Wilpen Hall
By Sage Ross - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0
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The Wilpen Hall estate, located at 889–895 Blackburn Road and 201 Scaife Road in Sewickley Heights, Pennsylvania, is an extravagant Beaux-Arts/Gilded Age mansion built between 1897 and 1900 for industrialist William Penn Snyder and his wife. Designed by George S. Orth & Brothers in the style of an English manor, the sprawling brownstone and shingle structure spans approximately 23,000 sq ft with around 25 rooms, and sits on roughly 38 acres of landscaped terrain. Its name, “Wilpen,” cleverly merges its original owner’s first and middle names, William Penn. In 1930, the property passed to Snyder’s sons, and remarkably, members of the Snyder family continued to reside there into the.
Recognizing its architectural and historical significance, the Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation designated Wilpen Hall a Historic Landmark in 2001, and it was entered onto the National Register of Historic Places on April 20, 2011. The mansion’s ornate interiors also found cinematic acclaim, serving as John du Pont’s Foxcatcher Farm estate in the 2013 film Foxcatcher starring Steve Carell, Mark Ruffalo, and Channing Tatum.
Beyond its grandeur, Wilpen Hall gained additional attention through preservation efforts. In the early 2010s, a preservation easement was placed on the property, protecting its historic facades and terraced gardens, though not without legal disputes among Snyder family members over the arrangement and its impact on neighboring properties . Today, Wilpen still stands as one of Sewickley Heights’ last intact Gilded Age estates—a testament to the wealth and social aspirations of its era, captured in its architecture, grounds, and continuing legacy.
