The Ormsby Lodge was the summer home to artist Marjorie Acker Philips and her husband, art collector and Yale graduate Duncan Phillips.

One historian described the house in a grand way, writing:The house, for its time and location, was palatial, towering above the measly farmsteads of town with a spire of wood, fanciful windows with elegant woodwork designs, giant French doors lay at the threshold of each room whose ceiling stood far over the heads of residents, a wrap around porch that allowed the Phillips to enjoy the mountain air, and slightly sloping backyard where trees, maples and oaks mainly, sprouted and grew to almost vertigo inducing heights, rivaling and later outgrowing the size of the house.

[1]Duncan Phillips often summered in Ebensburg with his family as a young boy who also had a house on the edges of town, so he knew the area well.

She remembered that she and her husband “always took about thirty paintings to be hung in our house" to form a private seasonal gallery, hand picked from Duncan Phillips vast collection in Washington D.C.[3] Marjorie Philips was inspired by the surrounding countryside and some of her art reflects that in scenes and landscapes.

McAlarney considered turning the grounds and house into an apartment block and even starting a hospital on the site, but "problems arose over the water facilities and zoning" leading to the disintegration of those plans.