Page 13 - Main Line Today - Top Realtors 2021

Inside a greenhouse.
(Below) the pool and poolhouse.
“THREE LARGE COMMERCIAL-GRADE GREENHOUSES PROVIDE A YEAR- ROUND PROFUSION OF FLOWERS, INCLUDING AN ARRAY OF ORCHIDS.
ROCK HILL
FARM BY THE
NUMBERS
Sale price: $38 million.
Grounds: 222 acres.
Main house: 14,031 square feet.
Bedrooms: 10.
Bathrooms: seven full, four half.
Amenities: Pool with poolhouse.
Garages: six.
Secondary dwellings: five.
Barns: three.
Greenhouses: three.
Additional buildings: Stables, springhouse, pig shed, tea house.
The fine print: This property is also being offered as two separate lots.
Indeed. Leaves that fall on the velvet lawns surrounding the house are swept away daily by a team of five full-time groundskeepers. Views of the manicured grounds are glimpsed through large sparkling windows. There’s a pool and a poolhouse. The red slate roof was recently replaced for $1 million. The pillars at the gates were constructed from river rock and field stone collected by farmers who tilled the fields in the 1700s. Flowers and other
plantings at the entry are changed with
the seasons. “You kind of catch your breath every time you go through the gates,” Aezen says. “Just the foliage along the approach gives you the feeling that you’re arriving at a resort.”
FAITHFULLY PRESERVED
Since 1985, Rock Hill has been meticulously maintained and faithfully preserved by the family of Tristram
C. Colket Jr., a grandson of John T. Dorrance Sr., founder of the Campbell Soup fortune. The estate came on the market after Colket died in 2020 at age 82. He was a longtime supporter and later board member of Children’s Hospital
of Philadelphia, eventually becoming chairman of the Research Institute.
Rock Hill is an ideal home for a philanthropist, with all the amenities needed for fundraising and other
large-scale entertaining. Multiple sets of French doors open onto walled verandas. An expansive, wood-paneled dining room can seat 40 guests, and there’s a large, strategically located wet bar off the entry hall. Custom mahogany panels cover the top when the bar is not in use, “so it looks like a piece of furniture,” the agent notes.
Three large commercial-grade greenhouses provide a year-round profusion of flowers, including an array of orchids. “They grow things from tiny sprouts on up,” Aezen says. “There are always flowers in the house, and they’re simply jaw-dropping.”
BUILT TO LAST
Constructed in 1900, the colonial-
style main house reflects an era when craftsmanship and natural materials were at their zenith. Six fireplaces are ornately carved from wood and marble, each in
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