The Manor House at Woodmont
Fusion of Heaven and Earth
The Palace Mission Church Owns the Woodmont Estate at 1622 Spring Mill Road opposite the Philadelphia Country Club in Gladwyne, Pennsylvania.
In 1953, FATHER DIVINE dedicated and consecrated the estate as the Mount of the House of the LORD, which HE had previously described on June 24, 1953 as
'...the repetition of history ... as it was with the building of the Temple of the LORD in Jerusalem, in Mount Moriah, so it is in the rebuilding of the Temple of the LORD . . . at Philadelphia in Woodmont.'THE NEW DAY, September 15, 1979, p.4-5
According to Biblical prophecy in Isaiah 2:2-3:
'And it shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of the LORD'S house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow unto it
'And many people shall go and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths: for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem.'
This prophecy is repeated in almost identical language in Micah 4:1-2
Woodmont was built in 1892 at an estimated cost of one million dollars by the Honorable Alan Wood, Jr., founder of the Alan Wood Steel Company of Conshohocken. William L. Price was the architect. In 1929 Woodmont was purchased by J. Hector McNeal, corporation lawyer and noted horseman, who modernized it considerably. In later years, as an ardent admirer of the Work of FATHER DIVINE, Mrs. McNeal expressed the desire that Woodmont would some day come into the possession of followers of FATHER DIVINE and in 1952, after her demise, the property was placed on sale by executors of the estate and the Palace Mission Church purchased it for $75,000 cash.
One year later, on September 10, 11, 12, 1953, after extensive restoration, Woodmont was opened to the public, and the estate once called
'one of the most magnificent estates in Pennsylvania,'
a symbol of the Age of Elegance when the American tycoon became her aristocracy, moved into another era, the Age of Peace and Brotherhood under the Fatherhood of GOD.
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