Lynnewood Hall

Lynnewood Hall
Main house from Ashbourne Rd. - May 2007
General information
Architectural style	Neoclassical Revival
Address	920 Spring Ave.
Town or city	Elkins Park, Pennsylvania
Coordinates	40°4′30.67″N 75°8′27.01″W / 40.0751861°N 75.1408361°W / 40.0751861; -75.1408361Coordinates: 40°4′30.67″N 75°8′27.01″W / 40.0751861°N 75.1408361°W / 40.0751861; -75.1408361
Construction started	1897
Completed	1900
Client	Peter A. B. Widener married (Lena Curtis Dye)
Technical details
Floor area	70,000 feet (21,000 m)
Design and construction
Architect	Horace Trumbauer

Lynnewood Hall is a 110-room Neoclassical Revival mansion in Elkins Park, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, designed by architect Horace Trumbauer for industrialist Peter A. B. Widener between 1897 and 1900. Considered the largest surviving Gilded Age mansion in the Philadelphia area, it housed one of the most important Gilded Age private art collections of European masterpieces and decorative arts assembled by Widener and his younger son Joseph.

Peter A. B. Widener died at Lynnewood Hall at the age of 80 on November 6, 1915 after prolonged poor health. He was predeceased by his elder son George Dunton Widener and grandson Harry Elkins Widener, both of whom died when the Titanic sank in 1912.

Built from Indiana limestone, the "T"-shaped Lynnewood Hall (dubbed "The last of the American Versailles" by Widener's grandson) measures 325 feet (99 m) long by 215 feet (66 m) deep. In addition to 55 bedrooms, the 110-room mansion had a large art gallery, a ballroom large enough for 1000 guests, swimming pool, wine cellars, a farm, carpentry and upholstery studios, and an electrical power plant.

A 2014 Philadelphia Inquirer article described the mansion as "dripping with silk, velvet, and gilded moldings, the rooms furnished with chairs from Louis XV's palace, Persian rugs, and Chinese pottery, the halls crammed with art by Raphael, Rembrandt, El Greco, Van Dyck, Donatello."TIME magazine published an account of a lavish party held at Lynnewood Hall in 1932.

From 1915 to 1940, the spectacular art collection at Lynnewood Hall was open to the public by appointment between June and October.

In 1940, Joseph E. Widener donated more than 2,000 sculptures, paintings, decorative art works, and porcelains to the National Gallery of Art. The paintings included Raphael's Small Cowper Madonna, Bellini's Feast of the gods, eight van Dycks, two Vermeers, fourteen Rembrandts, and a series of portraits by Gainsborough and Reynolds. The sculptures included Donatello's "David" and Desiderio da Settignano's "St John the Baptist".