From a miscellaneous litter that the wrecker sells for junk, material was collected to remodel the old stable until it had this appearance. There 
was not much new added, a little stucco, a little brick, but almost all the materials used were originally in the old mansion that was tom down 
An Adventure in House Building 
HOW AN OLD STABLE WAS TRANSFORMED INTO A MANOR HOUSE AND HOW THE DEVELOP¬ 
MENT OF AN OLD ENGLISH ESTATE WAS DUPLICATED IN A PHILADELPHIA SUBURB 
by James L. Burley, Architect 
I N a park of about 20 
acres at Merion, a 
suburb of Philadelphia, 
stood the well known 
Baird mansion with its 
stables, conservatory 
and other outbuildings, 
and in its day one of the 
show places of that city. 
It was built in the early 
seventies of the last cen¬ 
tury, during the dark 
ages of the history of 
architecture in America 
and was a castellated 
structure of brownstone, 
terra cotta and brick. 
The interior was rich in 
hardwood, much of it 
elaborately carved and 
worked after the ap¬ 
proved manner of the 
period. Like many of its 
prototypes it was aban- 
Photographs by M. L. Schamberg 
Stone and stucco combined in this way suggest different periods of growth 
(363) 
doned by the family as 
a place of residence, and 
was used for a board¬ 
ing school for a time, 
finally passing into the 
hands of a group of 
homeseekers, the park to 
be divided into building 
sites and the mansion it¬ 
self torn down for the 
building material in it. 
Among those purchas¬ 
ing sites, Mr. Zollinger 
became possessor of a 
plot about two acres in 
extent. Upon this was 
located the old stable, a 
substantial and well con¬ 
structed building of 
stone, brick and terra 
cotta, with the remains 
of a great conservatory 
built against it. It was 
his original intention to 
