It was an ordinary day. Reading a bit more about one of Lancaster, Pennsylvania's most distinguished and renowned architects. The year was 1896 and C. Emlen Urban was 33 years old and celebrating his 10th year of private practice. By now he had used his Queen Anne, East Lake, Chateauesque and Romanesque Revival architectural styles on quite a few homes and businesses in the city of Lancaster. He had designed the home of chocolatier Milton S. Hershey, tobacco giant Menno M. Fry and renouned downtown Lancaster mercantilist Peter Shand. Shortly after, he was busy once again with a Chateauesque mansion at the corner of President and Marietta Avenues for Mr. Shand's partner, Peter T. Watt. The three-story cut stone residence had broad balustrade porches, round turrets, conical roofs, stepped gables, finials and six chimneys. But what I thought was just as neat was the building that sat to the north of the house. a two-story carriage house which I often called a garage until I was told different. The year was 1896 and Mr. Urban was a busy guy having also designed a cigar factory in downtown Lancaster as well as the Strawberry Street Public School. Oh, yeah...he also found time to design his own house at 212 E. King Street. This house was actually a remodel of a former 1860s Federal Style residence. This remodel included gold-colored bricks, arched entrances, leaded glass transoms and classical ornamentation of the roofline balustrade. After his 10th year of designing architecture for the city of Lancaster, he celebrated by publishing a booklet titled, "Recent Work by C. Ellen Urban, Architect." My story continues today with a bit more information about the Chateauesque mansion on the corner of President Avenue and Marietta Avenue. Seems that new owners bought the place in 2016 and rehabilitated it in 2018. They recently decided to sell the mansion once again. They found it would be easier if they marketed the mansion and carriage house separately. So, the carriage house was given an address of 321 N. President Street and marketed on its own. Only problem was that the 4,000-square-foot carriage house was less impressive than the mansion. The first floor former stable area was mostly unimproved and a second floor apartment hadn't been occupied for a decade. Many of the trees surrounding the carriage house were either deae or dying and there was quite a bit of bamboo which had infected the 1.1 acre property. Didn't matter to the family who bought the place in 2019 for $325,000. The family that purchased the home had plans to rehab the carriage house. But, there was one little problem...or should I say one big problem. On Christmas Day an entire wall collapsed! The story in the newspaper said that after spending months and tens of thousands of dollars dealing with the invasive bamboo as well as overgrown trees and vegetation, they were about to begin on the house. They had received a building permit for basement work and excavation and reinforcing of walls. All you have to do is drive by and you can see what happened. It was reported in the newspaper that the place now looks like a dollhouse with the rear of the place removed and the bottom corner of another wall missing. The owners now claim that they have finalized the engineering plan to rebuild the carriage house and expect it to start by last month. The house was originally built with stone from the Avondale quarry in Chester County. To make the house historically accurate they will have to find the same type of stone. They are going to have it done right and historically accurate. "When we're done, you'll never know the collapse happened," they said. Might cost them close to $750,000, or more than double what they paid for it. The actual mansion, not including the carriage house, was purchased for $1 million in 2016 to a physician from New York. It has been known as "Roslyn" since Peter Watt had it built. The President of the board of directors of the Historic Preservation Trust of Lancaster County reports that the carriage house is as much a landmark as the main home. He is glad that the new owners of the carriage house plan to keep it historically correct. Hopefully we will never know that it was damaged after the reconstruction is finished. It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy. PS - photographs follow...
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| The original Roslyn |
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| Another view of Roslyn |
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| Looking at the mansion from the road. |
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| This is the Carriage House behind the mansion. |
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| and...this shows the damage to the left side of the carriage house. |
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