JANUARY NEWSLETTER
Chestnut Hill Conservancy
Annual Meeting
A successful wrap of 2019, and a look ahead to 2020
The Conservancy held its Annual Meeting at Norwood-Fontbonne Academy on January 5th, welcoming Paul Meyer and Pascal Maeter as new Board members by unanimous vote of present members.
Eileen Javers thanked former Board members Anne Bolno, Emily Cooperman, Cecile Mihalich, and Frank Niepold for their service, wisdom, and hard work.
Lori Salganicoff recapped 2019 programs and accomplishments, and presented a look into 2020 as guided by the 2019-2022 Strategic Plan.
Four wonderful Preservation Recognition Awards and Upcoming Programs, all described below, were also presented.
See this year’s winning projects!
Restoration of Foxlea
Location: Wyndmoor
Developer/Owner: Emilie & Peter Lapham, Bonitatibus Architects
Porch restoration at Fairelawn Manor Carriage House
Location: Westview Street, West Mt. Airy
Developer/Owner: Dennis F. Meyer & Meyer Woodworks and A. Resolution LLC.
Creation of Preservation Ordinance
Location: Springfield Township
Collaborators: Springfield Township Board of Commissioners and Preservation Ordinance Subcommittee
Restoration of Trolley Canopy
Location: 8606 Germantown Avenue
Developer/Owner: Septa, Chestnut Hill Business District, Chestnut Hill Conservancy
Read more about each of these projects HERE
Welcome New Members of our
Board of Directors!
Pascal Maeter
Born and raised in Brussels, Belgium, Pascal graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 1987. He spent 30 years in the Investment Banking industry in New York and London, discovering Chestnut Hill on the family’s return to the United States in the summer of 2016. He is married to Tracy with whom he shares three children, Sophie, Jacques and Laurence. Having owned and restored historic homes over the last 30 years, Pascal wishes to help expand the Conservancy’s mission in Chestnut Hill, as well as personally participate in its conservation through the rehabilitation of the family home on W Bells Mill Road. Pascal has been an active participant in several Conservancy initiatives, and was recently the co-Chair with Tracy of the December 14th Architectural Hall of Fame Gala.
Paul Meyer
Paul Meyer recently retired as The F. Otto Haas Executive Director of the Morris Arboretum of the University of Pennsylvania. He has played a major role in the Arboretum’s restoration of its historic gardens, architecture, and vistas with notable plant collections. He has taught Urban Horticulture in the University of Pennsylvania’s Landscape Architecture and Regional Planning Department and is a frequent contributor to horticultural publications. In the past few years Paul has been instrumental in helping the Conservancy secure area conservation easements. Meyer is a leader in the field of plant exploration and evaluation. He has completed twelve expeditions to countries including China, Korea, Taiwan, Armenia and the Republic of Georgia, where he has collected plants from various sources to introduce greater genetic diversity. He has received recognition for his leadership and accomplishments at both the Morris Arboretum and in the broader community. Recent awards include the Wyck-Strickland Award in 2010, the Award of Merit from the American Public Gardens Association in 2013, the Liberty Hyde Bailey Award from the American Horticultural Society in 2014, the Montgomery County 2016 Planning Advocate Award, and the Arthur Hoyt Scot Medal in 2018. Meyer is a co-author of Philadelphia Trees: A Field Guide to the City and the Surrounding Delaware Valley (Spring 2017).
A Look at Spring Programs…
Save the dates! Tickets now on sale!
Ask The Experts
Maintaining Your Property in a Changing Climate
A year-long focus on sustainability with two workshops on buildings and two workshops on landscapes. A free program to the community, Ask the Experts is offered quarterly, and addresses a featured topic by an expert on prevalent issues relating to historic home and landscape care. Ask questions; get solutions! FREE, no pre-registration is required.
Saturday, February 8, 1:30pm
Join Scott Kelly, co-founder of Re:Vision, a local architecture and sustainability consulting studio, to learn how to plan for a home energy retrofit in a changing climate.
Mark your calendars for these future Ask the Experts Saturday workshops:
April 4, September 12, November 7
For more information, visit http://chconservancy.org/first-saturdays
Accidental Master Plan: The Fortuitous Open Spaces of Chestnut Hill
Lecture by Rob Fleming
Thursday, April 23, 2020 at 6:30pm
Chestnut Hill is not a planned community, but it reads as one. It has legible boundaries, a central core of commercial services, accessible transportation links, and housing types affordable across a range of income levels. Its character varies and its density ranges from tight-packed urban to near-wilderness. Between lies a network of open spaces—forested streets, parklands, and borrowed views of private landscapes and gardens—all knit together as a pleasing whole.
In this illustrated lecture, Landscape Architect Rob Fleming will show how even while Chestnut Hill’s gradual growth may have been unplanned, a principled aesthetic worldview informed the key land-use and design decisions that would give the community its unique character.
$15/member, $30/non-members
Pastorius Park and Its Neighborhood: An Unlikely and Serendipitous Gift of the Automobile Age
Walking Tour with Rob Fleming
Saturday, April 25, 2020 at 1:00pm
Early in the 20th Century, the City of Philadelphia made region-wide plans that included a large intersection of three parkways in the heart of Chestnut Hill. Condemnation and clearing opened the ground for the grand intersection— a traffic circle. But World War I interrupted the work. At that point, the community was not yet settled in its final form; if the project had continued Chestnut Hill would have lost its village character.
Pastorius Park, a jewel of American landscape design, is one of many uncoordinated but fortuitous developments that as a whole give Chestnut Hill the character of a well-planned community. Join Landscape Architect Rob Fleming as we explore Pastorius Park and the remaining traces of what might have been.
$10/members, $20/non-members
Call for Volunteers
We can’t do it without you!
Volunteers are vital here.
Together we can accomplish so much! Here at the Chestnut Hill Conservancy, we have many ways to get involved:
  • Gala Planning and production
  • Public-program development
  • Program and membership marketing
  • Preservation work
  • Conservation work
  • Archives work
  • Gardening
Email your area(s) of interest, and a brief note on why, to Executive Director Lori Salganicoff at
Or, learn more here:
2020 CHESTNUT HILL CONSERVANCY LEAD SPONSOR
2020 CHESTNUT HILL CONSERVANCY GENERAL SPONSORS