In the 1920s, Main Line Society Gathered In Wynnewood At The Elegant, But Scandal-ridden Green Hill Farms Hotel
The Same Building Is Now The Palmer Apartments
“RE-CREATING HISTORY.” That’s the headline on the homepage of the Palmer Apartments, located near the intersection of Lancaster and City Avenues. According to the property’s website, before its current incarnation as a luxury rental apartment, the building was “A resort in the roaring 20s and an academic center for decades after.”
The Palmer’s website doesn’t air any of the dirty laundry, which is no small part of the building’s history. But fear not, we’ll get to that in just a moment.
In 2012, Cross Properties, owners of The Palmer Apartments, bought what had been the property of Eastern University’s Palmer Theological Seminary, and which prior to that was the Green Hill Farms Hotel.
Philadelphia Inquirer, read more
In 1940, students and faculty of the Baptist Theological Seminary moved into what had been a very “high end” residence hotel known as the Green Hill Farms Hotel. The hotel was built in 1921, at the intersection of Lancaster and City Avenues.
When the building was first constructed, City Avenue was called City Line Avenue (some people still call it that), and Lancaster Avenue (U.S. Route 30) was known as Lincoln Highway.
The hotel was built on land that had at one time been part of the Green Hill Farms Estate, which in turn was part of what was originally known as early as 1694, as the Greenhill Tract. In addition to the Palmer Apartments, the buildings that currently occupy the original Greenhill Tract include Friends Central School, The Greenhill Apartments, Lankenau Hospital, and the Saunders House (a senior “life care” facility).
According to LowerMerionHistory.org:
An 18 acre tract was sold to David Price, Yoeman, of Merion, who immediately settled on the farmland in 1694. On land, identified from then on as the Greenhill tract, Price built a solid stone house, known for 269 years as the Old Homestead. Over the next dozen years, Price added adjacent land until he owned almost 300 acres.
In 1731, Price conveyed 207 of those acres to his son Issachar, a carpenter: “…houses, outhouses, Edifices and Buildings.” For almost 30 years the property was leased to a succession of farmers: John Hughes, John Evans (who owned land northwest of the Hughes farm), and Ludwig Knoll.
John Hughes was active in colonial affairs, member of the Pennsylvania Assembly, and friend of Benjamin Franklin (who appointed him Stamp Distributor for the Provinces).
Upon his death in 1772, Hughes’ land was inherited by his son, John, Jr.
John Hughes, Jr. married Margaret Pashall, the great granddaughter of one of the original Lower Merion settlers, Dr. Thomas Wynne. Both John and Margaret died in their twenties, leaving two daughters. The orphaned sisters were raised at Greenhill by a cousin, Mary Hollingsworth. But the Hughes girls, unmarried, both died in their twenties.
In 1799 Mary married Israel W. Morris, a well-to-do broker and commission merchant, and son of Captain Samuel Morris of Revolutionary War fame. About 12 years later, the couple moved from Philadelphia to Mary’s farm at Greenhill.
Morris Wood, who built, owned and managed the Green Hill Farms Hotel was the great, great grandson of the afore-mentioned Israel Morris. By the time he opened the hotel, Wood was a “settled down,” 36-year-old widower (his wife died during the influenza epidemic of 1918). But in his younger days he was a little bit “on the wild side.”
In 1909, Wood was in and out of court and he was also appropriated his fair share of ink in the newspapers.
Drivers License Revoked in NJ
In May of that year the Inquirer reported that the state of New Jersey had revoked his driver’s license for the second time. According to the Inquirer, Motor Inspector Charles Pedigree of Camden nearly lost his life on the occassion in an effort to stop Wood. The latter is declared to have been going down the Whitehorse Pike at the rate of forty-five miles per hour … When Wood was told to stop near Haddon Heights he refused. Pedigree was going at least forty miles per hour in the wake of the automobile when the steering gear on his cycle broke. The next instant the inspector was hurling through the air, landing on his head. He was severely injured, being laid up for some time.
Arrested for Assault in Newport, RI
In August of 1909, The Boston Globe reported that
Morris Wood of Philadelphia, a well known society man who is passing the summer in Jamestown, was arraigned before Judge Franklin in the police court this morning, charged with assaulting Walter S. Andrews, a prominent society and club man of Newport.
Wood was fined $25 for the incident and agreed to a settlement after Andrews filed a civil suit against him.
Source tmcdaniel.palmerseminary.edu
The Green Hill Farms Hotel often got mentioned on the Society Page.
As soon as the Green Hill Farms Hotel opened in 1921, it became a fashionable place for tea and music, or for dinner and dancing. It also became a popular spot for some of Philadelphia’s most exclusive private parties.
Bobby Jones even stayed at the Green Hill Farms Hotel in 1924, while he was winning his first U.S.Amateur title at Merion.
But on some occassions the property was mentioned on the front page too, and not in a particularly good light.
On February 28, 1922, The New York Times, the New York World, The New York Herald, The New York Tribune, The Philadelphia Inquirer and dozens of other newspapers across the country were reporting on the arrest of a Green Hill Farms Hotel resident, by the name of Alfred E. Lindsay. He was a stockbroker who had defrauded more than a dozen wealthy “New York Society Women” out more than $1,000,000.
The Inquirer wrote:
[Lindsay] was arrested last night in Green Hill Farms Hotel, at City Line Avenue and Lancaster Pike. Detectives found him in his suite of rooms, attired in silk pajamas, broadly striped with green.
He had been living in the fashionable suburban hostelry for three days under the name of “A.R. Brooks,” and had given his address New York. Confronted by detectives from New York and Lower Merion Township, he at first denied his identity, but finally admitted that he was the man wanted.
Lindsay was eventually convicted, and served time in Sing Sing Prison.
On January 30, 1925, the Allentown Morning Call and several other Pennsylvania newspapers, reported that Morris Wood was held on bail, for $2,000, after he was arrested at the Green Hill Farms Hotel for selling 11 pints of champagne to two prohibtion agents.
However, only one of the 11 pints of champagne was submitted as evidence. When the assistant district attorney asked the agents what happened to the other 10 bottles, their reply, as reported by the Morning Call was, “We drank it.”
Wood’s headwaiter, Frank Heiman, was also charged. Heiman pleaded guilty, but at the trial, according to the Inquirer, the judge told the jury,
even though the sale was made, the evidence would not justify you bringing in a a verdict against the defendant. The mere fact that a man is an officer in a corporation does not make him liable for the sale of liquor by an employee of the corporation.
So Wood was acquitted.
“Clubman” shot and killed in Apartment 2-C At the Green Hill Farms Hotel
After getting busted by the “Probies” in 1925, until the fall of 1931, things at the Green Hill were just fashionably dull. Then came the night of November 9, 1931.
Interesting for me; an Eastern graduate ,and went to Friends Central immediately after moving from Palo Alto around the time JFK was inaugurated.