About Lynnewood Hall Preservation Foundation

Mission Statement

The Lynnewood Hall Preservation Foundation will lead educational and cultural engagement by honoring  history and artisan craft so that it may return to a place of inspiration, enlightenment, respite, and calm back to the broader community.

The Lynnewood Hall Preservation Foundation will strive to cultivate an astute awareness and appreciation for history, including the value of the architectural arts. The estate will act as a stage for arts education, literary excellence, musical entertainment, and general cultural engagement through the pursuit of knowledge. The Foundation intends Lynnewood Hall to be an inspirational bridge to community engagement in its many forms.

Lynnewood Hall will create an interactive experience that promotes passion, purpose, and presence through unique programming with an approach we like to call “tangible history.” The mansion will serve as a cultural home to the public, a place to foster and enrich the community, evoke memory, provide educational opportunity, and prove that as a society, we can preserve our architectural integrity and find priceless value in the pursuit of it.

Goals and Processes

Aligning with one vision to save Lynnewood Hall, The Lynnewood Hall Preservation Foundation intends to acquire the Trumbauer-designed Widener Family Estate, a true architectural masterpiece, and see it restored to its former breathtaking glory. Education, sustainability, and art preservation are integral components of this multi-phased restoration project. Moreover, the project will offer the greater community access to aspirational jobs and educational opportunities in history, artisan restoration arts, sustainability, horticulture, design, music, culinary arts, and skilled trades.

The Lynnewood Hall Preservation Foundation seeks to promote the wealth of art, culture, and human decency to the broader community as a definition of civic and cultural engagement that endeavors to grow community and historical understanding.

Opportunity

Lynnewood Hall provides an opportunity to display a world-class culmination of art and architecture and act as a foreground for historical, architectural, and preservation education. Through the estate, the foundation strives to inspire positive urban growth by principles of sustainability, reduce environmental impact, and return the estate to the community as a pastoral green space that is not only breathtaking but environmentally responsible.

Always community-focused, the Widener family were generous patrons of the arts. The family occasionally opened their collections for the public to view. Although founded as a private estate, Lynnewood Hall stood as a testament to humanity’s passions and talents, generosity of spirit, and aspirations to achieve what seemed impossible. Our young country stands to learn so much from the legacies our forefathers worked so hard to leave to us. It is our duty now to take up the mantel as future stewards.

Together, we have the opportunity to step across the threshold of time, reminding ourselves of the importance of history in our positive path forward.

Community Served

Lynnewood Hall is in the heart of Elkins Park within Cheltenham Township. This community is home to multiple world-renowned architectural gems. Situated just north of Philadelphia, it is close to the highway, only a short twenty-minute car ride from Center City Philadelphia, or a 10-minute walk from the nearest train station. Philadelphia is arguably the epicenter of American History, and Lynnewood Hall serves to reawaken this slumbering giant of historical knowledge and give back its story to the world. We learn in kind; and repair our understanding of the past to inform and inspire our future, through quality of life improvements and urban landscape repair.

Community Engagement

Lynnewood Hall Preservation Foundation believes that the message is clear that support for preserving Lynnewood Hall and Estate was strong throughout the local community and even nationally. The Foundation recognizes that successful projects like this revolve around people and the activation of their enthusiasm and goodwill.

Many national and international historic preservation projects have seen great success by engaging the community and actively listening to their needs and desires. Grassroots, local and state governments, and national foundations aligned with a common cause, make projects of this scope fundable and ultimately economic catalysts for positive community change and growth.

Lynnewood Hall’s unique history and design can be influential catalyst for future economic recovery, community engagement, educational wealth, and quality of life improvements in the region and beyond.

We look to the past to inspire the future.