Before there was an internet, and before Multiple Listing Service (MLS), real estate brochures were the way to sell an estate, and there were several estates in Upper Merion.
Here is an excerpt from the brochure for “Hilltop Farm” . . . in Radnor [actually located in Upper Merion Township], is a palatial and magnificently built stone home on twenty seven lovely acres with a large swimming pool . . .a property that is ideal for a school, club, cultural or religious use, etc. . . . residential sub-division opportunity for nineteen to twenty five lots . . . in an attractive section of the Main Line, about one mile to Gulph Interchange of the Schuylkill Expressway and to Gulph Mills Railroad Station. It is convenient, too, to Penn Central and good shopping.
In 1972 a request was made to Upper Merion Township to change the zoning of the “Hilltop Farm” estate so the Armenians Sisters Academy could establish their school on the property.
Finally, after eight years of moving from one facility to another, in October 1975, the Armenian Sisters opened their academy on Upper Gulph Road.
The first students of the new school building eagerly crossed the threshold of a magnificent structure that was now the permanent home of the Armenian Sisters Academy. In 2004, after years of discussing, planning and designing, a new 24,000 square foot expansion and renovation was completed.
This brochure for the “Hilltop Farm” estate was submitted to Upper Merion Township in 1972 with other paperwork requesting a zoning change so that the Armenian Sisters Academy could be established. (Courtesy of Upper Merion Township)
