WSJ – “A Hedge-Fund Manager Is Auctioning His $35 Million Philadelphia [Gladwyne] Dream Home.”
On September 4, 2019, the Wall Street Journal reported that Andrew Barroway, a part owner of the Arizona Coyotes NHL Hockey team, planned to auction his home, located at 100 Maple Hill Road in Gladwyne.
Update: It’s still for sale, but the asking price is now only $14.9 million
On this site, the current owner tore down a historic mansion, and replaced it with a new and better one.
In December of 2006, Cheryl Alison reported in the Main Line Times, that the Lower Merion Township Commissioners, by a 6-5 vote, gave permission to Barroway and his wife Elyse Barroway to tear down the house that previously stood on that property. Alison wrote that “The house in question is a 1937 stone Colonial Revival designed by noted Lower Merion architect Walter Durham. In fact, it stands not far from Durham’s own residence, which was lost to demolition. It’s similar to several other Durham homes in the township. “
The Barroways bought the house from Theodore (Ted) and Phyliss Kosloff. Kosloff’s father was Irv Kosloff, a former owner of the 76ers. In April of 2006, after the Kosloffs threatened to sue, Lower Merion Township agreed to reclassify 100 Maple Hill Road from a Class I to a Class II property. The township can deny a permit to demolish a Class I property, but it can only insist that owners of Class II properties wait 90 days before doing a teardown.
Philadelphia Inquirer – December 31, 2006
Shortly after they purchased the property from the Kosloffs, the Barroways were given a waiver on the 90 day rule. They claimed that having to wait that long would have been a hardship.
Ardmore Resident Jean Wolf is a preservation advocate who wrote a Masters Thesis at Penn about Walter Durham. In January of 2007, she authored an op. ed. article in the Main Line Times expressing her dissatisfaction with the commissioners’ vote that allowed for the house to be demolished.
Wolf wrote, “The 20-acre tract of land on which this building is/was located goes all the way to Mill Creek and was once part of the Frederick Bicking paper mill site and their homestead.
Society Page, Philadelphia Inquirer – October 10, 1937
Jean Wolf continued
“A farm road from the Nippes-Barker Mill also once went through the property, providing access to a small log cabin and spring house, two other cultural resources that remain on the land and must now be newly protected so they cannot be demolished. After Walter C. Pew and his wife, Hannah Elliott Pew, purchased the Hagenlocher’s gentleman’s farm in 1930, the Pews added on these 20 acres to the west, creating an immense estate of over 125 acres. In 1936, Hannah Elliott Pew’s brother, William C. Elliott, became engaged. To accommodate the bridal couple, Walter and Hannah Pew sold William and Ann Kurtz Elliott this 20-acre tract of land upon which to build their new home. (William Elliott’s other sister, Elizabeth, was married to Walter Pew’s brother, Arthur Pew, and all were involved with Sun Oil Company.)
In 1936, the Elliotts hired Walter K. Durham, one of Lower Merion’s premier architects of Colonial Revival construction and a designer of many Pew homes, to build their new residence. Together the Elliotts and Durham selected an historic precedent for their home: Pine Forge, built by Thomas Rutter after he settled in the Oley Valley in 1716 and established an iron industry. His house still stands in Douglass Township along Old Douglass and Pine Forge roads and now serves as the headmaster’s house of Pine Forge Academy.”
1957 Fire Injures Four Lower Merion Firemen and Caused Major Damage at William C. Elliott Mansion
William C. Elliott Obituary, Philadelphia Inquirer – August 8, 1985
The Spring House at 100 Maple Hill Road.
The “Log Cabin” at 100 Maple Hill Road, photo by Rich Ilgenfritz – believed to among the oldest remaining structures in Lower Merion
Two historic buildings remain standing at 100 Maple Hill Road, a log cabin and a spring house. When asked about the historic structures there, Kathleen Ablplanalp, Director of Historic Preservation for the Lower Merion Conservancy said that, “100 Maple Hill Road has a long and interesting association with the early settlement of Lower Merion Township and especially of the Gladwyne area. Evidence of this settlement is revealed in the property’s surviving eighteenth-century buildings, including a log cabin and a spring house listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The Conservancy urges the current and future owner of 100 Maple Hill Road to preserve and sensitively care for these buildings as well as the property’s surrounding open space.”
In 2018, Fox Roach, with Lavinia Smerconish as the listing agent, posted this promotional video
Videos of 100 Maple Hill Road taken in Sepetember, 2019 from the Main Entrance and Through the Fence that Separates the Property from Rolling Hill Park
Paramount Realty is current the exclusive agent for 100 Maple Glen Road. Misha Haghani is the listing agent.
Such beauty ! must Never be demolished !