The Eyrie

The Eyrie

If you grew up in or around the Clifton Heights area of Delaware County and are at least 50 years old, it is almost certainly the case that you remember the abandoned Victorian mansion on the northwest corner of Springfield and Oak Avenues.  The “old mansion” was across Springfield Rd. from the Russell E. Miller Real Estate office, and adjacent to the old Gibson property which later became Clifton Heights Athletic Field.  The story of “the old mansion” and the property on which it stood can be traced back well over 140 years, and is linked to some of the most storied families in the long history of the area.  Perhaps the most interesting period in the long life of the “old mansion” was from 1911 to 1939, when it served as a home, and a sanitarium for the mentally ill, known as the Eyrie. 

The Eyrie
(Photo courtesy of  WhenLifewasBlackandWhite.blogspot.com)

In 1911, Dr. Wilfred W. Hawke (B. 1872, Flemington area, NJ) and his wife Aimee (nee Pennypacker, b. 1872 in Phoenxville) bought the mansion and surrounding property to serve as both a home, and as a live-in sanitarium (which they named  The Eyrie) for a small number of patients.  At the time, the Hawke’s had two daughters, Helen (b. 1908) and Mary (b. 1910).  Dr. Hawke was the son of Admiral James A. Hawke, who served as a Civil War surgeon, and retired as a Rear Admiral and Medical Director of the U.S. Navy.  Wilfred Hawke graduate from Medico-Chirurgical College of Philadelphia (once located in Center City Philadelphia, and later merged into the U of P Medical School).  Wilfred’s specialty was neurology/psychiatry, and he held positions at the Philadelphia Alms House and Hospital (which later became Philadelphia General Hospital) and the Warren State Hospital for the Insane, which still exists today under a different name.

Literature from the time refers to The Eyrie as a sanitarium where “…observational cases are preferred, and individual treatment, nursing and diet are given.  Occupational work consists of farm and garden and general house work, carpentry, basketry and painting.”  The 1920 census lists the four members of the Hawke family, two servants, one nurse and two “borders” as residents.  In the 1930 census, one of those borders, Stanton Offenheimer from Germany, was residing at the Norristown State Hospital. 

Delaware County Daily Times May 18, 1973

By 1940, the Eyrie was no more.  By then Dr. Hawke was living in a military hospital in New York.  His wife Aimee had died in 1937 and his youngest daughter Mary died two years later in 1939.  The Hawke’s older daughter, Helen, was married in 1935, and had moved to Virginia where she lived for many years.  Dr. Hawke died in 1949 in Solano County, California, where his parents and siblings had lived for many years.  Wilfred, Aimee, and Mary Hawke are buried in the cemetery at Old St. David’s Church in Radnor, PA. The Eyrie property was eventually owned by Samuel Moyerman, a Philadelphia attorney who converted it into apartments.  The property fell into disrepair and became embroiled in lawsuits between the Moyerman estate and Clifton boro over zoning issues.  The house was abandoned and fell into disrepair.  Neighbors and officials dealt with trespassers, vandalism, fires and other problems at the “old mansion” until it was eventually demolished in 1973.  Today, all that remains of the once majestic Victorian mansion is the stone retaining wall that surrounded the property. 

Lost History Detectives, Oct 12, 2015