{"nrhp_refnum":"84003505","name":"Idlewild Farm Complex","other_names":[],"category":"building","location":{"address":"617 Williamson Rd.","address_restricted":false,"city":"Bryn Mawr","county":"Montgomery County","state":"PA","lat":40.03643072700004,"lon":-75.29508750532926,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1984-01-20","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Architecture","Agriculture"],"significance_levels":["local"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A farm complex of eleven buildings on 26 acres of rolling meadows in Bryn Mawr, Lower Merion Township, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, centred on a farmhouse that began as a stone house around 1700 and was enlarged in stages through the 1920s.","why_significant":"The nomination argues the complex is the last extant example in the township of a country gentleman's farm or country seat, a type created when Philadelphians converted old Welsh Tract farms into estates along the Main Line. It also cites the architecture as reflecting almost three hundred years of growth of a southeastern Pennsylvania farmstead, and the property as a rare survival only about ten miles from downtown Philadelphia.","narrative":"Idlewild Farm is a group of eleven stone and frame buildings on 26 acres in Bryn Mawr, Lower Merion Township, Pennsylvania. The farmhouse grew from a fieldstone house of about 1700, built by Quaker settler Robert Lloyd, and a larger stone house added about 1740 by his son David. Later stages include a connecting section of about 1825, an east wing of about 1868, and a porch and breakfast room of 1910. A bank barn dating to about 1825 and a dairy barn of 1905 stand nearby. The property was significant as a country gentleman's farm. Under Frances Saunders, who bought it in 1897, it became a productive dairy and model gentleman's farm. The complex is regarded as rare because its buildings and layout still reflect about three centuries of farm use and the turn-of-the-century country estate.","period_of_significance":"1700-1799, 1800-1899","architect_builder":null,"architectural_style":null,"criteria":[],"status_note":"Still an ongoing farm on a limited basis; no longer a dairy, and some buildings adapted for contemporary living.","vacant_flag":false,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-haiku-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.1-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 17:11:32.992239-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/lz/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_PA/84003505.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/84003505/c84f88743f-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/84003505/c84f88743f-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY-SA 3.0","author":"Smallbones","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Idlewild_1_MontCo_PA.JPG\" rel=\"noopener\">Smallbones</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:Idlewild_1_MontCo_PA.JPG"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/71994813","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idlewild_Farm_Complex","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q5989181"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/pennsylvania/montgomery-county/idlewild-farm-complex-84003505/"}