Celebrated horticulturalist J. Liddon Pennock once declared ‘In a way, I’m a fake. People think I know a great deal more about plants than I do.’ But as Meadowbrook Farm illuminates, his legacy says otherwise. The 20 acre estate in Jenkintown, PA was built in 1936, a gift to Pennock from his in-laws upon his marriage to sweetheart Alice Herkness. His father owned a flower shop in Philadelphia and during the Great Depression, Pennock left college help run the family business and try to save it from closure. He not only turned the shop into a thriving success, but he became one of the most acclaimed florists on the East Coast. He decorated the weddings for local debutantes and socialites, including Grace Kelly’s sister, Margaret (‘I would have done Grace Kelly’s wedding if she had been married in Philadelphia.’) Pennock also worked his magic at the White House during the Nixon administration, furnishing Tricia Nixon Cox’s wedding and doing up a garden party in honor of Prince Charles and Princess Ann.
After selling his shop in 1970, Pennock turned his focus back home, building a retail nursery and greenhouses on his Meadowbrook Farm residence. After his passing in 2003, the property was bequeathed to the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society (PHS), the non-profit group that produces the Philadelphia Flower Show, where Pennock was once chairman. Today, Meadowbrook Farm offers tours of the house, a gorgeous English Cotswold style mansion with rooms as richly outfitted as Pennock himself. (His penchant for sweater vests and bow ties won him many a Best-Dressed award.) Outside, follow the lush gardens as they wind around stone stairways, pools, and patios. Meadowbrook’s nurseries offer some of the finest flowers and foliage in the area, one or two of which you’ll probably want to take home with you. You’ve been warned.