Springfield Township Historical Society

Whitemarsh Hall: the Estate of Edward T. Stotesbury (Pa) (Images of America) Springfield Township Historical Society

Whitemarsh Hall, known as "the Versailles of America," was one of the largest and most exquisite estates in North America. Edward Townsend Stotesbury, one of the wealthiest Philadelphians in the early twentieth century, commissioned renowned architect Horace Trumbauer to build the one-hundred-forty-sevenroom mansion in 1916 on three hundred acres just outside Philadelphia. Whitemarsh Hall, which took five years to build at an estimated cost of $10 million with all the furnishings, was a wedding present for his second wife. This book explores Whitemarsh Hall's construction, its heyday in the 1920s, the multiple impacts of the Great Depression, Stotesbury's death, and subsequent ownership over the next four decades, culminating in its eventual submission to decay, vandalism, and the wrecking ball in 1980.