Berkley Historic District

Along Berkley Road and the Willow Creek in Ontelaunee Township, Berks County, stands a small village of stone and frame houses whose cores date to the eighteenth century. The Parvin homestead, a limestone house built in 1758 with a date stone, was enlarged in 1856 by Jacob Parvin to nine rooms and retains its center-hall plan and original fireplaces. Behind it stand a summer kitchen over a meat cellar, an icehouse, and a bark house remnant from a tannery operated between 1735 and 1916. The Davies House, expanded around 1830 to a five-bay Georgian façade, keeps its six-over-six windows and dentil cornice. The district is significant for its architecture, including a barn that combines Switzer and Standard Pennsylvania construction, and for the alcove in a cold cellar that the nomination links to the Underground Railroad through archaeological finds and family history.