Harry Elkins Widener (January 3, 1885 - April 15, 1912)
Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, he was the son of George Dunton Widener (1861-1912) and Eleanor Elkins Widener and the grandson of the extremely wealthy entrepreneur, Peter A. B. Widener (1834-1915).

Along with his father and mother, in April of 1912 Harry Elkins Widener boarded the RMS Titanic at Cherbourg, France bound for New York City. After the ship struck an iceberg, his father placed his mother and her maid in a lifeboat; the pair were eventually rescued by the steamship Carpathia. Harry Elkins Widener and his father both went down with the ship.


Lynnewood Hall is arguably the grandest of the surviving Gilded Age estate houses. Designed by Horace Trumbauer for Philadelphia industrialist P. A. B. Widener, Lynnewood Hall (1898-1901) was built to impress. Prominently sited at the center of its 34-acre property--which originally boasted formal gardens, statuary, fountains and terraces-- the house is in the French Classical style, with a grand foyer, stairway, and French-styled salons, as well as a large, sky-lit wing specifically designed to display Widener¹s art collection.

The Widner mansion is now abandoned. Follow the link to see it:

http://www.preservationalliance.com/news_lynnewood.php

Boasting 110 rooms, Lynnewood was built by Trumbauer in French classical style in 1898. The estate once totaled more than 300 acres, with formal gardens, fountains and statuary.Now down to 36 unkempt acres, Lynnewood Hall was home to a failed theological seminary but has been essentially vacant for a decade.

Attempts to sell its fittings have been stopped. But Bryant Havir, assistant Cheltenham Township manager, says that the owner, a doctor in New York, has revealed no plans for the building.

The house had 36 acres of gardens to go along with it. Widener hired French landscape architect Jacques Greber, son of well known French sculptor Henri-Leon Greber to design it. Unfortunately, Widener died in 1915 before the project was completed.

When Greber finally did finish the gardens at Lynnewood Hall they were called the finest example of French classical landscape art in America. The icing on the cake came when his father, Henry-Leon designed and supervised the casting of the fountain.

The mythical creatures adorning it are called Tritons and Nereids. Nereids were the daughters of the sea god Nereus who lived in the Mediterranean Sea. Tritons were the male counterparts.

Their job was to protect sailors and ships in trouble. In Greek mythology, Tritons and Nereids escorted ships to the Trojan Wars and helped the shipwrecked Jason and his Argonauts.

It’s ironic. Protecting ships and sailors was important to Widener, the home’s owner, because he held part ownership in the White Star Line, which included the Titanic in its fleet.

His son, George Dunton Widener, his grandson Harry and their valet died when the Titanic went down. His daughter-in-law and her maid survived.

Not even these massive sea creatures outside his home could save the ill-fated Titanic.

As the remaining family members died off over time, the house changed hands and eventually became a Theological Seminary. The seminary was not able to maintain the property and began selling off fixtures. In disrepair, the house still stands where it was built surrounded by the original wrought iron fence.



Lynnewood Hall was one of the most imposing, magnificent residences in America when completed in 1900. Based on Prior Park, a mid eighteenth-century Palladian Revival palace in Bath, England designed by John Wood the Elder, the 110-room mansion provided a dignified setting for Widener's famous art collection, which now hangs in the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. Surrounded by an iron fence one mile in length, the mansion and its formal French garden, which was landscaped by Jacques Gréber between 1914 and 1916, was an incredible accomplishment for an architect who was not 30 years of age when the planning began. For decades after the completion of Lynnewood Hall, Trumbauer added myriad out buildings to the estate including barns, stables, and cottages.

The most important of these was Ronaele Manor, a Tudor Revival mansion. Between 1923 and 1926, Trumbauer designed and constructed the mansion with 60 rooms and 28 chimneys for Widener's granddaughter Eleanor Widener and her husband Fitz Eugene Dixon. Much of the southern section of the Widener estate, which was known as Lynnewood Farm, was developed as an apartment complex in the 1950s. Sadly, today Lynnewood Hall lies in ruins and is threatened with demolition.