The 13-acre Oakwell estate in Villanova has been sold for $13 million, ending years of conflict between the Lower Merion School District and residents who fought to save 700 trees and a landscape shaped by the Olmsted Brothers firm.
Natural Lands purchased 10 acres for roughly $10 million, and the Wyncote Foundation bought the remaining three acres, including the 20,000-square-foot Tudor Revival mansion, for about $3 million. The sale closed in June, according to Natural Lands.
The 10-acre parcel will be folded into the adjacent Stoneleigh, the free public garden at 42 acres, expanding the site to more than 52 acres. The two properties were part of the same estate until they were subdivided in the late 1920s and early 1930s. Olmsted Brothers landscaping spans both grounds, and the firm's association with the site began in 1908 and lasted half a century, according to National Park Service records.
How it got here
The district purchased Oakwell at 1800 W. Montgomery Ave. and 1835 County Line Road in 2018 through eminent domain from Dr. John Bennett, a retired physician who had wanted to sell to Villanova University for use as a public arboretum. The district planned to clear more than 500 of the property's 700 trees to build athletic fields for Black Rock Middle School.
Bennett told the Philadelphia Inquirer upon the closing that some of the oaks are more than 200 years old. His son's ashes are buried beneath them.
The fight over Oakwell echoed an earlier battle. In 2018, days before the adjacent Stoneleigh garden opened to the public, the district announced plans to seize that property by eminent domain for a new middle school. The backlash prompted state lawmakers to pass Act 45, signed June 24, 2018, which requires Orphans' Court approval before any government body can condemn land under a conservation easement.
The district ultimately built Black Rock Middle School on the former Clairemont estate at 1860 Montgomery Ave., demolishing the Beaux Arts mansion there. The school opened in 2022. A January 2023 agreement with Haverford Township gave the school's baseball and softball teams priority use of fields at the Polo Field at 109 County Line Road, resolving the athletic-field need.
The deal
The LMSD Board of Directors authorized the sale on Aug. 20, 2024. Community activist Deborah Robbins, who led the Save Oakwell group, organized public tours of the property while Bennett still lived there. "That was really when the floodgates opened," Robbins said, according to Main Line Media News.
Former Lower Merion Township Commissioner Andy Gavrin, who represented the ward encompassing both properties, was credited by Natural Lands CEO Oliver Bass as a key figure in brokering the deal. At a July celebration at Stoneleigh, Gavrin told supporters that preserving Oakwell meant more to him than any other project during his time on the board.
The William Penn Foundation helped fund the acquisition. The Wyncote Foundation, founded with funds from the Otto and Phoebe Haas Charitable Trusts, plans to restore the Oakwell mansion, which features heavy wooden doors, a wainscoted library and Mercer floor tile.
What's next
Natural Lands has a master plan for the Oakwell parcel but says the work could take years. The tract will remain closed to the public during that period. When finished, it will open as part of the expanded Stoneleigh garden.
