Pencoyd (Bala Cynwyd, Pennsylvania)
Located along the north side of what is now City Avenue, the farm originally stretched from the Schuylkill River to Conshohocken State Road (PA Route 23).
[1]: 26 The Welsh Tract was to be contiguous and stretch northwestward along the Schuylkill River from the outskirts of Philadelphia to Valley Forge.
[1]: 26–27 The understanding of the businessmen was that the Welsh Tract would be a separate county that they would control, and in which business would be conducted in their native language.
He joined a syndicate of Quaker families, the Edward Jones Company, that purchased 5,000 acres at the southeast corner of the Welsh Tract, prior to sailing to America.
[2] On November 16, 1683, he arrived at Philadelphia aboard the Morning Star,[2] with a servant,[a] and possibly his siblings Richard and Anne.
[3]: 21 Downstream of the parcel, at the Falls of Schuylkill was Netopcum, a Native American seasonal settlement where Lenni Lenape came in spring to fish.
[3]: 21 Family tradition holds that he began building the stone house on his property in 1684,[b] although scholars date its earliest portion to c.1690.
[5]: 3 She added indoor plumbing and the house's first bathroom—an 8 x 8 ft frame addition built atop posts and attached to the north wall.
Evans designed a two-and-a-half-story, gambrel-roofed east wing—anchored by a massive "upside down" brick chimney—that extended the length of the front (south) façade to 92 feet (28 metres).
George tore down the wing which his father had built and in its place erected an even larger extension, as tall as the original house but of a different style of architecture.
[3]: 48 Roberts also subdivided his half of the farm into generous lots, which he gave to his six children to build their own houses.
He hired architect Louis Carter Baker Jr., a fellow vestryman of St. Asaph's Church, to restore the house in a tasteful Colonial Revival style, 1913–15.
[9] After World War II, he sold land at the northwest corner of City and Monument Avenues to the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin for WCAU-TV, the newspaper's local television station.
[g] Architect George Howe designed the International Style television studio building (1951–52),[10] one of his final works.
At the end of the 17th century, John Roberts's principal crop was barley (for making malt), but he also grew Indian corn (for livestock) and wheat.
[3]: 6 His son, Richard, made wheat his principal crop (ground into flour), and provided beef, pork, eggs, fruits and vegetables, and butter to the growing Philadelphia marketplace.
George Brooke Roberts turned the western half into a model dairy farm, with a herd of Guernsey cows.
Roberts obtained permission to create a new Episcopal parish, organized its Board of Trustees, and hosted its first vestry meeting, at Pencoyd, on November 16, 1887.
[12]: 2–3 At the second vestry meeting, December 12, 1887, several sites along City Avenue were discussed, and the name "Saint Asaph" was chosen.
[12]: 4 At that same meeting, Roberts announced that he and his sisters wished to donate land at the west end of Pencoyd Farm, along Conshohocken State Road, as the site for the church, which the vestry also accepted.
[12]: 8 Chandler also designed the church's rectory, which Roberts donated in thanksgiving for the birth of his daughter Miriam that summer.
[12]: 14 The following Sunday, Chandler placed the signed bill for his services in the collection plate, indicating that he regarded it as paid in full, along with a monetary contribution.
[12]: 109 Architect Louis Carter Baker Jr. designed alterations to the church and rectory, and served on the vestry from 1908 to his death in 1915.
[13] It won the contract to manufacture all the structural elements for the cast-iron-and-glass Main Exhibition Building and Machinery Hall at the 1876 Centennial Exposition.
