Wyncote Man Researches Lindenwold Castle Architect

For more than a decade, Wyncote resident Leopoldo Montoya has been on a personal mission to track down details of a long-ago Lansdale architect who lived his life in virtual obscurity.

Montoya’s target was Milton B. Bean, designer of hundreds of residential and commercial buildings during the Victorian era, a man who worked from his modest home of Green Street for more than 30 years.

Montoya’s research, which is still incomplete, has earned him the 2012 Edwin G. Holl Historic Achievement Award, which will be presented by the Lansdale Historical Society at its annual banquet, April 10 at .

The retired Drexel University librarian set out on his mission in the late 1990s after buying a Bean-designed house on Washington Lane. Impressed by its unique features, he sought more information about the architect only to come up empty-handed.

“There just wasn’t much of anything out there,” Montoya says. “I finally found another house that could be traced to him, then another and another, but for the most part, he flew under the radar. He received so little credit.”

As Montoya began piecing Bean’s story together he learned of his early life in Upper Bucks County, his work as a carpenter before turning to the drawing board, and his arrival in Lansdale, where his career as an architect took root.

Even in his adopted hometown, Bean was largely underappreciated. He designed Lansdale’s Tremont House, the Broad Street School, the Music Hall Theater, Geller’s Grand Emporium, and Trinity Lutheran Church along with dozens of private homes, both stately and pedestrian.

Although most of the borough’s residents knew he was an architect he seldom advertised his services in a newspaper as many of his competitors did. In fact, he was best known as the man who built Lansdale’s first horseless carriage in 1899.

Even the historical society had no idea of Bean’s extensive resume until Montoya began digging deep for answers.

“What made it so frustrating is that very few of Bean’s original architectural drawings have survived over the years, “Montoya says. “I’ve found a few here and there, but most I assume were destroyed.”

Instead he must rely on brief newspaper mentions here and there, bills or receipts for Bean’s services, business records or occasionally notes passed down from owner to owner about a building’s origins. In many cases, he has had to make educated guesses based on unique turrets, window treatments, porch trim or roof lines that Bean worked into many of his designs.

Although his work is far from completed, Montoya estimates that Bean may have drawn up plans for nearly a thousand buildings in eastern Pennsylvania.

Among his credits were , the original Trinity Memorial Church and dozens of public and private structures in the Ambler area; Norristown’s Garrick Theater; many stately lawyers’ houses in Norristown and Doylestown; what is now the Univest headquarters building in Souderton; summer hotels in central Pennsylvania, and scores of churches throughout Montgomery and Bucks counties.

Last November, Montoya presented a society-sponsored community program in which he described the wide range of Bean’s work. It featured many photographs of Bean-designed buildings that are still standing. In the near future the Historical Society of Montgomery County will publish an essay Montoya has written on the subject.

The Holl Award has been presented annually since 2005 to a person, organization or business that promotes North Penn area history through education, preservation, research or personal accomplishment. Senator Holl, a long-time member of the society, was instrumental in developing its research center.

The banquet begins at 6 p.m. and is open to the public. Reservations ($35/$40 per person) can be made by calling the society (215) 855-1872, or by downloading a reservations form at the society’s website (www.lansdalehistory.org). The deadline is April 3. A DVD of Bean’s work is also available at the same site.

(Dick Shearer is president of the Lansdale Historical Society.)