Hospital Begins Restoration of Philadelphia Cemetery, House
By Margaret Foster | Online Only | May 4, 2010
Betty Ewart, 90, grew up visiting her uncle, Greenwood Cemtery?s caretaker, in the 1830s farmhouse that will be restored. Ewart was a guest speaker at the Apr. 30 groundbreaking ceremony.
Credit: David Male
For years, the historic Knights of Pythias Greenwood Cemetery in Philadelphia was overgrown and abandoned—nothing more than a dump.
"It was a dumping ground," says Michelle Mardenborough, president of the cemetery's nonprofit board. "There were cars, there was construction debris, there was 25 feet of fill. It was horrible."
Last week, however, about 50 people attended a groundbreaking ceremony to kick off restoration of the 44-acre cemetery and an 1830s farmhouse, which was as downtrodden as the cemetery, founded in 1869.
"The first time we surveyed the house … it was raining, you could have stood in one corner of the house and taken a shower," says Gretchen Pfaehler, director of historic preservation and managing principal of EwingCole's Washington, D.C., office, the project's architect. "That house was really on the edge of survival."
The cemetery's hard luck changed in December 2005, when Cancer Treatment Centers of America opened nearby. In August 2008, the hospital's sister company, Greenwood Holdings, bought majority shares in the cemetery in order to move forward with the center's expansion plans. To date the company has relocated almost 2,400 graves from one part of the cemetery to make way for planned construction. (A grassroots group called Friends of Greenwood holds the minority shares in the cemetery.)
The Philadelphia Historical Commission reviewed and approved Cancer Treatment Centers of America's plans to rehabilitate both the cemetery and the house in January 2009. It gave final approval to EwingCole's restoration plan on Mar. 1, 2010.
"During the years of legal battles over control of the property, the house was allowed to deteriorate," says Jonathan Farnham, executive director of the Philadelphia Historical Commission, said in an e-mail. "The Commission was unable to hold anyone responsible for the neglect, owing to the ongoing legal battles. The house would have been lost to neglect if Cancer Treatment Centers of America had not stepped in to save it."
The $1 million restoration of the farmhouse should be complete this fall. It will be a sustainable project, Pfaehler says. "We are recycling about 97 percent of this building."
Mardenborough's group has renamed the building the Greenwood Estate at Rush Farm, after property once owned by Founding Father Benjamin Rush, who signed the Declaration of Independence. The cemetery's headstones, grounds, and trails are scheduled to be in top condition in 2012.
For more information, visit http://www.kpgreenwoodcemetery.org/
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Comments
Submitted by Joe at: June 2, 2010
This is great, but tell me, why is this mediocre house being saved when the fabulous and incredibly architecturally significant 18th century house in Woodlands cemetery rotting away shamefully?