Broad Street mansion associated with Father Divine is sold at auction
A Broad Street landmark near Temple University was auctioned Thursday. Temple was not among the bidders, which included a bookstore owner, a developer, and an adjacent Jewish studies center.
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The auction to determine the future of 133 years’ worth of North Philadelphia history took just six minutes Thursday.
The name of the successful bidder and the amount of the bid were not disclosed by auctioneer Barry S. Slosberg following the event at the Gilded Age mansion at 1430 N. Broad St.
Among the nine bidders were a prominent bookseller, a developer hoping to restore the house, and representatives of the Rohr Chabad, a Jewish studies center next door. Although the nonprofit organization describes itself as “the Chabad at Temple University” on its website, the university “did not bid on the property,” a Temple spokesperson said Friday.
The three-story, seven-bedroom residence and carriage house just south of Temple University’s main campus was built by streetcar magnate Charles E. Ellis in 1890 for $55,000 — or nearly $2 million in today’s dollars. It had been owned since 1952 by the International Peace Mission Movement, a religious organization led by the charismatic clergyman known to followers as Father Divine.
Several members of the movement, including a woman who said she had once lived in the house, were present for the auction but declined to talk about it.
» READ MORE: Reviving Father Divine: Can a new documentary and museum save the dying Peace Mission movement?
Designed in the distinctively intricate Richardson Romanesque style by Philadelphia architect William H. Decker, the house and a separate carriage house are on the Philadelphia Register of Historic Places. Register status provides protection from demolition and exterior alteration only; it does not prohibit alteration inside a building.
The interior of 1430 N. Broad — a landmark structure in North Philadelphia’s Mansion District — appeared almost entirely intact, based on public walk-throughs before the auction. Preservationists are concerned that the extravagantly carved interior, with its stained-glass windows and top-to-bottom ornamentation, could be lost.
“The interior is just so beautiful. It’s like a treasure trove,” said Judith Robinson, a North Philly native and elected city Democratic committee member. She also sells real estate and conducts walking tours that focus on the neighborhood’s history.
Robinson said the story of 1430 N. Broad is also very much a Black history story, given that Father Divine was Black and his movement was integrated and promoted integration in public accommodations, such as its Divine Lorraine Hotel on Broad Street.
The movement also assembled a significant real estate portfolio in North Philadelphia and elsewhere in the city and suburbs.
“The very fact that 1430 N. Broad has survived is a testament to the movement’s stewardship” of its real estate, said Paul Steinke, executive director of the Preservation Alliance for Greater Philadelphia. The properties also include Woodmont, which he described as “a French Second Empire extravaganza on a hill” in Gladwyne, Montgomery County.
In North Philly, the preservation community “is watching very closely” what may happen to the Disston mansion on North 16th Street if the movement continues to divest itself of real estate, said Robinson, who also is active with efforts to preserve the artist Henry O. Tanner’s house at 2908 W. Diamond St.
“We have so much history in North Philadelphia so what we have, we want to save,” she said.
» READ MORE: National Trust for Historic Preservation names the Tanner House to its 2023 most endangered list
Among the bidders on 1430 N. Broad was Jeannine Cook, who owns Harriett’s Bookshop in Fishtown and Ida’s Bookshop in Collingswood, N.J.
“The bidding got out of my range pretty quick,” Cook said after the auction. “It was a long shot, but I thought it was worth a try, so here we are.”
“Black-owned, women-owned venues just don’t exist in this kind of space right now,” she said. “And in the bidding, there weren’t many people of my demographic. Other folks are acquiring a lot of properties in this area, and we need to be part of the conversation.”
Another bidder, Logan Kramer, is the CEO of Design Pro Development, and he said he does high-end residential projects. He said he recently sold his own home in North Philly’s Francisville neighborhood and was interested in renovating and living in 1430 N. Broad.
“The woodwork is stunning and the size and mass of the house is really something special,” he said. “You couldn’t re-create something like this for less than $4 million.”