Delaware County has taken steps to preserve the neoclassical Woodburne Mansion at Little Flower Manor Park in Darby Borough, writes Kathleen E. Carey for the Daily Times.
The mansion sits on property once owned by Thomas A. Scott, Abraham Lincoln’s Assistant Secretary of War who later became president of the Pennsylvania Railroad.
Scott’s son, Edgar, commissioned architect Horace Trumbauer to build the 55-room mansion, completed in 1906.
Trumbauer is the architect responsible for the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Ardrossan Estate on the Main Line.
Delaware County Council unanimously accepted a $25,000 matching grant from the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission to keep the building from deteriorating.
In the 1930s, the Sisters of the Divine Redeemer bought the property and ran an orphanage, then a nursing home. The facility closed in 2005.
The county bought the 37.5-acre property in 2016, including the mansion, which sat neglected for years as it continued to deteriorate.
“It is falling apart,” said Delaware County Council Chairman Brian Zidek. “At least we can stop the ongoing deterioration, and then it will be left to decide what to do going forward at that point.”
Read more about Woodburne Mansion in the Daily Times.
Here’s a snapshot tour of the Woodburne Mansion presented in this 2018 video.