National Register of Historic Places
Curtis Arboretum
Cheltenham, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania
The record
- Listed
- March 20, 2002
- Type
- Site
- Address
- 1250 W. Church rd., Cheltenham
- County
- Montgomery
- State
- Pennsylvania
- Period of significance
- 1875 to 1949
- Contributing resources
- 2 buildings, 1 structure, 1 site, 1 object
- Coordinates
- 40.08420, -75.14789
- Reference number
- 02000229
The story
Written by AI from this property's National Register nomination and the record above; every sentence is checked against its sources before it appears here. Corrections: privacy@treealive.com
Curtis Arboretum is a 48-acre site at 1250 W. Church Road in Cheltenham, Montgomery County, listed in the National Register in 2002; it includes a French Renaissance Revival mansion built in 1903, and its architects were William Lloyd Baily and Arthur Truscott.
Why it's listed
It was listed under criteria A and C, with local significance in landscape architecture, entertainment and recreation, and architecture, running from 1893, when Cyrus H. K. Curtis began buying the Lyndon property, to 1948, when Memorial Grove was dedicated.
Physical character
Curtis Hall is limestone with a red slate hipped roof, a coffered plaster ceiling, and a cast iron spiral staircase. Olmstead Brothers were landscape architects for grounds with two ponds, bridges, a fieldstone wall, and a wisteria arbor on limestone columns. In 1937 Ehrling H. Pederson adapted Curtis Hall as Lyndon was demolished and the music room gained a new facade; the basement was altered around 1983.
Historical context
Curtis rented the Lyndon estate from Abraham Barker in 1891 and died there in 1933. It was donated to Cheltenham Township in 1938, and Memorial Grove was dedicated in 1948. Mary Louis Curtis Bok died in 1970, the year the Curtis heirs sued the township, which condemned half the property in 1974.