St. Michael’s Hall, aka Alfred C. Harrison Country Estate – 9101 Germantown Avenue St. Michael’s Hall, located on a large wooded lot at the corner of Germantown and Sunset Avenues in Chestnut Hill, served as a summertime country retreat for its first sixty years. Between the time the house was built in the late 1850s, and 1924, St. Michael’s Hall was owned by three wealthy industrialists—William Henry Trotter (ownership 1855-1868), Henry Latimer Norris (ownership 1868-1884), and Alfred Craven Harrison (ownership 1884-1924). The Convent of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Chestnut Hill purchased the site in 1927, using it first as a school and then as a residence hall for nuns. The nuns vacated the property in September 2020, although it is still currently maintained by the Sisters of St. Joseph.

9101 Germantown Avenue, ca. 1903-1910 Courtesy of Chestnut Hill Conservancy

Site Details • Built between 1855 and 1857, the house was originally rectangular in shape, measuring 40 by 43 feet. No architect has been attributed to the original building. • A small wing in the Gothic Revival style was added to the southeast elevation at an unknown date. • A small bay was added to the southwest (Germantown Avenue) elevation in 1896. • In 1899 two large wings in the Italianate style were added to the southeast and northeast elevations by architects Cope & Stewardson. • The 27,500 sq.ft. building sits on a lot of approximately 4 acres zoned RSD3, with 420’ of frontage bounded by Green Tree, Hampton, E Sunset, and Germantown. • The property is considered a “Significant” property in the Chestnut Hill National Register Historic District, but not listed on the Register of Historic Places. • The property is identified as a “priority” for conservation in the FOW Protect Our Watershed Study (therefore eligible for conservation easement).

Building Campaigns at 9101 Germantown Avenue

Building Campaigns at 9101 Germantown Avenue

A History ofAerial St. Michael view of’ 9101s Hall Germantown Drafte Ave fromd by south the ,Chestnut showing souHillthwest Conservancy elevation , March 2021

Ownership William Henry Trotter (1855-1868)

• William Henry Trotter and his brothers were partners in Nathan Trotter & Company, a firm that their father had founded on January 1, 1817. The company specialized in importing metals, principally steel, copper, and tin for pewterers. Still in existence, the company is the said to be the oldest continuously-operated metals company in the US. • William Henry Trotter constructed a 2½ story Gothic revival house on a 4-acre lot he had bought in 1855 from Joseph Dickinson. The house was constructed by 1857 (per Insurance Survey). No plans for this house have been found. • Land acquisitions adding to the Dickenson parcel brought the estate to 9.3 acres, finishing with a Portrait of Mrs. William Henry Trotter purchase to connect to the just-opened Sunset By Thomas Sully Avenue in 1863. • Trotter was one of five men who applied for the charter granted on February 26, 1861, to incorporate the Chestnut Hill Academy. • Newbold Hough Trotter, noted primarily for his paintings of nature and animals, was a first cousin to William. He exhibited at the Academy of Fine Arts between 1858 and 1887, and also at the National Academy of Design and the Boston Athenaeum. He was also a member of the Art Club of Philadelphia, vice-president of the Artists’ Fund Society of Philadelphia, and a director and secretary of the Philadelphia Society of Artists.

1861 Lake and Beers map showing intersection of Germantown Avenue and Bells Mill Road. Sunset Avenue has been opened. Trotter is shown as the owner of the house (red arrow) A History of St. Michael’s Hall Drafted by the Chestnut Hill Conservancy, March 2021

Henry Latimer Norris (1868-1884)

View of 9200 Germantown Ave, “Sugarloaf” or “Wyncliffe,” ca. 1875-1885. Arrow locates 9101 Germantown Courtesy of Chestnut Hill Conservancy

• In 1868, Trotter sold the property to Henry Latimer Norris (1831-1903). • Like Trotter, Henry Latimer Norris was the son of an industrialist and entered the family firm as a young man. • Norris Locomotive Works were founded by William Norris and Stephen H. Long as the American Steam Carriage Company. • Interesting note: Joseph Harrison, Jr., engineer, financier, and art collector, started his career with the Norris Locomotive Works. • After a business reversal in 1841, Richard Norris and his son Henry L. Norris took over. • Richard Norris & Son was the first American exporter of locomotives, and by the early 1850s, it was the largest locomotive builder in the US, and possibly in the world. However, the company declined and closed by 1866, and the factory sold to Baldwin, allowing Henry Latimer Norris to retire at the age of 35. • No substantial construction on the property is known to have taken place during Norris’ 18-year ownership.

A History of St. Michael’s Hall Drafted by the Chestnut Hill Conservancy, March 2021

Alfred Craven Harrison (1884-1924)

• Alfred Craven Harrison (1846-1927) bought the estate from Norris in 1884, and owned it more twice as long as either of his predecessors • Harrison was one of the richest men in Philadelphia in the last decades of the nineteenth century. Harrison and his brothers owned the sugar refinery that incorporated in 1887 the Franklin Sugar Refining Company. The brothers sold the company for $10 million in 1891. • Alfred C. Harrison was one of George Leib Harrison’s five children, several of whom were responsible for creating a lasting legacy of great architecture. Alfred C Harrison’s brother William Welsh Harrison engaged Horace Trumbauer to build (now a National Historic Landmark) from stone quarried in Chestnut Hill. Charles Custis Harrison, another brother, was Provost of the University of Pennsylvania and later President of the University’s Museum. As Provost, he was chiefly responsible for the building of 29 dormitories, 20 academic and museum buildings, and Franklin Field. • According to his obituary, Alfred Craven Harrison was a trustee of the Franklin Institute, the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, and other noted institutions. • The Harrisons added to the house twice. The first addition, in 1896, added a 4’ x 10’ bay window to the southwest elevation of the house, facing Germantown Avenue, three months before the wedding of their eldest daughter at the estate. This may suggest that the northwest elevation was originally the principal elevation of the house, facing down the hill overlooking the Whitemarsh Valley. In that case, this work would have likely been accompanied by interior and exterior alterations required to rotate the interior layout to align with a new front door. • The photo at right from the archives of the Chestnut Hill Conservancy, dated between 1903 and 1910, shows a porch on the ground floor of the southwest (principal) elevation. There is no record of it being added, but given that it mirrors the curve of the bay window above it added in 1896, it may have been added during that round of renovation.

A History of St. Michael’s Hall Drafted by the Chestnut Hill Conservancy, March 2021

1910 Bromley Atlas showing neighboring Charles K. Smith and Alfred C. Harrison estates

• In 1887 Alfred C. Harrison Sr. had five greenhouses built on the grounds (ten years later he entered “an exhibit of cauliflower, spinach, potatoes and brussels sprouts” in the Philadelphia Horticultural Society’s annual Flower Show). • A building permit and notice in the Philadelphia Builders’ Guide show that two wings added to the house in 1899 were designed by noted architects Cope and Stewardson.

Judson M. Zane (1924-1927) • By the mid 1920’s, Chestnut Hill had become a neighborhood where well-to-do people lived year-round while working in Center City or other locations. • The property was owned by developer Judson M. Zane, who subdivided, developed, and sold residences on the northwest and northeast sides of the estate.

A History of St. Michael’s Hall Drafted by the Chestnut Hill Conservancy, March 2021

Sisters of Saint Joseph (1927 – present)

• In 1927, Zane sold the house and remaining 4 acres of land to its current owner, the Convent of the Sisters of Saint Joseph of Chestnut Hill. • The Sisters of Saint Joseph had arrived in Philadelphia in 1847. In August 1858, they purchased a seven-acre estate approximately three-quarters of a mile northwest of the Trotter estate on Germantown Avenue from the Middleton family and established the Mount Saint Joseph Convent and the Mount Saint Joseph Academy, a boarding school for girls. In 1878 the Sisters opened St. Joseph’s Seminary for Little Boys, which was also housed in the convent building. • In 1919 the Sisters purchased the estate opposite the Harrison estate on Sunset Avenue for the Norwood Academy for Boys, a boarding and day school. After purchasing the Harrison estate from Zane, the Sisters named it Fontbonne Hall and used it as the main building for an elementary school for girls, the Fontbonne Academy for Girls. • Building permits indicate that the side porch was added and enclosed during this period, in 1929. Over the succeeding decades the sisters continued to purchase adjacent properties and expand the schools, merging the boys’ and girls’ schools to create the Norwood-Fontbonne Academy in 1973. • The house, at this point named St. Michael’s Hall, became a residence hall for nuns, a service it continued to provide until September 2020.

A History of St. Michael’s Hall Drafted by the Chestnut Hill Conservancy, March 2021