Maybrook Mansion In Wynnewood, Now Part Of A Luxury Apartment Complex, Was The Site Of Many Society Soirees.
Hidden City recently published a nice article by Stacia Friedman about Maybrook Mansion, in Wynnewood. She personalizes the story with a reminiscence of a time when she visited the mansion, long before it became the community building for residents of the Maybrook Apartments.
Amazingly, when I was 19-years-old, my boyfriend invited me to have dinner at Maybrook. I’m not sure what shocked me more. That my boyfriend’s uncle and aunt, John and Ruth Merriam, lived in the castle or that I was finally going to see what was inside. I was excited and terrified. However, the Merriams quickly put me at ease. John was a real estate developer, art collector, and philanthropist. Ruth was passionately involved with art restoration. The décor conjured up Mary Queen of Scots or the Adams Family, depending on your feelings about medieval architecture and 19th century décor.
Friedman then takes us through a brief history of the property, and its owners, starting with Henry C. Gibson, who according to Friedman, was a “liquor baron” who bought the property from a Welsh Quaker in 1881. Henry Gibson died in 1891 and left the property to his then 22-year-old daughter, Mary K. Gibson.
Mary Gibson sold it to the John Merriam in two transactions. In 1952 he bought the part of the property which is now the Thomas Wynne Apartments. And in 1956 Merriam acquired the remainder of the property, and moved into the mansion (which is on Penn Road, adjacent to the Wynnewood Train Station) with his wife Ruth.
Ruth Merriam died in 1988. In 1992 Merriam married Elizabeth (Betty) Lockyer. Ms. Lockyer had been Merriam’s secretary for forty years prior to their marriage. She had a son, Robert Lockyer, from another marriage that ended in divorce. Merriam died in 1994, without a will. His estate was valued at $95 million.
The new Mrs. Merriam got “the whole works” from husband’s estate. Then in November of 2000, four months before she died, she transferred the Maybrook property to Merloc Partners, which was headed by her son (from the previous marriage), Robert Lockyer.
Between the Recession of 2008 and prolonged litigation with the Borough of Narberth, it took until 2018 until tenants finally began to occupy The Reserve at Maybrook.
Socialite, Mary K. Gibson, lived at Maybrook for more than 70 years.
Mary Klett “May” Gibson was a six or seven-year-old girl when she and her parents moved into Maybrook sometime around 1882 or 1883. She lived there until the mid 1950s. Her obitiuary lists her as “a member of the Fellowship of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, the Woman’s Committee of the Philadelphia Orchestra, the American Academy of Political and Social Science, the Bryn Mawr Art Club, the Contemporary Club, the University Museum, Wynnewood Civic Association, Woman’s Club of Ardmore and the United World Federalists.”
