num_pages: 128
description: Whitemarsh Hall, known as "the Versailles of America," was one of the largest and most exquisite estates in North America. Edward Townsend Stotesbury, one of the wealthiest Philadelphians in the early twentieth century, commissioned renowned architect Horace Trumbauer to build the one-hundred-forty-seven room mansion in 1916 on three hundred acres just outside Philadelphia. Whitemarsh Hall, which took five years to build at an estimated cost of $10 million with all the furnishings, was a wedding present for his second wife. This book explores Whitemarsh Hall’s construction, its heyday in the 1920s, the multiple impacts of the Great Depression, Stotesbury’s death, and subsequent ownership over the next four decades, culminating in its eventual submission to decay, vandalism, and the wrecking ball in 1980.
language: English
title: Whitemarsh Hall: The Estate of Edward T. Stotesbury
titlecomplete: Whitemarsh Hall: The Estate of Edward T. Stotesbury (Images of America: Pennsylvania)
ratings_count: 14
series: Images of America: Pennsylvania
publisher: Arcadia Publishing