What a Stalled Bryn Mawr Preservation Vote Reveals About Buying Historic on the Main Line

In March 2025, a homeowner on Elliott Avenue in Bryn Mawr found himself opposing his own house's nomination to Lower Merion Township's list of historic properties. The house, designed in 1900 by the architect William Lightfoot Price, features an early attached garage believed to be among the first of its kind on the Main Line. Preservation advocates wanted it classified as a Class 1 resource, the strongest protection the township offers. The owner did not. His objection, according to reporting in the Philadelphia Inquirer, centered on cost and on how a historic designation might complicate a future sale.

The township's building and planning committee paused the vote that spring rather than designate the house over its owner's objection. Whatever the commission ultimately decided, the pause itself is the point: a house can sit in procedural limbo, its renovation and demolition rights undetermined, while buyers and sellers on the same block operate under settled rules.

Most guides to buying an older Main Line home tell you to check whether a property is historic and to ask the seller. That advice is not wrong. It is also not enough, and the Elliott Avenue standoff shows exactly why. A property's status on Lower Merion's Historic Resource Inventory is not fixed at the moment of sale. It can change while a house sits on the market, while an offer is pending, or years after a buyer has already moved in and started planning an addition. The disclosure form only tells you what was true on the day the seller signed it.

What the Disclosure Form Actually Covers

Pennsylvania's Seller's Property Disclosure Statement, the form used in nearly every residential sale in the state, asks sellers directly whether they are aware of any historic preservation restriction or ordinance associated with the property. It is a yes-or-no question, answered honestly to the best of the seller's knowledge at the time.

That is the limit of what it promises. A seller who checks "no" in good faith because their house has never been reviewed by the Historical Commission is telling the truth. The form does not and cannot account for a nomination that gets filed the following month, or a designation vote that happens after closing. On the Main Line, where a meaningful share of the housing stock predates 1940, that gap matters more than it would almost anywhere else in the region.

How a House Actually Gets Listed

Lower Merion's Historic Resource Inventory divides protected properties into two tiers, Class I and Class II. Under the township's ordinance, no resource on the inventory can be demolished, in whole or in part, without a building permit, and any permit application involving demolition or significant exterior alteration of a listed resource gets forwarded to the Historical Commission rather than approved outright. Properties inside a local historic district face an additional layer on top of that, since any exterior alteration visible from a public right of way needs a Certificate of Appropriateness from the Historical Architectural Review Board before work can begin.

The Elliott Avenue case is instructive because it shows who can start that process. The nomination was not filed by the current owner. It was prepared by preservation advocates Arielle Harris and Jillian Galle, based on documentation by Galle's late husband, Aaron Wunsch, and submitted to the township in July 2024. The Lower Merion Historical Commission then recommended the house for inclusion. From there, it goes to a vote by the township commission.

In other words, a community member who has never owned the property can set its historic review process in motion. One of the advocates behind the Elliott Avenue nomination framed the underlying tension plainly, describing it as a question of whether owners can do as they wish with their properties or whether they act as stewards for the future. That framing captures the stakes for anyone buying an older Main Line home: the house you close on today could be reviewed by a different set of rules tomorrow, based on a decision you have no part in.

What Changes Once a Property Is Listed

Once a building lands on the Historic Resource Inventory, the practical consequences are specific. Exterior renovations, additions, and demolition all require Historical Commission review. The ordinance also defines "demolition by neglect," meaning a failure to maintain a listed building can itself trigger enforcement, not just an active decision to tear it down.

Even Class II status is not an ironclad guarantee, and that cuts both ways for buyers. La Ronda, a Spanish Revival mansion in Lower Merion designated Class II, was ultimately demolished despite its listing, a case regularly cited in Pennsylvania preservation circles as evidence that classification alone does not always hold up against ownership decisions and legal pressure. For a buyer, the lesson is not that historic listing is toothless. It is that the process to change or remove a listed building is slower, more public, and more expensive than dealing with an unlisted one, whichever direction you are trying to move.

The Six-Figure Lesson From Wynnewood

The clearest illustration of what happens when a Main Line owner skips that process comes from Gypsy Lane in Wynnewood. Jay and Susie Shah, who purchased their century-old home in 2005 for $1.95 million, began building an in-law suite and garage addition without seeking the required township permits and Historical Commission approval. Township officials ordered a stop to the work once they learned of it.

The resolution was not simple. The Shahs paid $13,000 in fines for the unauthorized work and, according to township officials at the time, faced more than $100,000 total in fines, legal fees, and construction costs tied to removing and altering portions of what had already been built, including a patio, brickwork on the dormers, a pergola, and roof parapets. The Historical Commission reviewed the project retroactively and required specific elements to be undone. Neighbors pointed out that Jay Shah, then CEO of Hersha Hospitality Trust and a former real estate and construction lawyer, should have known better than to build without approval, and it took months of negotiation between the township and the family's attorneys before the matter was settled.

That case predates the Elliott Avenue standoff by roughly eight years, but the mechanism it exposes has not changed. On a listed Main Line property, exterior work done without Historical Commission or HARB approval is not a paperwork technicality. It is a financial and calendar risk that can attach to a house long after the closing table.

Before You Write an Offer on an Older Main Line Property

For a buyer looking seriously at a pre-1940 stone home in Bryn Mawr, Haverford, Villanova, Wynnewood, or Gladwyne, a few steps do more than the disclosure form alone:

• Check Lower Merion's published Historic Resource Inventory list directly rather than relying only on the seller's answer, since the list is a public township record that gets updated at open commission meetings.
• Ask whether the property sits within one of the township's local historic districts, which carries additional HARB review beyond an individual Class I or Class II listing.
• Build calendar cushion into any renovation timeline for a listed property, since Historical Commission or HARB review adds a review cycle that a standard permit process does not require.
• If a listing agent cannot answer whether a property is under review or pending nomination, ask the township's historic preservation planner directly before finalizing an offer contingent on renovation plans.
• Understand that National Register of Historic Places status is different from local designation. Federal listing alone places no restriction on what a private owner can do with a property, absent federal funding or licensing involved in the project. It is the local ordinance, not the federal registry, that actually governs what you can change.

A Short FAQ

Does being on the National Register mean I can't touch my house? Not by itself. Federal law places no restrictions on a private owner's use of a National Register property unless the project involves federal funding, licensing, or permitting. Local ordinances, like Lower Merion's Historic Resource Inventory, are the ones that actually require review before exterior changes.

Can a property be nominated for local historic status after I've already made an offer? Yes. As the Elliott Avenue situation shows, the process can be initiated by preservation advocates or Historical Commission members, not only by the property owner, and it can move forward while a sale is in progress.

If I only plan interior renovations, do these rules still apply? Lower Merion's review process centers on exterior alterations visible from a public right of way and on demolition, in whole or in part. Interior work that does not affect the exterior generally falls outside Historical Commission review, though it is worth confirming with the township for any project involving structural changes.

The stone facades that make the Main Line what it is were never going to come with fewer strings attached. What the Elliott Avenue and Gypsy Lane cases show is that the strings are attached at the township level, not the closing table, and they can tighten or loosen on a timeline that has nothing to do with your settlement date. A buyer who checks the actual inventory before falling in love with a house is negotiating from a position the disclosure form alone cannot give them.

If you are weighing an offer on an older Main Line property, or preparing to sell one, Megan Van Arkel Team can help you understand exactly where a home stands before you commit to a timeline or a renovation budget. Get Your Home Value and let's talk through what your property's status actually means for your next move.