LMSD students protesting the district’s plans for Oakwell in November of 2022.
Lower Merion School District has put a big, fat PR nightmare behind it.
The school board has voted unanimously to sell the embattled property to Natural Lands, the local conservation nonprofit that operates Oakwell’s neighbor, beloved Stoneleigh public garden.
In the works for months, the deal saves the storied estate as it adds acreage to Stoneleigh.
A ferocious, multi-year grassroots campaign to preserve Oakwell – omnipresent yard signs, multiple petitions, clever videos, impassioned student speeches and editorials, property tours and “Fire Drill Friday” pickets (below) – has paid off.
Naturally, a whole range of folks are pinching themselves: environmentalists, climate-change activists, birders, historic preservationists, naturalists, backyard gardeners, Oakwell’s neighbors and more.
Natural Lands is buying 10 acres total, seven of which are part of the Oakwell estate, plus the three acres of adjacent Acorn Cottage. A separate nonprofit will buy the three acres that contain Oakwell’s circa 1922 mansion. Both nonprofits plan to put their properties into conservation easement.
The two sales mean the entire Oakwell estate at 1835 County Line Rd. and Acorn Cottage at 1800 W. Montgomery Ave. won’t be clear cut for playing fields for nearby Black Rock Middle School. More than 500 towering trees will stay standing and the wildlife they welcome won’t be displaced, the watershed won’t be disrupted, and the mansion and historic buildings won’t be sacrificed. In fact, they’ll be restored and adapted to enhance visits to Stoneleigh. Until the 1930s, Oakwell was part of Stoneleigh.
Built in 1922, Oakwell mansion is a Class 2 Historic Resource in Lower Merion Township.
Lower Merion acquired the two tracts by eminent domain in late 2018 for $12.9 million – the owner had planned to sell to Villanova U. – and will unload them for roughly the same number.
Quoting Natural Lands’ news release announcing the sale, the additional acreage “will create space for expansive new garden areas at Stoneleigh, providing a broader platform from which to showcase the beauty and benefits of an ecologically sustainable approach to gardening. Early 20th century landscape designs by the famed Olmsted Brothers span both properties, which would be connected again for the first time since the portion known as Oakwell was subdivided in the 1930s.
The buildings on the property would be restored and adapted, creating exciting improvements to the guest experience at Stoneleigh. As Stoneleigh is now, the portion that Natural Lands seeks to acquire would be placed under conservation easement with the Lower Merion Conservancy. The nonprofit purchasing the subdivided portion intends to enter into a mutually agreeable conservation easement agreement with Lower Merion Conservancy.”
Tennis courts and greenhouses (above) and a Japanese tea house (below) are part of the historic tract.
Deb Rollins, a leader of the Save Oakwell campaign, tells us she’s heartened by the school district’s “genuine efforts to listen to us…. and we are relieved beyond words to know that this historic and natural treasure wil be stewarded with skill by Natural Lands.”
As for those ancillary middle school playing fields that started this whole brouhaha, Black Rock student athletes will play baseball and softball at the Polo Field in Bryn Mawr. Other playing fields are TBD.
Once a private estate, Stoneleigh is a free garden open to the public and community groups year-round. With the addition of the Oakwell tract, Stoneleigh will swell to 52 acres.
