Overbrook/Wynnewood Location for EBTS

Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary was located at 6 E. Lancaster Ave., Wynnewood, PA for seventy-five years, from 1939-2014. The 120,000-square foot, four story red brick complex occupied 8.5 acres and was located on the "Golden Mile" of Lower Merion township at the corner of City and Lancaster Ave. Originally built in 1919, the site previously hosted Green Hill Farms Hotel, designed by Philadelphia architect Horace Trumbauer as "a Great Gatsby-esque retreat for the area's upper class." EBTS purchased the entire property for $550,000, including the hotel, garage, curtains, furniture, silver, and china, due to increased need for space to combat the seminary's rapid growth. The main structure of the hotel became Palmer Hall, named for Gordon Palmer, the seminary's third president and serving president at the time of the purchase. After seventy-five years at the property, the Seminary sold the property in 2014 and moved temporarily to King of Prussia. The once hotel returned to a life of housing by becoming The Palmer Apartments, keeping the name it had held for so long in honor of its history.

Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary was located at 6 E. Lancaster Ave., Wynnewood, PA for seventy-five years, from 1939-2014. The 120,000-square foot, four story red brick complex occupied 8.5 acres and was located on the "Golden Mile" of Lower Merion township at the corner of City and Lancaster Ave.

Originally built in 1919, the site previously hosted Green Hill Farms Hotel, designed by Philadelphia architect Horace Trumbauer as "a Great Gatsby-esque retreat for the area's upper class." The interior included wall-to-wall carpeting, exposed wood floors, and an entryway with black and white marble floor and an open sitting room with fireplaces and columns. Green Hill Farms Hotel remained a popular destination so close to the city – despite a murder occurring in 1931 when Edward Allen killed his sister's lover Francis Donaldson III in one of the rooms, making national headlines – but EBTS purchased the entire property for $550,000, including the hotel, garage, curtains, furniture, silver, and china, due to increased need for space to combat the seminary's rapid growth.

The main structure of the hotel became Palmer Hall, named for Gordon Palmer, the seminary's third president and serving president at the time of the purchase. Much of the architecture from the hotel was kept, which had the advantage of faculty offices having their own bathrooms. Male students lived on the fourth floor while female students and classroom spaces occupied the first to third floors. The terrace dining room was the original chapel of the seminary, and the garage was converted into the library, classrooms, and faculty offices. At one point, the hotel was connected via an underground hallway to a building purchased by Lankenau Hospital to the north as a dormitory for nursing students, eventually closed off after stories of seminarians sneaking over began stirring.

From the 40's-50's, the seminary maintained operation of the swimming pool (until the early 1980s), golf course, and bowling alley. In fact, as reported by Randall Frame, the seminary's director of communications several decades ago, the bowling alley was where many students earned money as pin setters during the early years. The pool also became the site of one of the seminary's stands for social justice when Professor Culbert "Cubby" J. Rutenber led a black student by the hand to the swimming pool, in defiance to rules at the time prohibiting African Americans from using same public facilities as whites – a stance that continues to this day and is in alignment with its mission.

More property was purchased in 1945 when the Wynnewood Apartments at 63^rd and City Ave. was obtained for housing for married students with children. It was named Eastern Hall at first, then Baker Hall by 1965 when it was rededicated for Gordon H. Baker, founding trustee. Later in 1945, Lancaster Apartments at 6351 Lancaster Ave. was purchased to provide faculty housing. A clubhouse formerly used by Overbrook Golf Club was then purchased in 1953 to be used for classrooms and offices for the School of Christian Education by EBTS, and a two-story brick addition was built as classroom and library space in 1957, adding to the Austen K. DeBlois Library (named for the seminary's second president).

However, the largest addition to the campus was the Curtis Lee Laws Memorial Chapel in 1951, named for a charter trustee and Board member until his death in 1946. A 600 seat sanctuary, the building also hosted the William Howard Doane Hall of Sacred Music in the above grade basement. The Hall of Sacred Music was funded by a donation from Marguerite Treat Doane – the same woman Doane Hall at Eastern University is named for – and named for her father who composed over 1,000 hymns including "Safe in the Arms of Jesus" and "More Love to Thee, O Christ." Mrs. Doane also donated several key pieces of music which ended up in the seminary's safe to be found at a crucial time…

Time passed, and the seminary continued to grow and expand. However, a terrible fire broke out in 1968 at Baker Hall, due to a faulty incinerator in the basement; the community came together to provide for the refugees, but the building was sold a year later due to an inability to upkeep the building. Lancaster Apartments was sold a few years later in 1973 due to rising costs in the area, but the seminary itself stayed strong, splitting administratively from Eastern College in 1987.

And then, two years later, Judy DiBona, accounting manager at Eastern College, was doing some research at the seminary and found an original manuscript of Mozart's Fantasia and Sonata in C Minor – written in his own hand! It had been donated by Marguerite Treat Doane as a gift to establish the chapel building, and it was later auctioned to Sotheby's for $1.3 million, the funds of which were later used to fund the reinstallation of the Music Department at Eastern College. Another manuscript from the same gift was discovered in 2005 by Heather Carbo, circulation supervisor at the seminary library; this one was a Beethoven manuscript of Grosse Fuge in B flat major, later auctioned for nearly $2 million.

However, after seventy-five years at the property, the Seminary sold the property in 2014 and moved temporarily to King of Prussia. The once hotel returned to a life of housing by becoming The Palmer Apartments, keeping the name it had held for so long in honor of its history.

Eastern University Archives. Warner Memorial Library, St. Davids, PA 19087.

Frame, Randall L. Praise & Promise: A Pictorial History of the Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary. Donning Company Publishers. 2000.

Guffin, Gilbert L. What God Hath Wrought: Eastern's First Thirty-five Years. Judson Press. 1960.