Who’ll toll the bell?
Photo by Laura Kicey
Hasta la vista, La Ronda.
It appears the only place you will be able to see Addison Mizner’s quirky Bryn Mawr mansion will be in pieces at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
Local press reports that a demolition permit has been issued for the 1929 mansion, giving former owner Arthur J. Kania right to move in for salvage of the building’s extensive architectural features. Removing windows, stained glass, tilework, doorways, grills, stonework is tantamount to demolition, since it leaves only a shell of a building.
Following the 30-day salvage period, the anonymous current owner may raze the remaining structure.
Kania wrote, in a letter to Lower Merion officials, that he intends to donate the items to the Philadelphia Museum of Art — to preserve them. The Philadelphia Inquirer was unable to confirm whether the museum had been contacted about a donation.
Floridian Benjamin Wohl, who has stood outside the gates of the Mizner mansion for days attempting to purchase and then move the building, has been unable to work out a deal with Kania for the salvage rights and the owner for the building. The current owner was unwilling to negotiate until Wohl secured the rights from Kania.
Photo by Laura Kicey
So it appears that it is not the current owner who has brought about the building’s end, but the man who lived in it for decades and who profited $6m when he sold it. Thirty days and counting, til the walls come tumbling down. Unless….
Philadelphia Inquirer coverage here.
KYW News Radio here.
To view more images of La Ronda by photographer Laura Kicey, click here.
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This is tragic. While salvage is appropriate when there is no other option, there is another option in this case. What does the former owner get for donating the architectural elements and details to the PMA (a tax break?)? If he cares enough to salvage he should care enough to work out a deal with the Floridian who wants to move the house. Although the building’s setting and context would be lost at least the building itself wouldn’t be.
It certainly defies logic. And there’s no confirmation that there’s even a deal with PMA in place. So this grand gesture he claims may simply be misdirection. It’s intriguing that someone who claimed he did not want to see the house come down made his salvage rights a stipulation in his sale to a new owner. I don’t understand why a sale and move could not be worked out. Too many cooks, I guess.
doesn’t look like there’s much left for salvage.
bastards.
Heartbreaking. Thanks, Shawn, for sharing the link — it’s wonderful, yet devastating, to view the interiors.
Kestenbaum and Kania are simply self indulgent nouveau riche philistines
I didn’t know that nouveaux riches was still an insult. I thought in a consumer economy we were all about the riches, whether new or old.
It certainly seems these were two intractable personalities to deal with — lots of mistrust — otherwise Wohl’s offer to move the building might have worked out and we could all be singing praises now instead of slinging arrows.