The Little Flower Institute
The grand staircase of the abandoned Woodburne Manor, later known as the Little Flower Institute
Updated November 15, 2022 | By Matthew Christopher
Woodburne Manor has had many names throughout the years, with the Scott Estate, Woodbourne Mansion, Little Flower Institute, and Villa St. Theresa being the most prominent. Though the mansion has had many lives, the damage it has sustained from the elements most likely has doomed it to the same fate as many of the Gilded Age estates on the Main Line of Philadelphia.
When I photographed in in 2014 the devastation was already severe: black mold covered walls, the floors seemed spongy and unstable, and light was visible through holes in the roof where scrappers had stolen copper flashing and roofing roughly a year earlier. In 2011, the mansion had been in excellent condition. It was appalling to see how much damage took place in a single year because of the damage to the roof. It was raining the day I visited and water poured through the estate, creating drips and echoes in every direction that sounded like whispering voices and footsteps. I’m not particularly superstitious and I’ve noticed water inside a building producing a similar effect elsewhere, but it was eerie nevertheless. I found myself checking rooms and hallways frequently to be sure no one else was inside with me, and was on edge most of the time. The beauty of the architecture and decorative details inside were captivating, but I never felt fully alone either.
A staircase in the basement of the abandoned Woodburne Manor
The property Woodburne Manor sits on, near Darby Creek, is thought to have been part of the Great Minquas Indian Path which linked Dutch fur trading posts, and later is believed to have been used as an encampment for British soldiers during the Revolutionary War. William Penn gave the land to Quaker botanist John Bartram, who founded the American Philosophical Society with Benjamin Franklin, and Bartram used the site as part of his family farm.
At some point the property was sold to George McHenry, President of the Philadelphia Board of Trade and operator of an export and shipping business. During the Civil War McHenry was a Southern sympathizer and served as both a Diplomat for the Confederate States of America and also as a commercial agent in London who assisted in procuring supplies for the Confederacy. When the war ended his property was seized – most likely by the United States government as a result of McHenry’s role in the Civil War - and sold at a sheriff’s sale in 1862. Ownership of the property went to Thomas Scott, an industrialist and President of the Pennsylvania Railroad who served on Lincoln’s cabinet as the U.S. Assistant Secretary of War and played a major role in the Union’s war effort. Scott is considered to be one of the Gilded Age’s first robber barons and served as a mentor to Andrew Carnegie, who he hired as a telegraph operator at 18.
An upstairs hallway at Woodburne Manor, with the entryway to the grand staircase at right
When the mansion on the property burned, Thomas’ son Edgar commissioned noted Philadelphia architect Horace Trumbauer to built a new one in 1906, and it was completed in 1907. Trumbauer, who designed the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Free Library of Philadelphia, and countless Gilded Age mansions along the Main Line, created the three-story neoclassical Woodburne Mansion that remains there to this day. The estate was primarily used as a summer home.
Thomas’ son Edgar Scott was second secretary in the U.S. Embassy in Paris and served in the Norton-Harjes Ambulance Corps during World War I and, as a bit of side trivia, may well have met poet E. E. Cummings, who also served there under him. Edgar was died only twenty-one days before the signing of the Armistice to end the war od a self-inflicted gunshot wound, only a month after he had been promoted to Major. His son, Edgar Scott Jr., was most an investment banker most notable for marrying Helen Hope Montgomery, who was the inspiration for the character Tracy Lord in Philip Barry’s play “The Philadelphia Story”, which was turned into a movie with Katharine Hepburn playing the role of Lord.
In 1936 the mansion was purchased by the Sisters of the Divine Redeemer, a congregation originally founded in France in 1843 and later established in Hungary in 1863, which is where American outreach efforts grew from. The sisters renamed the mansion The Little Flower Institute, repaired the mansion to make it habitable, and used it as a home for orphans and displaced adults. By 1956 the orphanage housed 36 girls ranging from 4 to 15 and an unspecified number of “aged women” who couldn’t be cared for by their families, as well as the Sisters themselves. The Little Flower Institute also provided a home and transitional services for refugee families, many of whom were fleeing the Hungarian Revolution or other Soviet countries. A Delaware County Times article that year also mentions a large playroom on the third floor and a television generously provided by Darby firemen.
This is, perhaps, what was once the third floor playroom at the abandoned Little Flower Institute
Though families of children there or the courts sometimes provided money for their living expenses, running the orphanage required much more income; funds were raised by the Auxiliary to the Little Flower Institute through luncheons and block parties, the Knights of Columbus made donations and provided Thanksgiving dinners, gifts and Christmas stockings were given by local scout and Brownie troops, and firemen donated presents. In the 1940s Philadelphia famed restaurateur Frank Palumbo took the children, along with 200 other orphans, to the Ringling Brothers Circus, provided them with boxed lunches, peanuts, popcorn, and candy, and threw parties for them at his club.
In 1957 the name was changed to Little Flower Manor and it continued operating for years, later transitioning to a nursing home for nuns called Villa St. Theresa. The mansion closed in 2005 when the Little Flower Manor Nursing Home was built nearby. It is still in use to this day.
An official site inspection at the property in 2011 showed a building in generally excellent condition, which contrasts sharply with the damage I witnessed in 2014 after the roof was destroyed. By that point looters were already beginning to steal fixtures and spray paint on the interior, and water poured down the grand staircase. The mansion was purchased by Delaware County in 2016 with hopes of turning the property into a park, but the problem with what to do with the mansion remained. Because of the deteriorated condition of the roof, special scaffolding that wasn’t relying on the structure for support would need to be constructed to repair the roof, and restoration costs were estimated to be between $13-17 million, whereas demolition would cost between $1-1.5 million. A 2018 report stressed that prompt action to mitigate water infiltration was critical, noting that carpets and debris on the floor were soaking up water and keeping the floors wet even when it wasn’t raining. The carpeting, which may contain asbestos, would need to be removed, coverings for the windows with vents to allow humidity to escape would need to be installed, and the roof would need to be fixed immediately.
As of 2022, a fence has been erected around the building, but the roof has collapsed and the grand staircase has as well. Plans for the park now mainly focus on keeping the exterior of the building, acknowledging that the interior is likely lost. The plaster is too badly damaged by mold to be saved, and many of the floors are ruined.
The chapel at Woodburne Manor shows water damage from a storm in 2014.
Whatever name you choose to call it by, Woodburne Manor was a beautiful and historic building, and it’s frustrating to see it destroyed by scrappers and neglect. It was never properly mothballed and by the time the county took possession it was probably too late to repair most of the damage that had been done. Whatever one thinks of the Scotts, their estate provided a place of shelter and comfort for children for decades, and is an important part of the area’s history – as well as a lesson that never quite seems to be learned about the urgency of protecting landmark buildings so they may have new lives and serve their communities for generations to come.
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