The structure changed hands a few times over the subsequent decades, with large portions of the estate grounds sold off in the 1940s, and has been predominantly vacant since 1952, when it was purchased by a Presbyterian seminary.

As of 2023[update] it is being renovated by the Lynnewood Hall Preservation Foundation, which announced a purchase agreement for the estate in February 2023.

The fenced area includes a gatehouse and smaller Lynnewood Lodge (also known as Conklin Hall), built in the same style as the mansion.

[4] A 2014 article in The Philadelphia Inquirer described the mansion as "dripping with silk, velvet, and gilded moldings, the rooms furnished with chairs from Louis XV's palace, Persian rugs, and Chinese pottery, the halls crammed with art by Raphael, Rembrandt, El Greco, van Dyck, Donatello.

The paintings included Raphael's Small Cowper Madonna, Bellini's The Feast of the Gods, eight van Dycks, two Vermeers, fourteen Rembrandts, and a series of portraits by Gainsborough and Reynolds.

Trumbauer collaborated with the French firm Carlhian et Fils to design the mansion's interiors, utilizing large amounts of salvaged European furniture, tapestries, and rooms.

In 1916, the gardens were redesigned in the French style by Jacques Gréber (son of Henri-Léon), also master designer of the Benjamin Franklin Parkway and, later, the 1937 Paris Exhibition.

Lynnewood Hall was purchased in 1952 by Faith Theological Seminary, a Christian school of higher education headed by Carl McIntire.

As the Seminary began to experience financial difficulties, it dismantled large parts of the mansion's interior, selling off what was severable.

[17] On July 5, 2022, it was announced that Lynnewood Hall Preservation Foundation was established with the goal of acquiring "the Trumbauer-designed Widener Family Estate, a true architectural masterpiece, and see it restored to its former breathtaking glory.

[2] On June 27, 2023, the mansion's sale was finalized for $9 million, and ownership passed to the nonprofit Lynnewood Hall Preservation Foundation.