commissioned Trumbauer to design the house in 1916, when Stotesbury was one of the richest people in the United States. After the original owners left the massive house, it quickly fell into disrepair and was torn down in 1980. The home was seen as an example of Gilded Age opulence.

Background

Edward T. Stotesbury was born in 1849 to a middle-class family in Pennsylvania near Philadelphia. He got a job at the Drexel & Co. banking firm, which later merged with banker J.P. Morgan’s Wall Street firm, also known as J.P. Morgan. Stotesbury moved up in the company and became a partner at J.P. Morgan in 1883. He was making millions of dollars a year and soon became one of the richest people in Philadelphia. He was widowed at a young age, but he married his second wife, Eva, in 1910. He was sixty years old at the time. The couple lived in a Rittenhouse Square townhouse, where they entertained members of Philadelphia’s high society. Eva decided that the couple should have more space for entertaining and requested that her husband build a large estate house nearby. They broke ground on the house, which was designed and built by architect Horace Trumbauer, in 1916. Trumbauer famously designed mansions for some of America’s wealthiest people. He was assisted by Julian Abele, who was one of the country’s first Black architects. Eva moved close to the building site so she could oversee construction and design. Construction on the building took roughly five years and was completed in 1921. The final cost of the home, including its furnishings, is estimated to have been between three million and twelve million dollars—an astronomical amount to pay for a house at the time.

Overview

Whitemarsh Hall, as the estate was called, was a huge Georgian country house that sat on 300 acres of land. The U-shaped manor was designed in an informal English style and set among formal French gardens. The estate was located just outside Philadelphia in Springfield Township, Pennsylvania. The estate had a one-mile lane that visitors traveled up to reach the home. The building’s exterior was covered in bright white limestone, and the front was lined with fifty-foot-tall limestone columns. The home had roughly 100,000 square feet of space, comprising 147 rooms. That space included more than thirty rooms for servants. It also included a movie theater, a telephone switchboard, and rooms for guests and family. The enormous building required a full staff of butlers, maids, cooks, gardeners, and valets. The building was fully furnished, with many works of art and other objects shipped from Europe.

The Stotesburys welcomed many prominent guests and hosted lavish parties at their home. Eva invited hundreds of guests to her events. These were typically prominent figures of society, including business owners, government leaders, religious leaders, and celebrities. Georges Clemenceau, a former premier of France, visited Whitemarsh Hall once. While he was admiring the formal French gardens, he mentioned that the home reminded him of the Palace ofVersailles, which was the lavish palace where Louis XIV and Marie Antoinette lived before the French Revolution. After Clemenceau’s comment, Whitemarsh Hall became known as the “Versailles of America.”

Stotesbury most likely paid roughly one million dollars per year to maintain upkeep on the estate. As Stotesbury aged, maintaining the home became more difficult. In 1932, amid the Great Depression, Stotesbury experienced financial losses that made maintaining the home difficult. The Stotesburys were criticized for living a lavish lifestyle and entertaining amidst the global economic crisis. He and his wife remained in the home for seventeen years before he died in 1938. After her husband’s death, Eva could not maintain the house on her own. She started to liquidate her vast collection of art, jewelry, and other luxuries after her husband’s death. She sold much of it for pennies on the dollar as she struggled to afford to maintain her way of life. She donated several valuable pieces of art to the Philadelphia Museum of Art in her husband’s honor. Stotesbury had played an important role in establishing the museum, and Eva wanted his contribution to be remembered. Eva moved out of Whitemarsh Hall not long after her husband’s death and relocated to Washington, DC. She died in Palm Beach, Florida, in 1948.

When the Stotesburys left Whitemarsh Hall, the vacant building was used as a storage place. During World War II (1939-1945), valuable works from the Metropolitan Museum of Art were relocated to Whitemarsh Hall. The valuable pieces were sent to the estate in case New York City would be attacked and have some of its museums destroyed, as had happened in Europe during the war. In 1943, the Pennsylvania Salt Manufacturing Company purchased the home and converted it into a research and development center. The salt company moved its laboratory out in 1963, which left the building vacant once again. The once-grand home fell into disrepair quickly. The European rugs and fancy furnishings were torn out. Some of the ornate carvings were sawn off the walls.

The mansion and its 471 acres were listed for sale in the late 1970s for $1.1 million, which represented only the value of the land. However, no buyers were interested in the property. As the building stood vacant, it was further destroyed by people who were interested in its history and by drug users and dealers who used the house for privacy. Citizens living close to the old estate were upset with the crime the building seemed to attract. In 1980, the building was finally demolished. The land was rezoned, and a suburban community was developed on the land. Although the building’s demolition stopped people from trespassing in the home, it also destroyed a historic landmark. However, some signs of Whitemarsh Hall remain, including the mansion's main gate, gatehouse, front portico, parts of the gardens, fountains, and statues.

Bibliography

Marhoefer, Barbara. “Whitemarsh Hall: A Palace in Ruin.” New York Times, 29 Jan. 1978, www.nytimes.com/1978/01/29/archives/whitemarsh-hall-a-palace-in-ruin-palace-of-the-twenties-in-ruin.html. Accessed 15 May 2024.

Kicey, Laura. “American Versailles.” Hidden City, 23 Nov. 2011, hiddencityphila.org/2011/11/american-versailles. Accessed 15 May 2024.

“Springfield Township Historical Society Whitemarsh Hall Collection.” Philadelphia Area Archives Research Portal (PAARP), dla.library.upenn.edu/dla/pacscl/ead.html?sort=title‗sort%20asc&fq=subject‗place‗facet%3A%22Montgomery%20County%20%28Pa.%29%22&id=PACSCL‗SMREP‗STHS01. Accessed 6 May 2021.

“The Versailles of America.” Springfield Township, www.springfieldhistory.org/whitemarsh-hall/. Accessed 6 May 2021.

“Whitemarsh Hall.” Springfield Township Historical Society, www.springfieldhistory.org/whitemarsh-hall. Accessed 15 May 2024.

“Whitemarsh Hall.” University of Massachusetts Amherst, credo.library.umass.edu/view/full/mufs088-b037-i027. Accessed 6 May 2021.

“Whitemarsh Hall Urns Relocated to Springfield Township Municipal Campus.” Chestnut Hill Local, 4 Oct. 2019, chestnuthilllocal.com/stories/whitemarsh-hall-urns-relocated-to-springfield-township-municipal-campus,13220. Accessed 15 May 2024.

Zwicker, Charles G. and Edward C. Zwicker. Whitemarsh Hall: The Estate of Edward T. Stotesbury. Arcadia, 2004.