We at House Beautiful have had a long-standing fascination with deserted homes, and we may have located the most opulent one yet: a mansion in Elkins Park, Pennsylvania, that is estimated to be worth $256 million and has connections to the Titanic.
When it comes to “abandoned, historic, or off-the-beaten-path places throughout the Southeast” of the United States, Leland Kent is a fanatic, and this particular home, which is known as Lynnewood Hall, is no exception. Abandoned Southeast is the name of both a blog and an Instagram account that Kent runs.
“I am obsessed with old buildings and historic houses, so this place has been on my radar and bucket list for quite some time,” Kent tells House Beautiful. “This area has been on my radar and bucket list for quite some time.”
This year, Kent took a journey to Philadelphia in the early part of the year to view Lynnewood Hall for himself. Once there, he spent not just one but two days exploring the entire estate. “After I got back to my house, I devoted several weeks to learning about the extraordinary past of the land,” he says. “They had a pretty intriguing history, and it’s rather sad,” the author says of the Widener family, who were the original proprietors of the home.
Kent is making a reference to the tragic endings of the lives of George and Harry Widener, who were the son and grandson of Peter Widener, the owner of Lynnewood Hall. The brothers George and Harry travelled to France in search of a French chef to work at their then-new hotel, the Ritz Carlton; however, both George and Harry perished on the Titanic while traveling back to Lynnewood Hall from France. It is estimated that around $8 million was spent building the home, which was constructed between the years 1898 and 1900.
According to Kent, a Korean church has held this Gilded Period estate since 1996. The church is located in the building. Sadly, “they could not afford to maintain the property, so they quietly vacated Lynnewood Hall several years ago,” as the sentence puts it. According to Kent, the leader of the Korean church, Dr. Richard Yoon, “fought against the local municipality regarding the property’s tax-exempt status,” due to the fact that the property’s taxes alone are worth “far over $100,000 each year.”
Due to the substantial amount of money that would be required to bring this stately estate back to its former glory, the church ultimately decided to put the mansion up for sale. The church did not even consider any of the proposals, which were all far higher than the sum they were asking for the land. Nowadays, Lynnewood Hall is not available for purchase and continues to be unoccupied property that is privately owned.
Although while it is not obvious what will happen to Lynnewood Hall in the future, we surely hope that it will one day be returned to the splendor that it once possessed.
