Wilpen Hall's massive rehab to former splendor a lifelong undertaking

There's a certain thrilling anticipation felt when passing through the impressive stone entryway of Wilpen Hall in Sewickley Heights. Emerging from a wooded stretch of the long driveway is kind of like coming out of the Fort Pitt Tunnel. Visitors are greeted by the estate's magnificent stone facade covered with an ancient and massive wisteria vine.

“It's just incredible,” Verna Corey says of the plant when it blooms. “It looks beautiful because of the pale purple flowers. The scent when you are walking toward the house is just delightful.”

The thick, gnarled roots of the vine are the size of tree trunks. She thinks it was planted in 1907.

Corey, 70, was married to William Penn Snyder III from 2007 until his death in February. They lived together here in the Wilpen Hall estate and had spent the past few years restoring the property.

Standing under the vine with estate manager Martin Maines, who's the man behind this massive renovation, she turns to him and says proudly: “He can do anything.”

Maines is too humble to acknowledge the comment. Looking up at the front of the house, he says: “I belong to Wilpen.”

It's obvious the two have a special relationship. She makes him laugh with her dry wit every few steps as they conduct a tour of the grounds together. It seems as though they are partners in this colossal undertaking, not owner and worker.

Her characterization, though, of his association with her late husband gets the best reaction of the day. Why did she choose Maines for the job?

“I didn't,” Corey says. “My husband's driver suggested Martin. They met and apparently fell in love with each other. I was just really glad that two weeks later, I didn't get postcards from Bermuda saying, ‘Do whatever you want with the house; we've found true happiness.'”

When the laughter subsides, Maines, standing in a small pergola, looks over an expansive lawn and talks about the effort to restore the grounds.

“As a result of our construction, we have destroyed a lot of the gardens,” he says. “So, we are now putting them back.”

The mission

Wilpen Hall was completed in 1900 for iron and steel baron William Penn Snyder. A lawsuit settled early this year contested an easement given to the Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation to prevent the property from ever being torn down and allowing it to be open to the public for tours, exhibits and demonstrations. Since then, the gardens have been showcased on the Sewickley Garden Tour.

In its heyday, Wilpen Hall had a huge staff for the house and grounds, but as times changed, the staff got smaller, the owners got busier, the estate slowly deteriorated, and the patriarch of the family just got used to it as it declined.

Maines attributes the comeback to Corey, who told her husband: “My God, we've got to save it.” Once inspired, bringing Wilpen back to its former glory became Snyder's mission.

“This was his life's work,” she says. “It was good for Wilpen Hall, but it was really good for my husband.”

The first job Maines had in mind was to fix the roof and work from the top down, which saw 15,000 square feet of clay tile installed. Period-correct copper gutters were installed, and pointing all the stone work still continues.

“The list is long,” says Maines, 52. “This is one where you hand the ball off. I don't think I'll live long enough to finish the job.”

Is he planning on working here until retirement?

“No,” Corey interjects. “Until he dies — forget retirement, until he dies,” she says with a smile. “If I'm going to be here until I die, he has to stay.”

At the very top of a black metal gate for the vegetable garden, a sign reads “Bill's Farm,” named for Snyder.

“I'm a fairly decent cook,” Corey says. “He loved the idea that I could come out here and pick our dinner.”

This year, the garden is filled with tomatoes, Brussels sprouts and a good crop of beans, too. Wild, vining ornamental gourds have overtaken a fence on one side of the garden. Scrap pieces of copper with an aged patina act as labels for the plants.

Within sight of the house, Tommy Tigertail, a cat that runs the house and keeps the moles at bay, sits quietly guarding freshly picked onions, drying on an old stone ledge outside the kitchen window.

As the pair steps into the cutting garden, Corey sees a sunflower head laying at the foot of the garden gate. It was put there by gardener Ralph Barca as a treat for the resident wild turkeys — Elizabeth, Henrietta and their brood.

“We feed everything,” Corey says. And though the deer are fenced out of this area, even they get some food.

The cutting garden

There's a rainbow of colors as butterflies flit from flower to flower. Zinnias, cosmos and the most beautiful double pink hollyhocks are covered with monarchs, swallowtails and other pollinators who feast on the summer blooms.

A plethora of dahlias in a range of colors tower over the couple as they stroll through the garden. It was one of Corey's husband's favorite flowers. At the end of every season, the tubers are dug, stored and then replanted in the spring.

When a house has two rooms dedicated to flower vases, this garden is important.

“We keep the house filled with flowers,” Corey says.

She often sits on an outdoor, second-floor porch, which overlooks the garden where she receives “joy, endless joy” from the flowers.

It's anyone's guess how long ago the seven old-fashioned peony beds have been faithfully blooming at the edge of the lawn.

Two white benches from New Orleans, dating to 1820, face each other a hundred yards apart on this expansive lawn adjacent to the house. When the movie “Foxcatcher” was filmed at Wilpen, producers were intrigued by them. They informed Maines and Corey that the benches match a pair in the Rose Garden at the White House and rented them for a project.

The formal garden in the front of the house has been destroyed by the construction project. Dried mud is formed in thick tire tracks from heavy vehicles. Looking over the mess, Corey has a vision for what it will become. “First is just to get a lawn back,” she says, “and then, next year, we'll do even more.”

Huge hydrangeas filled with giant white flower heads are all over the estate and line a descending walk bordered by a rock garden slowly coming back to life. It was covered for 50 years with weeds and garden debris but has surprisingly bounced back with a little help from the gardener.

An aerial photo of Wilpen shot in 1930 shows the four-tiered gardens behind the house. Although there's no way to know what plants are in those gardens, it's a starting point for Maines to consider when rehabilitating the grounds.

Maines started as a laborer in high school and spent his life honing his craft as a carpentry contractor. He eventually became an expert in preservation and renovation but was tired of working on projects restricted by time, budget and driven by profit.

Standing in the shadow of a tall, dark stone wall dating to the 1920s at the bottom of the fourth tier, he explains why this job is so important to him:

“When you see a place like this, it's pure, it's original, and to restore it and do it the right way, it's why I did this in the first place. How do you say no? It's a realization of your life's work.”

Doug Oster is the Home & Garden editor for Trib Total Media. He can be reached at doster@tribweb.com.

Article by Doug Oster,
Everybody Gardens http://www.everybodygardens.com

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