Bulletin Article - May 2005

A BRIEF HISTORY OF 212 WARWICK ROAD
by Kathy Tassini

Around 1871, John Yackley, a German immigrant who was a gardener for many of the large estates in Haddonfield, built a simple Victorian farmhouse on the property that is today 212 Warwick Road. On the 1 1/3 acre site he also operated a nursery, growing plants which he used in his gardening work. In the late 1870's, Yackley sold the property to an English coffee and tea importer named Frederick Sutton. Sutton had married a woman whose family owned the adjoining Victorian mansion at 200 Warwick Road. That house was demolished when Moore Lane was developed in the 1960's.

Frederick Sutton completely renovated the Yackley house in 1886 and turned it into the Queen Anne Victorian that exists today. He added bays to the existing structure, added the north side wing, which contains the front porch, entry hall and room to the right that has been used at various times as a music room, study, and pool room. He expanded the kitchens, added chimneys and a furnace for "central heat," and made the house a more elegant Victorian home.

Frederick Sutton was a successful and prominent businessman in Philadelphia and Haddonfield. He made frequent trips to England to visit and conduct business. On those trips he purchased some of the materials found in the house, including the fireplace tiles, most of which are Minton tiles. The tiles in the dining room are well-known and identified places in England, Scotland, Wales and Germany made by Minton in the 1880's. The crystal chandeliers are the original gas chandeliers converted to electric. Some have speculated that they are Waterford crystal, but based on Sutton's frequent trips home to England, it more likely that they are English crystal. In each room, the carvings in the fireplace mantle are mirrored in the plaster ceiling medallions. The ceiling mouldings are original plaster. The large pocket doors to the living room and pool room are original, as is the original trim in the front of the house, all made of solid walnut.

Unfortunately, in 1912, Sutton returned from one of his trips to England as a first class passenger on the Titanic; he was one of the many casualties. His widow lived in the house until her death in the 1930's when their daughter, Florence Sutton Tomlin, and her family inherited the house. Florrie Tomlin's husband was a dentist who built an office, one room of which remains as the "garden house," on the north side of the property. The Tomlin family lived here happily until about 1940, when the house was sold out of the family to the Moorehead family. During World War II, the house was turned into three apartments, one on each floor, and the dental office was converted to a rental house.

The property continued as apartments until around 1960. At that time it was bought by a blended family with a number of children who lived in it as a single family house. The grandparents lived in the old dental office/house. During this era, the large second floor of the carriage house was used by Haddonfield Plays and Players as a rehearsal site and a nine hole chip-and-put golf course was set up through the property. It was called "Warwick Pines" and local non-profits were allowed to use it for fund-raising events.

In the late 1970's the family put the house on the market but had trouble selling it because it needed a great deal of work; it had never been architecturally re-converted to single family use. Finally a family who loved old houses bought the house and did a major restoration. They had a copy of the original front staircase (which had been moved to the new "back hall" when the apartments were made) built and installed. They restored the fireplaces, freed up the pocket doors, and restored the original flow of the second and third floors. They went to the zoning board and offered to demolish all but one room of the badly deteriorated office/house in exchange for permission to have a legal apartment in the carriage house. The change was approved. All but one room of the office was demolished and the carriage house second floor was turned into a residential apartment.

In 1983 when those owners were transferred to Michigan, they contacted friends who had an interest in historic properties to tell them that the house would be going on the market. The friends, who are the current owners, were restoring a turn-of-the-century property in Haddonfield. They immediately agreed to buy the property at 212 Warwick Road and used many of the same workmen to restore both of their projects.

The kitchen, family room and patio were added or renovated in 1985 by architect William Gallo, who, at the time, was chairman of the Haddonfield Preservation Commission. The original Victorian front and side porches were restored by the current owners in the late 1980's. The porches had been replaced with "colonial revival" ones during the Tomlin family's tenure. When they required restoration work, the decision was made to return to the Victorian originals. The house is in the Haddonfield Historic District and is listed on the State and National Registers of Historic Places.