Lower Merion schools’ condemnation of storied Main Line estate for ball fields encounters growing resistance

John Bennett kindled the fireside on a new working day in what was when his 20,000 sq. foot brick Tudor Revival manor replete with hefty picket doorways, wainscoted library, and Mercer ground tile.

The 72-12 months-aged health practitioner turned professional medical unit entrepreneur recalled how he dropped the house and its 10 acres off County Line Street in Villanova via eminent area in 2018 to make way for middle school athletic fields. The house, regarded as Oakwell, includes approximately 700 trees, some of which are assumed to day again generations.

“Everything occurred so swiftly that there was no way to help save it,” Bennett mentioned, as he recounted stories about the household, like having a ghost exorcised.

The Lessen Merion School District — a person of the wealthiest in Pennsylvania — compensated Bennett $9.9 million for the home and grounds in the condemnation with strategies to apparent lower hundreds of the trees for athletic fields for recently opened Black Rock Center College. Current designs display it would maintain the Oakwell mansion and a pool residence, but a teahouse watched about by a terra cotta warrior, stone fencing, and a brick walled back garden sophisticated all dating back at least 120 several years would be razed. The $90 million middle college opened this year. The district strategies to start off breaking floor for the fields in June.

A free coalition of regional inhabitants have banded collectively on social media and different teams have formed with internet websites which includes Protect Oakwell and Help you save Oakwell. They phase weekly protests at the administration setting up. They say that destroying what amounts to a mature forest is environmentally irresponsible and that Oakwell is background worth preserving. They have several Fb webpages and color brochures. About 3,000 people today signed a petition circulated by Local climate Motion of Reduced Merion.

“I’ve been accused of NIMBYism,” claimed Deb Robbins, a neighbor who has protested because the starting. “But the truth of the matter is, for me, it’s the animals and the trees. There’s so minor of that still left in the township. So I’ve been protesting in opposition to it considering the fact that the commencing.”

Robbins mentioned opposition includes neighbors, pupils, environmental activists, parents and even academics. The rapid purpose of the team is to avert “destruction” of the estate and in excess of the for a longer time expression, Robbins explained, and find a different area for the fields ideally with aid of township or district officers.

The taking of Oakwell marks one particular of several district attempts to build athletic fields for the new college. The board confronted outcry in 2018 when it experimented with to condemn aspect of the Stoneleigh estate following doorway, which is preserved below a conservation easement. Initiatives to use the nearby Ashbridge Memorial Park had been halted by a lengthy-standing deed restriction. An endeavor to use yet another nearby property also fizzled, when other loads were being considered unsuitable.

» Browse Additional: People fight Lower Merion Educational institutions approach to acquire beloved park

So district officers turned to Bennett’s grounds and house. While it has currently taken the residence by way of eminent domain, Bennett has a lease to stay there through May perhaps 31.

Eminent area — or the means of the governing administration to pay back landowners to seize their non-public home for general public use — is a ability “inherent to the authorities,” claimed Matthew Hovey, a municipal lawyer with the Higher Swartz law company that represents clientele in the location.

Commonly, Hovey reported, the electrical power is utilized as a very last vacation resort as it can show “politically unpopular” and may well guide to expensive and lengthy lawful problems.

What’s compensated to a house operator is determined by the nearby governing administration, basing the give on pro viewpoints, Hovey said. The landowner then has the skill to attractiveness the quantity in courtroom.

In Reduced Merion’s case, the district paid out additional than $12.9 million whole — together with the $9.9 million to Bennett — for the two qualities slated for fields. The 2nd home faces Montgomery Avenue and incorporates a cottage that would be razed.

The district suggests the acquisition fulfills the will need for a lot more athletic fields in the township’s extensive approach. District spokesperson Amy Buckman explained the new fields would also be a shorter bus trip away for Black Rock Center School’s pupils than fields elsewhere in the district, releasing up the shorter-staffed bus drivers to full much more routes in the afternoons.

Plans for the Oakwell web page include a baseball diamond and a softball diamond, overlaid by two entire-sizing multisport fields, and two 50 percent-dimensions follow fields for field hockey, soccer, lacrosse, and ultimate Frisbee, Buckman reported.

“The Lower Merion Board of School Administrators and administration strongly believe that each individual child in our district deserves the prospect to participate in extracurricular things to do that will greatly enhance their social psychological expansion and link to their faculty community,” Buckman mentioned. “For lots of of our college students, participation in athletics supports these aims.”

Buckman pointed out the district has invested additional “significant capital” in coming up with the project, shifting through the township’s approval system and establishing the land. Though university board customers and the township keep on conversations, “no viable alternate places for fields have been presented,” she mentioned.

“While LMSD understands that some neighbors are anxious about getting athletic fields for little ones near their residences, we believe that offering sufficient prospects for small children from our community to exercise, perform, compete and discover serves a increased superior,” Buckman explained.

The school district options to retain the estate’s primary house as a Course II Historical Useful resource, even though a softball industry will close feet from its partitions. Underneath township code, Class I receives higher security from demolition. Bennett fears the dwelling will fall into disrepair and inevitably have to be razed.

The district has said it will take away 462 of 691 trees — some generations aged — which has rankled the project’s critics. Buckman mentioned the district ideas to plant more than what will be cut down — including far more than 400 deciduous trees and 200 evergreens, as properly as shrubs and perennials, all-around the borders of the fields for the recently opened center faculty about 50 {d4d1dfc03659490934346f23c59135b993ced5bc8cc26281e129c43fe68630c9} a mile away.

But opponents say the six-foot new trees just cannot change the heritage trees that dot Oakwell’s grounds.

“Can you consider they’re using this down?” Bennett explained, pointing to an oak he stated is hundreds of many years old and whose cover spreads extensive across a area. He’s also worried that a smoke tree, planted in tribute to his deceased son, Matthew, and where by Matthew’s ashes are scattered, will be eliminated.

The Oakwell estate encompasses a 1922 mansion and lush encompassing grounds — made by the famed Olmsted Brothers — in Villanova, carved out of the unique 65-acre Stoneleigh estate. The land was initially obtained in 1877 by a Pennsylvania Railroad Co. government, and both equally qualities have been the moment owned by the Bodine family members, who produced their fortune at the helm the United Gasoline Enhancement Co.

Bennett reported an arborist verified the grounds consist of not only hundreds of aged expansion trees, but 114 heritage trees, which can be notable for their uniqueness, age, measurement, or association with an historic party. Oakwell also drains into the watersheds for Darby, Gulph and Mill Creeks.

Stoneleigh was acquired in 1932 by the chemical-marketplace billionaires Haas household who donated to Natural Lands — just one of Pennsylvania’s oldest and largest conservation nonprofits — in 2016 for preservation.

The nonprofit experienced used two years generating a just-opened public back garden when the Decreased Merion University District moved to condemn at the very least component of the property in 2018, prompting outcry that led to the passage of state laws protecting against authorities entities from seizing land under conservation easement without having court acceptance.

» Go through Much more: Reduced Merion’s new community yard now threatened by middle college system

As a outcome of the Stoneleigh resistance, the school district seemed in other places and acquired 7½ acres on Spring Mill Street for the fields, only to discover out that land contained wetlands that would make it way too highly-priced to build.

» Read Far more: Decrease Merion colleges no for a longer time intrigued in obtaining Stoneleigh

So it turned to Bennett’s Oakwell.

Bennett said he learned from a genuine estate broker in the summer months of 2018 that the Reduce Merion Faculty District was intrigued in the residence, so he attained out to neighboring Villanova College to see if it would be interested in purchasing the estate as a way of preserving it. The district sent Bennett an give in October that a lawsuit he later filed mentioned contained “many unfavorable contingencies.”

The lawsuit, which he later dropped, stated that Bennett and his spouse, Nance Di Rocco, advert achieved an settlement with Villanova to buy the assets for $12 million. It then alleges the district went to Villanaova President Rev. Peter Donahue and informed him that the district valued the residence at $8 million.

Villanova finally attained an agreement of sale for $9.65 million with Bennett on Oct. 16, 2018, to get Oakwell. In accordance to Bennett, the university prepared to use it as a retreat and maintain most of it intact. A settlement was scheduled for Jan. 4, 2019.

» Read through Much more: Owners combat Reduced Merion schools’ takeover of their home

But weeks in advance of that settlement, Bennett explained he was frequented by then Reduced Merion Superintendent Robert Copeland and a district real estate agent, and they discussed the sale of the land. Bennett educated Copeland he currently had an agreement with Villanova (Khalid Mumin replaced Copeland as superintendent in 2021). The district has disputed some of Bennett’s account.

Regardless, times afterwards, the school board introduced publicly it would condemn two properties — Oakwell and a a few- acre parcel adjoining it on West Montgomery Avenue — and pay just about $13 million to the homeowners.

Bennett went to court in February 2019 to combat the proceedings but dropped the go well with as lawful charges mounted. He nonetheless hopes to prevent the estate from getting utilised for the fields.

For now, the township’s zoning listening to board is mulling a amount of appeals submitted by community opponents. A hearing scheduled very last thirty day period on the make any difference was put off as lawyers sought to consolidate some of the concerns lifted by opponents of the district’s strategy to steer clear of a amount of different general public hearings. There was no date on when a conclusion may be created. Inhabitants who’ve submitted appeals raise authorized concerns about district plans for historic properties and reducing down of trees.

Reduce Merion people like John Willis prepare to fight on. Willis noted the lengthy heritage of the estate, which include the brick walls to the greenhouse and backyard complex built in 1901 by pointed out Philadelphia architect Frank Miles Working day. Willis pointed out an oak on the grounds, stating an arborist dated it to the time of the American Revolution.

“That tree will be slice down by the school district if their strategies go ahead,” Willis claimed.