The Hipple House: Reflections On a Lost Family Home
By Sam Pickard
This post would not have been possible without the assistance of Doug Humes, who not only informed me of the Hipple House’s demolition, but also joined me in researching the history of the house and its inhabitants.
More than two weeks ago, an email from another local historian—Doug Humes—let me know that the house at 27/29 South Sproul Road in Broomall had been demolished. Earlier in the year, when a fence went up around the property and the concrete footpaths were torn up, I’d begun researching the house’s history, expecting imminent demolition. The demolition did not come, however, so I initially held off on writing about the house. While not historically significant on its own, the house was an imposing landmark on Sproul Road and served as the home for at least three generations of the Hipple family in the 20th century.
William & Hanna Hipple
William Penn Hipple (1856-1926) was born on his parents’ farm along Cedar Grove Road in Marple. After his father’s death in 1878, William and his older brother Harry continued to manage the family farm for a time. Harry attended Swarthmore College and possibly switched places at the farm with William, who then attended West Chester Normal School (now West Chester University). Both brothers were soon involved in local politics, and in 1890 Harry Hipple was elected as a Delaware County Commissioner. William, in turn, was appointed clerk of the county board of commissioners. After Henry served two three-year terms as commissioner, William was elected to succeed him in 1896.[1]
The same year he was elected to the county board of commissioners, William P. Hipple married Hanna Massey Bartram (1865-1942), who had grown up near William on her father’s farm in Marple (now submerged under the Springton Reservoir) and later attended Swarthmore College. The Hipples soon had two sons—W. Bartram “Bart” Hipple (1899-1980) and Henry Hipple (1901-1959).[2]
During this time, William P. Hipple began acquiring property across Delaware County, including in Marple Township, where in 1897 he purchased a cottage on what is now the southwest corner of West Chester Pike and Berkley Road (a site presently occupied by a Dunkin’ Donuts and Philly Pretzel Factory).[3] Despite this, the family lived in Media until at least 1902, when William’s tenure as a commissioner ended.[4] He returned to Marple, where, like his brother Henry, he farmed and served as a school director and township supervisor, living for a time in a rented home.[5]
Three Generations of Hipples in One House
In May 1910, Hanna Hipple purchased a 2.134-acre lot along the east side of Coopertown Road (now South Sproul Road) just south of the intersection with West Chester Pike.[6] On this property, the Hipples built a large two-and-a-half-story Colonial Revival-style house. A biographic sketch of William P. Hipple in John Woolf Jordan’s 1914 A History of Delaware County Pennsylvania and Its People appears to indicate that the house had been completed by 1912, with the family—including Hanna’s unmarried sister Elizabeth G. Bartram—taking up residence around that time.[7]
While the size and prominence of the house should not be overstated—it was not especially ornate and did not sit at the end of a long drive—the Hipple’s new home would have been quite the statement in 1912. Located just south of Broomall’s primary intersection and near the top of the hill along Sproul Road, it would have stood out from the older and smaller farmhouses and bungalows in the surrounding area. The house would have befitted William, now working as an insurance agent for Pennsylvania Fire Insurance Company.[8]
The two Hipple boys, Bart and Henry spent their teenage years in the new house and both attended college at West Chester Normal School (where Henry apparently liked “expounding on the wonders of Broomall”).[9] Bart’s time at school overlapped with the final months of World War I, and he was inducted into U.S. Army’s Student Training Corps on October 28, 1918—two weeks before the war ended on November 11th. With the need for fresh troops suddenly passed, he was honorably discharged in December 1918.[10]
In 1923, William and Hanna subdivided their property and gave the southern half to their son Bart, who had found employment with the Philadelphia & West Chester Traction Company, which operated the West Chester Pike trolley.[11] At some point in the 1920s, Bart Hipple married Clarissa B. Connor and the couple took up residence in the four-square house they built next door to William and Hanna.[12] Henry also married in the mid-1920s, wedding Pauline Culbertson (1902-2007)—the daughter of a long-time school board member who was Culbertson Elementary School’s namesake.[13] As they matured, the Hipple sons also followed their father’s civic-mindedness, with both serving as founding members of the Broomall Fire Company in 1923.[14]
The mid-1920s were a time of upheaval for the Hipple family. In March 1926, Hanna’s sister Elizabeth Bartram died, followed by William P. Hipple at age 70 in September 1926.[15] Despite these family tragedies, the late-1920s and early 1930s also were a period of happiness and growth for the family. Bart and Henry each had two children between 1927 and 1933. Henry and Pauline’s daughters, Miriam (1927-2021) and Doris (1931-1997), joined their father and mother in their grandmother’s large house.[16]
Henry was working as a house carpenter when his daughters were born, but by the end of the 1930s,[17] he was selling real estate and insurance, based out of the large house on Sproul Road, which was numbered 29 South Sproul Road at some point in the 1940s.[18] When Hanna M. (Bartram) Hipple died in 1942 at age 77, she bequeathed her house to Henry, as Bart had already received the southern half of the property.[19]
Henry Hipple continued to sell real estate and insurance into the 1950s, when he was joined in business by his new son-in-law, Bruce FitzGerald, who had married Miriam in October 1950.[20] Henry lived to see his younger daughter, Doris, marry in 1956, but in April 1959 he died of cancer less than a month before his 58th birthday.[21]
After Henry Hipple
After Henry’s death, the house at 29 South Sproul Road passed to his widow Pauline, while their son-in-law, Bruce FitzGerald, continued the insurance business from the house.[22] It is not known how long Pauline resided in the home, but eventually, she too moved out. Later, several realty agencies occupied the house.[23] In June 1997, Pauline Hipple sold the property to the present owners for $375,000.[24]
Google Streetview from as far back as October 2007 shows a large sign on the property’s front lawn offering it for lease as a 1.9-acre pad site for retail or office lease.[25] During the ensuing 15 years, the former Hipple home appears to have sat vacant, though early in 2022, work began on the property, including the removal of the asbestos shingle cladding on the exterior walls of the house. Finally, on July 7, 2022, the roughly 110-year-old building was demolished.[26]
A year ago, in a post about the Coppock House’s demolition, I wrote that I attempt not to editorialize much on this blog.[27] However, I do think it’s worth taking a moment to reflect on the loss of this house. The Hipple House was not listed as a protected resource on Marple Township’s local register, nor had it been identified in historic resource surveys. The house had sat vacant for years, with the current owner appearing to have followed the proper procedures for demolition and were fully within their rights to do so.
Acknowledging all of this, I still think that the demolition is unfortunate and a loss for the township’s historic and cultural landscape. While change is inevitable, the remains of the cross-roads village of Broomall have been slowly swept away by road widenings and commercial improvements. With the loss of the Hipple House, silently but imposingly keeping watch over that section of Sproul Road, one more physical link to our township’s past and the people who shaped it has been broken.
[1] John W. Jordan, editor, A History of Delaware County, Pennsylvania and Its People, Volume III (New York: Lewis Historical Publishing Company, 1914), 852; Gilbert Cope and Henry Graham Ashmead, compilers, Historic Homes and Institutions and Genealogical and Personal Memoirs of Chester and Delaware Counties, Pennsylvania, Vol. II(New York: Lewis Publishing Company, 1904), 269-270.
[2] Jordan, A History of Delaware County, 852-853; Halcyon, ’84, [yearbook] (Swarthmore, Pennsylvania: Swarthmore College, 1884), 58.
[3] S. F. Hotchkin, Rural Pennsylvania in the Vicinity of Philadelphia (Philadelphia: George W. Jacobs & Co., 1897), 365; Delaware County Recorder of Deeds, Grantee Indexes 1800-1914.
[4] 1900 U.S. Census, Schedule No. 1.—Population, Pennsylvania, Delaware County, Media Borough, Enumeration District 0194, page 22B, lines 87-92; Jordan, A History of Delaware County, 852.
[5] 1910 U.S. Census, Population, Pennsylvania, Delaware Co., Marple Township, Enumeration District 0145, page 1B, lines 58-62; 1920 U.S. Census, Population, Pennsylvania, Delaware Co., Marple Twp., Enumeration District 0176, page 2A, lines 41-45; Jordan, A History of Delaware County, 852.
[6] Delaware County Deed Book X13:598.
[7] Jordan, A History of Delaware County, 852.
[8] Jordan, A History of Delaware County, 852.
[9] Serpentine, 1919 [yearbook] (West Chester, Pennsylvania: West Chester State Normal School, 1919), 93; Serpentine, 1921: The Brown and the Gold [yearbook] (West Chester, Pennsylvania: West Chester State Normal School, 1921), 76.
[10] “William Bartram Hipple,” in “Pennsylvania, U.S., World War I Veterans Service and Compensation Files, 1917-1919, 1934-1948,” Ancestry.com, [online database], original data from World War I Veterans Service and Compensation File, 1934–1948, Record Group 19, Series 19.91, Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
[11] Delaware County Deed Book 531:240.
[12] Entry for “Clarissa Busby Connor Hipple,” Find a Grave Memorial ID: 136713066, in “Glenwood Memorial Gardens,” FindAGrave.com, [online database].
[13] John Corr, “The Scene On the Main Line and in the Western Suburbs,” Philadelphia Inquirer [Philadelphia], 8 November 1996, B2; “Pauline Culbertson Hipple,” obituary, Philadelphia Inquirer, 25 January 2007, B10.
[14] Jan Ceton, email to Douglas Humes, 11 July 2022.
[15] Entries for “Elizabeth Bartrem,” died 27 February 1926, and “William P Hipple,” died September 2, 1926, in “Pennsylvania Death Certificates, 1906-1968,” Ancestry.com, [online database], original data from Pennsylvania (State), Death Certificates, 1906–1963, Series 11.90 (1,905 cartons), Records of the Pennsylvania Department of Health, Record Group 11 (Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission).
[16] 1940 U.S. Census, Population Schedule, Pennsylvania, Delaware Co., Marple Twp., Enumeration District 23-114, page 8B, lines 57-65; “Miriam H. (Hipple) FitzGerald,” obituary, Logan Funeral Homes, https://www.loganfuneralhomes.com/obituary/Miriam-Fitzgerald; Entry for “Doris Ruth Hipple,” died 17 October 1997, in “U.S., Social Security Applications and Claims Index, 1936-2007,” Ancestry.com, [online database].
[17] 1930 U.S. Census, Population Schedule, Pennsylvania, Delaware Co., Marple Twp., Enumeration District 23-0090, page 2B, lines 69-75.
[18] 1940 U.S. Census, Population Schedule, Pennsylvania, Delaware Co., Marple Twp., Enumeration District 23-114, page 8B, lines 61-65; 1950 U.S. Census, Form P1, Pennsylvania, Delaware Co., Marple Twp., Enumeration District 23-158B, sheet 2, lines 5-8.
[19] Entry for “Hanna Massey Bartram Hipple,” died 6 June 1942, in “Pennsylvania Death Certificates, 1906-1968,” Ancestry.com, [online database], original data from Pennsylvania (State), Death Certificates, 1906–1963, Series 11.90 (1,905 cartons), Records of the Pennsylvania Department of Health, Record Group 11 (Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission); Delaware County Deed Book 1265:465.
[20] “Miriam H. (Hipple) FitzGerald,” obituary, Logan Funeral Home.
[21] “Weddings Listed,” Philadelphia Inquirer, 10 June 1956, SO10; Entry for “Henry Hipple,” died 12 April 1959, in “Pennsylvania Death Certificates, 1906-1968,” Ancestry.com, [online database], original data from Pennsylvania (State), Death Certificates, 1906–1963, Series 11.90 (1,905 cartons), Records of the Pennsylvania Department of Health, Record Group 11 (Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission).
[22] Jan Ceton, email to Douglas Humes, 11 July 2022; “The day the careful driver got a break,” advertisement, Philadelphia Inquirer, 28 July 1959, 4.
[23] “Marple Zoners Meet Wednesday,” Delaware County Daily Times [Chester, Pennsylvania], 14 April 1975, 4;
[24] Delaware County Deed Book 1606:2066.
[25] Google, Street View, GoogleMaps, 2007-2021, https://google.com/maps.
[26] Douglas Humes, email to author, 8 July 2022.
[27] Sam Pickard, “The Coppock House: A Preservation Failure,” Marple History, 29 July 2021, https://marplehistory.com/coppock-house/.
Such a loss but I don’t live in Broomall and haven’t for a number of years. Not sure of the stablity of the home and property. Time marches on. None the less, thanks to you the history is still here and hopefully in Marple Library! Thank you for sharing. My family home was sold in 2007 and there are times I wished I had kept it. But it was bought by a young couple who have a beautiful family and that is what it was built for. My grandfather had it build in the 40’s and moved from Philadelphia to Broomall. My parents bought it for $11,000.00 in the late 50’s. So happy I grew up in Broomall.