Hood Mansion
Brief History
The Hood Mansion "Bessie Belle" located in Limerick, PA was built in 1834 by John McClellan Hood, a 1st generation Irish immigrant. He built it as a summer home for his wife and his thirteen children to escape the diseases that swept through Philadelphia in the early to mid 1800s during the summer months.
Most notably, John's son, Washington, was the 500th graduate of West Point Academy in 1827. He then went on to become Captain of the Corps of Topographical Engineers in the US Army, and he is attributed with mapping large portions of the Oregon Terroritory and the Northwest. Additionally, he worked quite a bit with Robert E. Lee. Unfortunately, he passed at the young age of 32 from Yellow Fever. His mother & father erected a monument in his honor at their beloved summer home in Limerick, just outside the family crypt where John, Elizabeth, and Montgomery Hood were later laid to rest alongside Washington.
The Hood Mansion is notable for its largely unchanged appearance from its 1834 construction. The home remained in the Hood family up until the 1980s, when it was sold at auction to a developer, who had plans to incorporate it into a golf course he planned to build. Sadly, those plans never panned out, and the developer rented the house out to a series of caretakers until 2008, when it was sold to Boyd Gaming.
Boyd planned to raze the mansion, and erect a large casino on the property. These plans were ultimately denied, and the home was left abandoned.
The home remained largely untouched and in quite remarkable condition until 2016, when vandals broke in and began to smash windows, steal architectural elements, and graffiti the walls. In 2017, our organization became aware of the mansion, and set out on a mission to acquire and preserve the home.
Sadly, Boyd Gaming was unwilling to communicate with us in any way. Three years ago, Boyd sold the property to a developer out of Brooklyn, NY who plans on building a warehouse complex on the property.
EPPS is currently working alongside the Limerick Township Historical Society to secure the monument, and any other historical artifacts before demolition.
Additionally, EPPS has reached an agreement with the current owner that the mansion can be moved off the property, for free, in a timely fashion. This is the last hope for us to #SaveHood.
