Deal could preserve historic Main Line inn
A historic Main Line inn and a CVS pharmacy might find a way to live together after all. Chester County preservationists and residents who have been fighting to save the Old Covered Wagon Inn in Strafford scored a victory last week when a developer produced revised plans for the drug store that call for accommodating the 18th-century structure rather than razing it.
A historic Main Line inn and a CVS pharmacy might find a way to live together after all.
Chester County preservationists and residents who have been fighting to save the Old Covered Wagon Inn in Strafford scored a victory last week when a developer produced revised plans for the drug store that call for accommodating the 18th-century structure rather than razing it.
Summit Realty, an Ambler-based developer, submitted the new proposal to Tredyffrin Township on Friday. It would allow the fieldstone inn to remain at Lancaster Avenue and Old Eagle School Road, said Zachary Barner, the township's planning and zoning coordinator. The CVS would be built beside it on the 1.7-acre tract.
"We're glad they were able to go back to the drawing board and get through some issues and save the building, because there was a clear public outcry," Barner said.
Summit said in February it would work with the township on a compromise. That came on the heels of a community campaign to spare the building, including an online petition with more than 4,280 signatures.
The Covered Wagon was once a tavern along the country's first turnpike. In its 20th-century heyday, President Richard M. Nixon dined there, Duke Ellington played, and legions of Main Liners gathered for wedding receptions, proms, fund-raisers, Rotary Club meetings - fondly remembered by supporters as reasons to save the place.
Summit said that it would restore the building's exterior and that the property's owner, John G. Hoopes, would handle interior renovations in the hope of finding a business to lease the building, according to Barner.
Pattye Benson, president of the nonprofit Tredyffrin Historic Preservation Trust, led the effort to save the inn. In a blog post Monday night, she wrote that she was thrilled that local history could coexist with a CVS.
"The saving of the Old Covered Wagon Inn is a home run for historic preservation in Tredyffrin Township," she wrote.
The township's engineers must review the resubmission. The Planning Commission is scheduled to discuss it May 19.
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