Laverock is a small

unincorporated community An unincorporated area is a parcel of land that is not governed by a local general-purpose municipal corporation. (At p. 178.) They may be governed or serviced by an encompassing unit (such as a county) or another branch of the state (such as th ...

that is located in Montgomery County,

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania, officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a U.S. state, state spanning the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern United States, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes region, Great Lakes regions o ...

, United States. Part of it is situated in Cheltenham Township and part is located in Springfield Township. Laverock shares its Zip Code with Glenside, Pennsylvania and is a closed-in suburb of

Philadelphia Philadelphia ( ), colloquially referred to as Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania, most populous city in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and the List of United States cities by population, sixth-most populous city in the Unit ...

History

Mansions erected on large pieces of ground were built in the area during the late-19th and early-20th centuries. Few were built after the 1929 onset of the

Great Depression The Great Depression was a severe global economic downturn from 1929 to 1939. The period was characterized by high rates of unemployment and poverty, drastic reductions in industrial production and international trade, and widespread bank and ...

, and the area remained largely undeveloped until after

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

. Today, the area is a residential-only neighborhood known for its abundance of large black oak trees.

Laverock Farm

Arthur E. Newbold built a Colonial-Revival mansion and estate, "Farleigh," on the north side of Willow Grove Avenue in 1895. His son, Arthur Jr., hired architect Arthur Ingersoll Meigs of Mellor, Meigs & Howe to transform the mansion into a Norman-Revival manor house. Between 1919 and 1925, Meigs created "Laverock Farm" – a working farm housed in a group of exquisitely crafted buildings that deftly mixed the antique and the modern. It was awarded the 1925 Gold Medal for Excellence in Design by the

Architectural League of New York The Architectural League of New York is a non-profit organization "for creative and intellectual work in architecture Architecture is the art and technique of designing and building, as distinguished from the skills associated with construct ...

. In an influential review in ''

The New Republic ''The New Republic'' (often abbreviated as ''TNR'') is an American magazine focused on domestic politics, news, culture, and the arts from a left-wing perspective. It publishes ten print magazines a year and a daily online platform. ''The New Y ...

'' titled "The Architecture of Escape," critic

Lewis Mumford Lewis Mumford (October 19, 1895 – January 26, 1990) was an American historian, sociologist, philosopher of technology, and literary critic. Particularly noted for his study of cities and urban architecture, he had a broad career as a ...

denounced "Laverock Farm" and buildings like it as "architectural anaesthesia" and "hocus-pocus":

The critical weakness of the romantic architect is that he is employed in creating an environment into which people may escape from a sordid workaday world, whereas the real problem of architecture is to remake the workaday world so that people will not wish to escape from it.

"Laverock Farm" lasted barely 30 years, it was demolished in 1956.Newbold Residence
from Philadelphia Architects and Buildings. A

development Development or developing may refer to: Arts *Development (music), the process by which thematic material is reshaped * Photographic development *Filmmaking, development phase, including finance and budgeting * Development hell, when a proje ...

of split-level houses was built on the former estate and as infill around other existing houses.

Notes

{{authority control Unincorporated communities in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania Unincorporated communities in Pennsylvania Cheltenham Township, Pennsylvania