Page 58 - The Hunt - Fall 2021

Just off Phoenixville Pike north of West Chester, the sign to Greystone Hall points past an abandoned gatehouse to a road winding down into a ravine. The route twists through the woods
until it emerges uphill for a glimpse of an old manor house perched atop a rise, finally coming to an end at a cul-de-sac and covered entryway.
Velda Moog emerges through the entry doors with a friendly greet- ing, launching into an explanation for the horseless sleigh parked off to the side. “I saw it at an auction,” says Moog, who’s a local attorney. “I actually wanted to buy something else, but they didn’t see my bid and someone else got it. So I had to buy the sleigh.”
She goes on to explain the long, winding driveway. “The idea with these old estate houses was that they needed a long drive so they could be approached from the best angles,” Moog says.
The history of Greystone itself is like the road leading to it—a circuitous path through the previous century that involves two prominent families (one Moog’s) and arrives at its current status as
a grand event space that barely shows its age. Although COVID has slowed down rentals temporarily, the grand stone structure has hosted scores of weddings, grand dinners, corporate events and even a mystery theater presentation that cascades from room to room. “We normally host about 20 to 30 events a year,” says Moog as she sets off on a tour of the premises. “Once we had up to 60 annually, but that proved to be too hard on the house.”
“Greystone was built as a good house for a time when the wealthy had servants—but not a good house if you don’t.”
The entry at Greystone leads to a hallway that runs through the main wing—the public part of the house—with a game room and function rooms off to the left. To the right, there’s a library, a reception room, a central hallway, and music and dining rooms. The latter has a long table that looks like it could be the centerpiece for a classic whodunit film. Moog opens the doors that lead to a large patio and the bones of an events tent. Beyond that is a spacious lawn and a pergola in the distance. “Pergolas were the signature of Charles Barton Keen, the architect of Greystone,” she says. “This one has 48 columns.”
For an active 35 years spanning the end of the 19th century and
the beginning of the 20th, Keen designed many of the grand houses along the Main Line for people with both old and new money. Later in his career, the Philadelphia-based architect did the same for tobacco families in North Carolina. If recently built multimillion-dollar homes in the Chester County countryside are considered McMansions,
think of Keen’s works as English-style McManor houses. Some—like Greystone—came with sufficient country acreage. Others were strictly big houses on smaller lots.
56 THE HUNT MAGAZINE
fall 2021