8630-8640 Germantown and Rex Avenues

 

(photograph from Chestnut Hill Historical Society-John Naylor Collection: 1970.91)

MAP NUMBER: 34
DATE: ca. 1855- 1861
ORIGINAL OWNER: Caleb Cope
ARCHITECT: Unknown
CONTRACTOR: Unknown
DEMOLISHED: 1924

This three-story Italianate stone dwelling with low hipped roof surmounted
by an octagonal copula, broad one-story porch, and center bay window
on the second floor is characteristic of many summer homes constructed in
Chestnut Hill in the decades prior to and following the opening of the railroad
in 1854. Caleb Cope was the President of the Philadelphia Savings Fund
Society from 1864-1888.  Lavish gardens, open to the public, stretched
behind his house to Crefeld Street including a natural spring that ran through
"Cope's Grotto." 

Square, three-story buildings such as this could be found along Germantown
Avenue, Summit Street, East Chestnut Hill Avenue, Rex Avenue, and
Bethlehem Pike.  Stores now occupy the site. Pictured on the right was
the Chestnut Hill Presbyterian Church, now the Seventh Day Adventist Church.

See Keels and Jarvis, "Chestnut Hill,"  p. 55.