{"nrhp_refnum":"78002445","name":"Compton and Bloomfield","other_names":["Morris Arboretum"],"category":"district","location":{"address":"9414 Meadowbrook Ave.","address_restricted":false,"city":"Philadelphia","county":"Philadelphia","state":"PA","lat":40.08929871650005,"lon":-75.22575016429737,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1978-12-22","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Landscape Architecture","Education","Architecture"],"significance_levels":["national"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A former estate and arboretum on the hills of Chestnut Hill at the northwestern edge of Philadelphia, now the Morris Arboretum, with the grand mansion Compton (designed 1887-9 by Theophilus Parsons Chandler, since demolished), a carriage house-stable (1906, Chandler), a gardener's cottage (1904, Cope and Stewardson), the Pepper house now called Gates Hall (Wilson Eyre, Jr.), and garden structures, plus the nearby Bloomfield mill and farm house.","why_significant":"The nomination argues the arboretum reflects the life style of an established Philadelphia family, John T. and Lydia T. Morris, and an 18th and 19th century romantic tradition joining aesthetic perception to scientific study. It also points to a group of architecturally significant buildings by noted Philadelphia architects, including the Pepper house, described as a major transitional work in Eyre's oeuvre, and to garden features modeled on English precedents.","narrative":"Set on the hills of Chestnut Hill at the northwestern edge of Philadelphia, this former estate was begun in 1887 when John T. Morris and his sister Lydia T. Morris acquired land and commissioned Theophilus Parsons Chandler to design the greystone mansion Compton. Morris, who retired from the family iron works in 1891, turned his attention to an arboretum that grew into a landscape of specimen trees, theme gardens, pools and garden architecture. The Morrises willed the property to the University of Pennsylvania, which has administered its 180 acres since. The grounds include a carriage house-stable by Chandler from 1906, a gardener's cottage by Cope and Stewardson from 1904, and the David W. Pepper house, now Gates Hall, by Wilson Eyre, Jr. Its garden structures, among them a tholos by the Swan Pond and a Mercury Temple of 1913, draw on English models. The property is regarded as an important example of an old Philadelphia family's estate, with buildings that span the 18th to 20th centuries.","period_of_significance":"1887-1906","architect_builder":"Theophilus Parsons Chandler (Compton, carriage house-stable); Cope and Stewardson (gardener's cottage); Wilson Eyre, Jr. (David Pepper house, Gates Hall)","architectural_style":null,"criteria":["A","B","C"],"status_note":"Compton was destroyed in the past decade; the arboretum is administered by the University of Pennsylvania; the Bloomfield mill is boarded up, awaiting restoration.","vacant_flag":null,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-haiku-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.1-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 17:11:30.148704-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/lz/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_PA/78002445.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/78002445/141991b7ab-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/78002445/141991b7ab-1600.webp","licence":"CC0","author":"Daderot","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Morris_Arboretum_-_DSC00525.JPG\" rel=\"noopener\">Daderot</a>, <a href=\"http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/deed.en\" rel=\"license noopener\">CC0</a>, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Morris_Arboretum_-_DSC00525.JPG"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/71997244","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morris_Arboretum","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q6913592"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/pennsylvania/philadelphia/compton-and-bloomfield-78002445/"}