Apartment Buildings in Lower Merion, 1900-1970

• In cases where building names have changed over the years, the original name is shown first, followed by the current-day name.

• Some apartment buildings are represented with multiple images.

• Click on the "i" icon at the upper left of a slide for image attribution.

During the second decade of the twentieth century, heavy demand for multi-family accommodations in Lower Merion propelled the construction of buildings designed solely for residential use. These buildings were commonly located at the fringes of dense commercial districts and were marketed to married couples and families.

Nationwide and locally, the construction of apartments, like that of single-family houses, was interrupted by World War I. Demand for apartments, however, began to grow again after the war and reached new heights by the mid-1920s.

The proliferation of apartment buildings in first-ring railroad suburbs of Philadelphia like Lower Merion is well documented in the pages of the Philadelphia Inquirer and other local publications. Two and three-story buildings dominated the supply of apartments during the 1920s. Marketed as attractive and convenient alternatives to single-family houses, these buildings were designed to complement the residential neighborhoods in which they were located.

Courtyards were a common amenity of 1920s apartment buildings. Beautified with formal gardens and statuary, courtyards appeared on the plans of nearly every free-standing apartment building constructed in the township during this period. Porches or terraces, fireplaces, and even servants' rooms were also everyday features of units in these buildings.

Apartments of the 1920s were highly artistic and atmospheric, both inside and outside. Executed in the most popular styles of the period, including Tudor Revival, Elizabethan Revival, Colonial Revival, and Spanish Revival, they conjured visions of a bygone era.

• The Sevilla/Seville Court, 32 Conshohocken State Road, Bala Cynwyd (1925)
• Edgehill Court, 27 Old Lancaster Road, Bala Cynwyd (1927)
• Bryn Mawr Gables, 806 Montgomery Avenue, Bryn Mawr
• Haverford Gables, 312 Montgomery Avenue, Haverford (1927)
• Hamilton Court/Suburban Court, 113 Cricket Avenue, Ardmore (1925)
• Argyle Court, 30 Linwood Avenue, Ardmore (1928)

Across America, real estate development was interrupted by the Great Depression. By the late 1930s, however, building activity resumed. During the years before and after World War II, multiple new apartment buildings were erected in Lower Merion. In plan, apartment buildings of this period were similar to those that came before them; like Revival-style apartments of the 1920s, they had courtyards or outdoor communal spaces. Like apartments of the earlier period, they were also generally relatively low in height.

Unlike their predecessors, however, which were heavily embellished with period detailing, apartment buildings of the mid-century were simple in design; the treatment of some hinted at Modernism, but most were just more practical versions of garden apartments of the past.

Like apartment buildings of the 1920s, apartments dating to the mid-century are concentrated in dense areas of the township and within walking distance of train stations.

During the 1950s and 1960s, developers continued to find a market in Lower Merion for new low-rise apartments (especially along stretches of Montgomery Avenue). Many apartments dating to this era share a common aesthetic: they are vaguely Colonial in style and accented with porticos and columns. A representative sampling of these apartment types follows.

The 1960s marked a shift in the design of apartment buildings in Lower Merion. Although developers continued to build low and mid-rise apartment buildings, they increasingly invested in the development of a new apartment type: the high-rise. Between 1960 and 1965, six apartment buildings measuring seven stories or higher were constructed in Lower Merion. The growing presence of high-rise apartments in the township mirrored what was happening all over the Philadelphia region and was an outcome of planning at the local, state, and federal levels that encouraged auto-centric development.

Lower Merion Township, itself, opened the door to high-rise apartment buildings in 1955 when it approved a far-reaching change to its zoning code that raised the height limit of multi-family buildings in certain residential districts of the township from five stories to eleven stories.

The opening of the Schuylkill Expressway in 1954 also contributed to the proliferation of high-rise apartment buildings in the township. With interchanges at City Avenue, Belmont Avenue, and Penn Valley/Gladwyne, the expressway gave motorists easy access to previously undeveloped properties in Lower Merion, some of which were remote from public transportation. On these wooded, park-like properties, developers constructed apartment towers that rose as high as city high-rises, but that included suburban and (country-club like) amenities, including Olympic-size swimming pools, tennis courts, and health clubs, and in one case, an ice skating rink. Private balconies were a conspicuous feature of all these buildings.

Units in many of Lower Merion's 1960s high-rise apartment buildings were large. Not surprisingly, developers marketed these residences as alternatives to single-family houses. Some units in the Green Hill, for example, "were larger than many grand suburban homes." Developers also marketed high-rises to families with school children. An advertisement for Hampton House (now Oak Hill) noted that the apartment was "in the attendance area of the Harriton Senior High School and Welsh Valley Junior High School." A notice for the Green Hill featured a cartoon figure of a child and her parents.

The Conservancy gratefully acknowledges Greg Prichard, Preservation Planner at Lower Merion Township, for his help in locating apartment plans, elevations, and photos in the Township archives.