17 Elliott Avenue, Bryn Mawr
This historically significant property, designed by renowned architect William Lightfoot Price in 1900, features the oldest attached car garage (at the time, called an “automobile stable”) in the Philadelphia area. For over 40 years it was also home to Dr. Helen Dean King, a biologist who shattered the glass ceiling at the Wistar Institute and is credited with inventing the albino laboratory rat. And that’s not even the whole story.
I led a social media campaign to save the house, successfully pitched stories to media outlets, testified at multiple public meetings, and conducted outreach with the public, elected local government officials and township staff. Unfortunately, the Lower Merion Township Board of Commissioners declined to add 17 Elliott Avenue to the township’s Historic Building Inventory, leaving the property at imminent risk of demolition by the adjacent water utility company headquarters.
Portion of original blueprint for 17 Elliott Avenue, digitized by the Athenaeum of Philadelphia for this project.
Smith College portrait of Helen Sleeper Pearson, who had 17 Elliott Avenue built for herself and Dr. Helen Dean King. You can read in between the lines on that... or look up what a "Boston Marriage" is. (Smith College Special Collections)
17 Elliott Avenue featured in Summer 2025 issue of "Extant," the magazine of the Preservation Alliance for Greater Philadelphia
Clipping of Dr. Helen Dean King from October 2, 1915 issue of the Philadelphia Evening Public Ledger