How West Rockhill Holiday House became a magnet for distressed Philadelphia families
I think of Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s Eve when I hear the term “holiday house”. You know, historic house tours, parties, holiday toasts, a kiss under the mistletoe. But as the name for a summer recreational center? We have such a place in historic Sellersville and West Rockhill in Upper Bucks County. The two jointly manage Holiday House. It’s a public swimming pool and playground.
There was a time when Holiday House was in fact a house. Every summer it drew impoverished women and children seeking relief from heat and foul air in Philadelphia 35 miles away. For about 70 years, beginning in the late 1800s they would head to the borough, now observing its 150th anniversary of its incorporation amid yearlong celebrations.
In 1890, Philadelphia’s Episcopal Church of the Holy Trinity on affluent Rittenhouse Square started a Fresh Air fund to sponsor vacations for distressed women and children who lived near factories and oil refineries in overcrowded neighborhoods. Up to that time, you had to have money to “go on holiday” outside the city. The response to the initiative was overwhelming. It became obvious a large, permanent retreat had to be built. All eyes turned to Sellersville with its abundant open space and easy access via railroad, trolley, and Bethlehem Pike.
The church purchased nearly 16 acres in West Rockhill on a ridge overlooking town and its branch of Perkiomen Creek. In 1895, the church built a 35-room, three-story Queen Anne-style manor house on the property to house visitors. Demand and donations soared. Additional amenities sprouted including an outdoor chapel, recreation hall and two-story caretaker’s cottage.
As many as 60 women and children with chaperones would arrive for 2-week stays. Summer was a reverie highlighted by hayrides and woodland strolls through an Eden-like setting. Other delights included splashing around in the creek, playground games, malt sodas and ice cream at local drugstores and moving picture shows at the Sellersville cinema. Local farms amazed the kids. “They were fascinated by farm animals. They didn’t know what a chicken was or had ever seen a cow. It was a totally different world to them,” said Sellersville historian Tim Hufnagle.
Borough residents pitched in offering postcards to send home, taxi rides, food deliveries and staffing the kitchen.
By the mid-1960s, Holy Trinity’s congregation no longer could support the mission. In 1969, it sold the property to a joint commission of West Rockhill and Sellersville that a year later opened an Olympic-sized public swimming pool at the newly branded Holiday House Recreation Center. The boarded-up manor house had to be razed in 1975. The chapel followed in 1986, as did the recreation hall in 2022. The remodeled caretaker’s cottage became a private residence.
The center continues to be popular for day camps and basketball, tennis and handball courts. The joint authority is seeking donations to cover needed pool upgrades in the future. Not to be lost is the history that took root with author Hufnagle when he was a child and later pool lifeguard. Boarded up original buildings intrigued him. By the time he was a grad student, he decided to write his master’s thesis on Holiday House. “I thought to myself you don’t hear about a place like Sellersville being a vacation destination for inner city families. It’s a shame this doesn’t exist anymore.”
Mike McLaughlin, 79, of West Chester shares that sentiment. He described to me his stay at Holiday House in the 1950s. “I was 10 years old living in southwest Philadelphia. Me, my twin brothers, and sister were used to going to the Jersey Shore. We weren’t too crazy about going to Sellersville instead. But Dad drove us up and dropped us off with Mom. This turned out to be a totally different thing for us.”
There were long walks in the countryside, fishing in a local pond and meeting all the other kids from the city. “We were so sad on leaving,” Mike said. “We cried.”
Sources include Timothy D. Hufnagle’s Master’s thesis “Holiday House” published by Bowling Green State University in 2004, and “A Brief History of Holy Trinity’s Holiday House” published in 2003 by the Episcopal church.
Carl LaVO can be reached at [email protected]
This article originally appeared on Bucks County Courier Times: Holiday House was a summer retreat for Philly families escaping the heat