8836 Crefeld Street

         

(photographs from Chestnut Hill Historical Society-John Naylor Collection: 1970.42, 1970.58, & 1970.59)

    

(photographs from Chestnut Hill Historical Society-John Naylor Collection: 1970.125 & 1970.126)

MAP NUMBER: 28
DATE: 1888
ORIGINAL OWNER: Walter E. Rex
ARCHITECT: Thomas P. Lonsdale
CONTRACTOR: Jacob R. Garber

"Highfield" was formerly known as the the "Rex House."   Rex hired
Hazlehurst & Huckel, architects, in 1898 and Watson & Huckel,
architects, in 1904 to design alterations to the house.  In 1922, the
house was converted to the Shady Hill School, which was the lower
school of the all girl Stevens School, a school in Germantown.  Mantle
Fielding, designed a stone addition, which was enlarged in 1926 by
Day & Zimmerman, architects and engineers.   In 1953, the entire
Stevens School relocated to "Highfield" but  moved back to
Germantown in 1974 and closed in 1982.  Today, the Crefeld
School, a coeducational day school, occupies this property.  Note that the
photograph on the left does not have the two half storey gable wing
on left or the round tower with conical roof, so one of the additions
must have been done between the photographs. 

See Keels and Jarvis, "Chestnut Hill," p. 89.