Lower Merion pilots a new program to honor historical homes

A stroll through the winding streets of the English Village development in Wynnewood can feel like taking a trip back in time.

A short walk from Suburban Square, the Tudor architecture of the neighborhood evokes both medieval England, when the sophisticated two-toned manor homes that typify the style became popular, as well as the United States in the 1920s and ‘30s, when the Tudor Revival was born in suburban communities.

Along English Village’s meandering streets, there are 32 homes, all but three built between 1925 and 1929 by architect S. Arthur Love and his developer brother, Donald.

The community’s look has remained almost untouched by change, nearly a century after the first home was built. One exception: small brass plaques mounted on some of the properties, calling attention to the fact that the house is in a historic district, one of seven such districts in Lower Merion Township. The plaques, installed earlier this year, include the year the home was built and a rose, emblem of the Tudor dynasty.

Although the plaques are merely informational — they offer no protection to the historical homes — their presence is part of a growing movement to honor the region’s local history.

“We have an embarrassment of [historic] riches in the township, said Kathleen Abplanalp, director of historic preservation for the Lower Merion Conservancy. “Up until this point we hadn’t had an opportunity to celebrate it and acknowledge it publicly.”

The plaques in English Village are a pilot program of the conservancy and the township. Abplanalp said she and Greg Prichard, historic preservation planner for the township, have discussed expansion of the program throughout Lower Merion.

All told, Prichard said, there are roughly 1,000 properties on the township’s Historic Resource Inventory.

Lower Merion is not the only area adding plaques to historical homes. Radnor has had a plaque program for about a decade and Philadelphia’s dates to 1959.

A property may have historical status — and be eligible to mount a plaque — either by being in a historic district or by meeting other criteria such as architectural or social significance. The criteria vary from township to township depending on local preservation ordinances. Homeowners who wish have a plaque added to their properties can request an assessment from the neighborhood’s historical group. If approved, homeowners foot the bill for the plaque and its installation.

The plaque program “instills a sense of pride in people’s historic properties,” said Prichard, who is also a board member of the Radnor Historical Society.

The Radnor plaques are more elaborate than those in English Village and also more expensive at $300, about twice the cost of the English Village plaques. Most are in Wayne and many include a date of construction, the names of the architect and the builder, perhaps a notable original owner, and the historical society’s name.

Radnor Historical Society has distributed nearly 50 plaques.

In Philadelphia after a burst of activity during its first year when plaques were mounted on Independence National Park buildings, Fairmount Park buildings, and historic buildings in Society Hill, activity slowed dramatically for several decades until 2016, when 11 were issued.

Since then, says Kim Chantry of the Philadelphia Historical Commission, there has been a steady increase, with 23 issued last year and seven in the first couple of months of 2023.

The plaques are standardized, not customized, and cost about $70.

Chantry said she expects the plaque program to expand as commission staff seek to increase the number of historic districts, which protect homes from demolition and limit owners’ ability to modify exteriors. Powelton Village, with about 1,000 homes, was added last year.

All told, Abplanalp identified 10 plaque programs in the Philadelphia region.

Most of the plaques in this area are made by Franklin Bronze Plaques in the western Pennsylvania town of Franklin, where president and owner Bernie Becker says plaque sales have been increasing in recent years.

“There’s just more interest and passion,” Becker said, noting that she’s seen an uptick in plaques dedicated to Black history.

Historical interest sometimes increases when history is threatened. In the case of English Village, residents Susan and Mark Dinneen say it occurred when an architect bought one of the houses and planned to turn it into what Susan calls “a McMansion.”

“That was the impetus to protect the village,” said Susan. She and Mark bought their house in 1997 and turned the interior into a replica of English Tudor houses as many other residents have done despite the fact that historic preservation ordinances affect only house exteriors. Abplanalp describes their house as “a trip back in time.”

As resistance built among the Dinneens and other English Villagers to the major redesign, Abplanalp and her organization became involved and pushed the state to establish the village as a historic district. This — combined with the township preservation ordinance — would enable the township to block major changes to the building’s exterior.

As Abplanalp put it, “There’s a saying in preservation, ‘Never waste a good crisis.’ ”

The township’s application for historic status, submitted in 2010, states that the village “is significant on a local and national level as a unique example of a carefully planned middle class development which achieved a remarkable degree of cohesiveness and rustic character through careful planning and positioning of houses, emphasis on hand craftsmanship, and use of a variety of materials, fencing and landscape details.”

The Pennsylvania Museum and Historical Commission approved it almost immediately. The plaques are a decorative way to honor this behind-the-scenes preservation work.

Abplanalp said that it then took about three years of planning by her and Prichard to start the plaque program for the village. They considered but rejected some use of the free-standing mounted historical plaques seen around the state and erected by the Historic and Museum Commission.

Eventually, she said, they hope to make similar plaques available in more historic neighborhoods in the township.

And supporters of the plaque program say its potential benefits go beyond historical awareness and pride and into practicality.

The Radnor Historical Society, which administers the plaque program there, says that it is their hope that the plaques will serve not only to identify buildings of historical and architectural significance “but that they will, through heightened community awareness, encourage the continuing care and preservation of individual buildings.”