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North Hill Farm A PIECE OF PARADISE IN CHESTER SPRINGS Laurel Anderson
“T
HIS IS A PLACE THAT NEEDS A FAMILY TO enjoy all it has to offer,” says the owner as she takes in the view from the gate to the pool area. “Even though I’ll miss throwing parties here, like our July 4th gathering, it’s time.” The view is across the lush 64-acre Chester Springs property, dotted with a historic house, iconic stone barn, red-painted chicken coop/converted playhouse, charming springhouse and striking stone ruins of a bygone barn. And the focal point is the glimmering pool—with waterfall and Jacuzzi—encircled by tasteful hardscaping, stone walls and flowering hydrangeas, cone flowers, crepe myrtles and butterfly bushes attracting more than their share of flitting butterflies. Purchased about 15 years ago to be a family gathering spot for children and grandchildren to enjoy, the property had previously been a dairy farm, as the huge barn attests. Plans were to raise llamas, alpacas and livestock, along with corn
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County Lines | September 2021 | CountyLinesMagazine.com
and other produce befitting life as a gentleman farmer. But life happens, and plans change. Now North Hill Farm is ready for its next family to make it home. A LITTLE HISTORY
As sometimes happens in this history-rich neighborhood of West Vincent Township, the 1797 stone manor house on North Hill Farm that Thomas Rooke built is just down Fellowship Road from his brother Robert Rooke’s house, at the intersection of Horseshoe Trail. Both members of an old Chester County family, the brothers constructed solid 18th-century fieldstone homes that were later expanded over time to evolve into the stately Georgian houses you see now—classic structures gracing quiet roads throughout Chester County. Robert’s house, Mill Farm, was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1973, while Thomas’s house, part of the West
