Woodmere Celebrates Grand Opening of Maguire Hall
With more than 100 years of history, Woodmere has acquired its fair share of art. The Chestnut Hill museum owns more than 11,000 pieces — a collection of paintings, sculptures, and photographs centered around the art and artists of Philadelphia and the region.
However, many of these works have gone unseen by the public, stored in vaults at Woodmere’s Charles Knox Smith Hall. Space constraints hindered the museum’s ability to display more of its collection — until now.
The brand new Frances M. Maguire Hall for Art and Education is celebrating its grand opening on Nov. 1 and 2. Located just blocks away from Woodmere’s main building, the Victorian mansion and former convent has undergone extensive renovations since it was purchased by the institution in 2021.
According to William Valerio, director and chief executive officer of Woodmere, this significant expansion was an “extraordinary opportunity” for the museum.
“If I were to say, what is the transformative aspect of this expansion of the institution?” he said, the answer “is to show the world that Woodmere’s collection is one of the great collections of American art.”
A storied history
Maguire Hall’s history dates back to the 1850s, when a metals merchant named William Henry Trotter commissioned the mansion for his new bride, Maria Louisa Farr. The building then passed through the hands of several industrialists, including Alfred Craven Harrison, who built additions to the house. By the 1920s, the Sisters of Saint Joseph acquired the property and renamed it Saint Michael’s Hall.
Flashing forward to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Sisters recognized it was time to pass the torch of ownership. Valerio and his team at Woodmere believed the institution would be the perfect fit to honor the history of the estate while also giving it a new purpose.
The Maguire Foundation, a nonprofit committed to investing in the arts and humanities, made a lead gift of $10 million to rename the building after Frances “Frannie” Maguire, an artist and Woodmere trustee who died in 2020. Other donor contributions followed and before long, renovations began.
Entering the 21st century
The transformation of a Victorian mansion into a modern museum required considerable effort. Baird Architects, of New York, and Krieger Architects in Chestnut Hill worked diligently to both preserve the building’s character and history, while also installing 21st-century requirements, such as smoke detectors, sprinklers, exit signs, an elevator, and climate control systems.
“The real trick of this renovation was taking a building that was built as a residence in 1855 or 1890, depending on what part of the house you’re talking about, and bringing it up to public safety standards and museum standards in 2025,” Valerio said.
Consider, for example, the exterior of Maguire Hall. The entrance plaza is a circle so that a horse-pulled carriage coming up Lincoln Drive could easily drop off passengers and turn around. Woodmere maintained this circular shape while still meeting modern codes, adding an accessibility ramp that curves around the plaza.