The fate of the former Oakwell estate in Villanova, home to nearly 700 trees and a Tudor Revival mansion, was decided Monday with an agreement by Lower Merion School District to sell the 13-acre property to conservation nonprofit Natural Lands. A portion of the estate will now be used to expand the neighboring Stoneleigh property, a 42-acre public garden owned by Natural Lands and kept open to the public year-round free of charge.
The sale of the Oakwell estate resolves years of conflict over a property that the school district had condemned and acquired using eminent domain in 2018.
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At the time, Lower Merion officials wanted to clear trees and other features on a section of the property to create athletic fields for students at Black Rock Middle School, which opened two years ago. That plan provoked pushback from the estate's former owner and spurred protests by area residents, who urged district officials to allow for preservation of the landscape.
At a school board meeting on Monday, directors voted to sell the subdivided property to Natural Lands and another yet-to-be-named nonprofit for about $12.9 million.
Natural Lands, based in Media, Delaware County, will acquire about 10 acres of the property at 1835 County Line Road directly adjacent to the Stoneleigh garden. The remaining 3 acres, at 1800 W. Montgomery Ave., will be acquired by the other nonprofit for the restoration of the Oakwell mansion and future uses "complementary" to Stoneleigh, officials said. The Oakwell properties both were part of the original, 65-acre Stoneleigh grounds before they were subdivided in the 1930s.
“We are thrilled to have the opportunity to expand Stoneleigh and immensely grateful to the leadership of the Lower Merion School District,” Natural Lands President Oliver Bass said in a statement. “They have worked diligently with us to explore options for the property. Together, we’ve identified a plan that, if successful, will preserve the important natural and historic resources — including the much-loved trees and mansion — and grow Stoneleigh from its current 42 acres to more than 52.”
The Stoneleigh Estate was established in 1877 by Edmund Smith, an executive of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company who sought to create a "gentleman's farm" in Villanova. At the turn of the 20th century, the property was purchased and redesigned by Samuel Bodine, head of the United Gas Improvement Company. Later, it was owned by the heirs of the Rohm and Haas Corp. chemical company. Haas family heirs maintained the grounds for decades before placing it under a conservation easement with Natural Lands in 1996. The family then donated the remaining 42 acres of the estate to Natural Lands in 2016.
The Stoneleigh garden, which surrounds another Tudor Revival mansion, opened to the public in 2018. It has more than a mile of paved walking paths, a picnic pavilion, fountain, lighting, restrooms and seating areas. Natural Lands said the garden is visited by about 45,000 people every year.
"We've had an opportunity to transform what was a lovely private estate into gardens that are filled with plants native to the southeastern region of Pennsylvania. Those are the plants that are essential for insects and are the foundation for the food web that we all depend on," Natural Lands spokesperson Kirsten Werner said Wednesday.
When Lower Merion School District moved to acquire the Oakwell property, it had planned to create fields for the middle school's softball and baseball teams. The estate's most recent owner, retired physician John Bennett, preferred to sell it to Villanova University, with the goal of preserving the grounds. The Oakwell landscape was designed by the Olmsted Brothers — famed designers of South Philadelphia's FDR Park and dozens of American college campuses — and many of the trees on the property are believed to be centuries old. Bennett sued to prevent the school district from acquiring the land, but later dropped his litigation. Residents opposed to the school district's plans formed opposition groups, including Save Oakwell, to demand conservation of the estate.
"We came here and dominated your meetings because we wanted to be heard — and you've heard us," organizer Holly Manzione said at Monday's board meeting.
In January 2023, Lower Merion School District came to an agreement that gave Black Rock's baseball and softball teams priority use of athletic facilities at nearby Polo Field, which is on County Line Road in the Bryn Mawr section of Haverford Township. The district also uses fields at Gladwyne Park, a little under five miles away from the middle school.
"This agreement reflects our dedication to environmental stewardship and our responsibility to honor the community’s and students’ desire to protect and cherish our natural spaces," Kerry Sautner, president of the Lower Merion Board of School Directors, said of the sale.
The deal will now allow Natural Lands to expand its gardens at Stoneleigh and preserve other landscape designs created by the Olmsted Brothers. Both of the Oakwell estate properties will be managed under a conservation easement with the Lower Merion Conservancy.
Natural Lands has helped preserve more than 135,000 acres in the Philadelphia region, including more than 40 nature preserves and the Stoneleigh garden that together give the public access to about 23,000 acres.
"Our idea is to show people that native plants can be beautiful as well as essential and functional for the properties, but also to show that this can happen gradually," Werner said. "We're hoping to inspire people to take some small steps on their own properties or in their own community parks and things like that. Those things can rarely happen overnight. We're always showing people the process."
At the Oakwell estate, Natural Lands will look to replace invasive species with native plants and work to remake the Olmstead Brothers landscape.
"We have a lot of the historical photos, so we can kind of know what the Olmstead brothers were hoping for with their original vision and if it has been way outgrown," Werner said.
The planning process for the Oakwell estate will involve meetings with community members to develop goals for the expanded public garden. Bass said it will be a long road ahead to connect the project to the Stoneleigh garden, but he called the sale of the Oakwell land a crucial milestone in the effort to preserve an area with natural and historical significance.
"Conservation projects like this one have many moving parts and take time and patience,” he said. “This is just the first step, albeit an essential one.”