PHILADELPHIA – The home of Philadelphia’s Catholic
archbishops since the 1930s will soon be sold, archdiocesan
officials confirmed Dec. 31.
The 10,000-square-foot mansion located on more than eight
acres at 5700 City Avenue next to St. Joseph’s University in
Philadelphia was purchased by Cardinal Dennis Dougherty in
1935. It has been used as the home of every archbishop of
Philadelphia ever since, including Cardinals John O’Hara,
John Krol, Anthony Bevilacqua and Justin Rigali.
Prominent visitors of the archbishops’ residence over the
years have included Pope John Paul II in 1979 and President
and Mrs. Ronald Reagan.
While Philadelphia Archbishop Charles J. Chaput did not
comment on the impending sale of the house, archdiocesan
officials indicated that proceeds from the sale would go to
help struggling inner-city parishes in the archdiocese and
that the archbishop may reside in the cathedral rectory,
which had been built originally as the residence of the
archbishop.
According to a 1982 Pennsylvania Historical and Museum
Commission report, Philadelphia real estate records and
contemporary news accounts, the stone house was built in 1882
in the Victorian Gothic style by one of Philadelphia’s
leading architects, a Quaker, Addison Hutton, for the
prominent Scull family.
They lived in the home and named it Egerton House, along with
a home on an adjoining property, which is now the convent of
the contemplative Sisters of the Visitation.
By around 1925, new owner Richard J. Seltzer, a prominent
real estate broker, purchased and upgraded Egerton House and
renamed it the Terraces.
By 1935, the 16-room home (with five bathrooms) and its eight
acres were purchased by Cardinal Dougherty for $117,500,
according to archdiocesan records. The majority of the funds
for the purchase came from the sale of the former
archbishop’s home a few blocks away, which had been a gift
from a real estate developer who died three years earlier.
The house’s granite walls and slate roofs were similar in
style to nearby St. Charles Seminary, the Pennsylvania
historical report noted. That may have been an appealing
feature for Cardinal Dougherty, who was proud of the massive
archdiocesan college seminary building whose completion he
had overseen in 1928.
When purchased in 1935, the property included an outdoor
swimming pool that was never used thereafter. Contrary to
published reports, today the pool remains a concrete ruin
behind the home.
The residence, the 1982 report reads, “marks the social
arrival of the Catholic Church, and is in the center of a
major group of Catholic institutions including convents, the
seminary and St. Joseph’s University.”
