Touring Lynnewood Hall 125 years after it was built convinced me this is a preservation effort to support

This December, as hundreds of Delaware Valley residents flocked into the Elkins Park Post Office to mail those last-minute holiday gifts and Christmas cards, a sight beyond holiday crowds might have caught their attention.

Directly across Ashbourne Lane is the iconic Lynnewood Hall, constructed by Peter A.B. Widener — the famed Philadelphia industrialist — which housed both his family and his art collection in the 19th century. Last week — thanks to the Lynnewood Preservation Society —  I had the opportunity to tour the house, which is celebrating 125 years since its opening in 1899.

Lynnewood Hall isn’t just any historic house in the Philadelphia region. It is one of the most significant Gilded Age mansions extant in the nation.

It is the house that sheltered a survivor of the Titanic as she mourned the loss of two family members traveling with her on the ill-fated ship. It served as a place of teaching for Christian leaders and theologians for nearly 70 years and held one of the most significant collections of Western art in America.

One of the largest houses in the United States, and a monument to the talent of Philadelphia architect Horace Trumbauer, it was once known as “the last American Versailles.”

For decades, Lynnewood Hall has been off-limits to the public, accessible only by online video or high-definition photographs. In 2018, two visionaries, Edward Thome and Angie Van Scyoc, formed the Lynnewood Preservation Society to purchase the historic home and open it for occasional tours.

I can tell you that neither video nor photo can replicate the feeling of walking across the 1,000-person capacity ballroom and looking up at its spectacularly painted ceiling in person. Or exploring the grounds. The site is still breathtaking in scale, and it is impossible not to imagine the grand parties of the era that once took place inside and out.

Plenty of historic sites are restored in the United States each year, but the society’s vision was to return a significant portion of Lynnewood Hall’s 34 acres for the use of Cheltenham Township, as well as to make the house accessible to the public.

It isn’t merely a restoration, it’s a revival. Supporting the society’s effort to save Lynnewood Hall isn’t merely an opportunity, it is, in my opinion, an obligation for anyone who values Philadelphia history.

Touring the site 125 years after Widener’s grand gala of Dec. 19, 1899, I was able to imagine not only what Lynnewood Hall once was, but what it yet could be.

Michael Thomas Leibrandt is a member of the Old York Road and Wissahickon Valley Historical Societies and lives and works in Abington Township.