Robert Rodes McGoodwin

Robert Rhodes McGoodwin (July 6, 1886 - February 25, 1967) was an American architect and educator, best known for his suburban houses in the Chestnut Hill and Mount Airy sections of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

He was born in Bowling Green, Kentucky, and educated in Philadelphia, graduating from Central High School in 1902. He graduated from the University of Pennsylvania's Department of Architecture in 1907, and received an M.A. from Penn in 1908. He won the 1908 Cresson Traveling Scholarship in architecture, which he used to travel in Europe and study in Paris.

Following his return to Philadelphia, he worked briefly for architect Horace Trumbauer, and began teaching at Penn in 1910. That same year he formed a partnership with his former Penn classmate Samuel D. Hawley, that lasted until 1912. He taught at Penn until 1924, and served as a trustee of its School of Fine Arts, 1925-1959.

Dr. George Woodward commissioned about 180 houses in the Chestnut Hill section of Philadelphia between 1910 and 1930. McGoodwin designed buildings for Woodward at "Cotswold Court," adjacent to Pastorius Park, including attached houses grouped to look like manor houses. He planned "French Village" (1924–29) for Woodward – a luxury housing development on the opposite side of the Cresheim Creek, in Mount Airy – and designed eight of its French-Norman-style buildings, including the gatehouses flanking Emlen Street and the gatehouse at McCallum Street. Additional houses were designed by architects Edmund B. Gilchrist and Willing, Sims & Talbutt.

McGoodwin created a massive Tudor fantasy in the Samuel B. Rotan mansion, "Lane's End," in Wyndmoor, Pennsylvania. Now better known as the Wharton Sinkler Estate, it was modeled after Sutton Place in Guildford, Surrey. McGoodwin assembled architectural fragments and whole rooms from numerous English buildings: the massive oak front doors were salvaged from Muchelny Abbey and date to 739; the stone-slab floors of the hall were salvaged from Warwick Priory and date to 1124. A village of Tudor buildings – some old, some just built to look old – hid the 20th-century services and housed the staff. Mrs. Wharton Sinkler bequeathed the estate to the University of Pennsylvania in 1971, which operated it as a conference center and wedding venue until 1999. It was sold in 2000 for $2 million. Following $4 million in renovations, it was resold in 2005 for $5.5 million.

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