Historic Villanova Mansion Will Receive New Life

A stately, 108-year-old mansion in Radnor Township will be preserved as a mansion and open to the public. The Willows, a 10,000-square-foot house in Villanova that was built in 1910 and is owned by the township and has fallen into disrepair will be preserved, fixed up, and maintained as a public space after Radnor and a brand new private preservation organization got together and inked a 10-year lease recently.

The nonprofit Willows Park Preserve grants the organization permission for the first time ever to take over The Willows mansion. The house sits on 45 acres of land, which is not included in the agreement. That will continue to be maintained by Villanova’s public works department. The rehab project was funded by an anonymous donation of $1 million. For years the Township has let the mansion sit idle and becoming decrepit while rejecting alternative proposals for the site.

“We recognized the need to do something, because there was no will in the township to really let this wonderful asset go,” said Tish Long, president of the Willows Park Preserve. “So we decided the best thing to do was to give it back to the people.”

The mansion has sat empty since 2012. At its last usage, it was a community space. Radnor closed the dwelling when the costs of maintaining it grew too high, and the disrepair of the house spiraled out of control.

“Coming out of the recession, expenses were tight,” said Sara Pilling, granddaughter of Charles Barton Keen, the Philadelphia architect who designed The Willows mansion, to the Philadelphia Inquirer. “This was not a high priority.”

According to Philly.com: “Long said the goal of the Willows Park Preserve was to remodel parts of the mansion and continue to allow the public to explore the house and park. The mansion will host up to 25 private events a year to bring in income and accept money from major donors and corporate sponsors, she said. That money will fund upkeep for the mansion and bypass the need to rely on the township for money, she said. Renovations are scheduled to begin on The Willows mansion sometime in 2019 and finish in about 18 months. Meanwhile, the public can continue to walk around The Willows Park. The Willows Park Preserve — which will have 11 members by the end of the year — is seeking to add the mansion onto the National Registry of Historic Places, Long said.”