5 Llandillo Road – Llanerch Public School

Built in 1913 in Georgian Revivalist Style

History

Originally, another building occupied this lot and was the location of the high school for the Haverford Township School District from 1905 to 1910, being designed by Clarke Churchman. In 1913, another design by Wesley Blithe was retrofitted and replaced the old design in Georgian Revival architecture. This was the Llanerch Grammar School, and was for primary education rather than secondary education.

Shortly after the opening of the school in 1913, local Justice of the Peace William B. Cowan was killed while he was attempted to start a fire in the basement to warm up the building for the children in school. He had hit his head on an overhead pipe and then proceeded to bang his chin and fall, dead before he could make it to a hospital. His wife, Annie Cowan (née Mullen), was famously crowned "First Lady of Llanerch" by the Llanerch Presbyterian Church in 1939. Although they did not live in a section of Havertown that is covered by this website, the family was instrumental in building the original community framework for the neighborhood.

Philadelphia Inquirer, December 9th, 1913, page 3

The school operated normally before its closure in 1977, where the future of the building remained uncertain. It was leased to the Delaware County Intermediate Unit until the mid-1980s. The land went through several proposals, including potentially turning it into a bus depot, but residents never took to the idea and nothing much happened on the land. Floruit 1987, the Stratford Friends School briefly utilized the building for their purposes.

In 1986, a developer submitted a bid to turn the building into an office building, but protests from many Llanerch residents swiftly shut down any consideration on such a use of the building. Since the 1980s, the back of the property has remained a playground, "Llanerch Park" for local kids to play in, although in the late 2010s, the original equipment was removed and new apparatuses were installed.

In 2015, the building began its transformation into an apartment complex, finishing by 2021. The building was sold for development for $442,775. Each room retains a bit of its original history, holding items from the original school including chalkboards. Around that same time, the left-side parking lot of the property was sold to developers, and 318 Lansdowne Road and 322 Lansdowne Road were constructed upon it. In 2017, the building was added to the National Register of Historic Places.