From Fairwold to Or Hadash

In 1909, two influential, Delaware Valley families were united. Richard M. Cadwalader, of the large, socially prominent Philadelphia family, married Emily Roebling, granddaughter of John Augustus Roebling, designer and builder of the Brooklyn Bridge and scion of the Roebling business and banking family of Trenton, NJ. Emily and Richard purchased a weekend and summer home in Camp Hill, now Fort Washington, and named it Fairwold. Originally built by John R. Fell and his wife, Sarah Van Rensselaer, in 1888, the property seems to have consisted of two buildings, extensive gardens, and a 55-acre farm complex.

The Cadwaladers connected the stone house to an adjacent smaller structure, making extensive additions to the right side. This explains the mansion’s conflicting architectural styles and the irregular plan of the building. In 1923, the “music room” and “solarium” were added to the right side of the house and this new music room, much larger than the original ballroom on the other side of the building, was used for most of the family’s entertaining. They installed an Esley player organ with 20 ranks of pipes in the loft at the front of the room. Fairwold was one of a number of grand country estates in the Philadelphia suburbs.

At the end of World War I, the Cadwaladers turned Fairwold over to the government for use by convalescing service men. They lived in their house on Delancey Street in Philadelphia, which had always been their primary residence. When Emily died in 1942, Richard sold Fairwold and returned to his family home in Blue Bell. He died in 1960 at the age of 82.

George B. Gay, realtor for the Cadwaladers, bought Fairwold and lived there with his family for a number of years. When, in the 1940s, the cost of maintaining the mansion became too great, he split the building with a firewall and turned over more than half to the Oreland Baptist Church. His gift mandated that the building be forever used for worship purposes. He and his family continued living in the smaller section, until it was eventually sold to the Fort Washington Play and Learn Center. Or Hadash purchased its section of the building in 1995, in time for the congregation’s Bat Mitzvah year.