LYNNEWOOD HALL

The Lynnewood Hall series began from this desire to listen to what remains and honor the lives that once existed. Lynnewood Hall itself has had multiple lives. Built between 1897 and 1899 for industrialist Peter A. B. Widener, the 110-room Neoclassical Revival mansion in Elkins Park, Pennsylvania, once stood as a symbol of American grandeur. In the 20th century the mansion itself underwent many transitions while staying in the Widener family: portions of the grounds and furnishings were sold off and most of the art was donated to the National Gallery of Art. The mansion was sold in 1952 to Faith Theological Seminary, and was used for training ministers for approximately forty years. During this time period, rooms were changed and adapted to reflect the seminary’s needs, and original furnishings were removed or covered up. In 1996, the First Korean Church of New York acquired Lynnewood Hall through foreclosure. Issues persisted over zoning and usage which led to further neglect and the eventual total abandonment of the estate. The mansion remained on the market until 2019, when the Lynnewood Hall Preservation Foundation was formed and purchased the property with a vision for restoration.  The multiple lives of Lynnewood Hall, from its creation as a private opulent home, its institutional reuse, its abandonment, and now its hopeful resurrection, embody the themes I am drawn to photograph: memory, change, witness, and presence and absence.

Now, stuck between abandonment and the future expensive and extensive preservation, the estate rests in a state of limbo. Items from each of these phases of the mansion’s life remain, intertwined and layered under one roof. Wandering its vast, empty corridors, I was struck by a profound sense of quiet. The kind of quiet that settles into your bones. A stillness that invites you in, enveloping you in memory and story and the lives it once held. A house holding its breath, waiting to bustle again.

To me, capturing moments for legacy is not about nostalgia; it is about stewardship and adding to the visual record of who we are collectively and what we held dear. Photography allows me to weave together art and evidence, emotion and history, creating images that invite reflection and connection. Though Lynnewood Hall is on its way to being preserved and entering a new life as a publicly accessible cultural institution, there is a need to document this phase of its life as well as all the echoes of the lives and people that have roamed its halls. Through this series, I hope to contribute to a collective archive of endurance, inviting others to see beauty not just in what remains, but in the act of remembering itself.