{"nrhp_refnum":"78002425","name":"Trout Hall","other_names":[],"category":"building","location":{"address":"414 Walnut St.","address_restricted":false,"city":"Allentown","county":"Lehigh County","state":"PA","lat":40.60246699000004,"lon":-75.46341667699994,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1978-11-14","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Architecture"],"significance_levels":["state"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"Trout Hall is a massive stone Georgian mansion in Allentown, Lehigh County, Pennsylvania, built between 1768 and 1770 as a summer home for James Allen. It stood a short distance from the village of Northampton Town.","why_significant":"The nomination argues that Trout Hall is an excellent example of Georgian domestic architecture and is the best preserved and largest mansion-type house in the Allentown area. It is considered rare in the Lehigh Valley, where most older houses were built by German settlers as farmhouses. It is also associated with the locally prominent Allen family and the founding of Northampton Town.","narrative":"Built of stone between 1768 and 1770 as a summer residence for James Allen, son of Allentown founder William Allen, Trout Hall is a large two-and-a-half to three-and-a-half story house in the Georgian style. It was constructed on land near Northampton Town, a grid-planned settlement laid out in 1761. The house is regarded as one of the finest surviving examples of Georgian domestic architecture in the Lehigh Valley, where most older homes were built by German settlers as farmhouses rather than town residences. Its later history includes use by the Allentown Seminary from 1848, a period under Muhlenberg College ownership, and a restoration beginning in 1915 by the Lehigh County Historical Society and the Daughters of the American Revolution. Restoration work recovered original woodwork, paint and decoration. The house is significant for its architecture and its connection to the Allen family.","period_of_significance":"1768-1770","architect_builder":null,"architectural_style":"Georgian","criteria":[],"status_note":"Restored to its circa 1800 state after 1916, with later additions removed between 1916 and 1918, and restoration projects continuing into 1975.","vacant_flag":null,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-haiku-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.1-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 17:11:30.539968-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/lz/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_PA/78002425.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/78002425/d3164dec09-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/78002425/d3164dec09-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY-SA 3.0","author":"Alphageekpa (talk)","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:2008_-_Allentown_Trout_Hall.jpg\" rel=\"noopener\">Alphageekpa (talk)</a>, <a href=\"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0\" rel=\"license noopener\">CC BY-SA 3.0</a>, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:2008_-_Allentown_Trout_Hall.jpg"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/71994467","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trout_Hall","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q7846600"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/pennsylvania/lehigh-county/trout-hall-78002425/"}