{"nrhp_refnum":"01000502","name":"Normandy Farmstead","other_names":["Home Farm","Strassburger Estate"],"category":"building","location":{"address":"1411 Morris Rd., Blue Bell","address_restricted":false,"city":"Whitpain Township","county":"Montgomery County","state":"PA","lat":40.18057876450007,"lon":-75.27863091775623,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"2001-05-10","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Agriculture","Architecture"],"significance_levels":["local"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"Normandy Farmstead is a 9.6-acre farm complex in Whitpain Township, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, on DeKalb Pike and Morris Road, with a main house, carriage house, barn, silo, gate houses, tenant house, outbuildings and white stucco perimeter walls. The main house began as an 1834 tavern built by the Heist family.","why_significant":"The nomination argues the farmstead is an intact example of a gentleman's estate farm, regarded as one of the region's best collections of farm buildings of that type. It also states the property was a progressive farm using innovative late nineteenth-century techniques, including an early silo and a large show barn built to demonstrate dairy mass production.","narrative":"Built around an 1834 tavern on DeKalb Pike in Whitpain Township, Normandy Farmstead grew into a gentleman's estate under William M. Singerly, who bought the property in 1873 and expanded it to about 735 acres. In 1879 he added a large T-shaped barn and an attached stone silo, both still standing. The farm's manager, Jason Sexton, helped apply new agricultural methods, and President Grover Cleveland visited in 1888. The property is valued for its grouping of nineteenth and twentieth century farm buildings, its white stucco walls and Norman-style gate entrances, and for its early silo and show barn. The main house was remodeled in the 1920s in Dutch Colonial Revival style while keeping its earlier form. The nomination treats the farm as an unusually complete record of agricultural life in a once rural area.","period_of_significance":"1834-1951","architect_builder":"Harrison H. Atwood (architect)","architectural_style":"Colonial Revival; Dutch Colonial Revival; vernacular Federal","criteria":["A","C"],"status_note":null,"vacant_flag":null,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-haiku-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.1-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 17:11:36.928203-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/lz/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_PA/01000502.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/01000502/3a9a7905ca-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/01000502/3a9a7905ca-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY-SA 4.0","author":"Jerrye &amp; Roy Klotz, MD","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:NORMANDY_HOMESTEAD,_MONTGOMERY_COUNTY,_PA.jpg\" rel=\"noopener\">Jerrye &amp;amp; Roy Klotz, MD</a>, <a href=\"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0\" rel=\"license noopener\">CC BY-SA 4.0</a>, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:NORMANDY_HOMESTEAD,_MONTGOMERY_COUNTY,_PA.jpg"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/71998720","wikipedia":null,"wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q139758183"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/pennsylvania/montgomery-county/normandy-farmstead-01000502/"}