Eliza C. Hartel

1-3 N. Lansdowne Avenue, Lansdowne, PA

1889-90 | Residence + Store | Demolished 1955

“Miss Minerva Parker, architect, 14 S. Broad Street, has completed plans…also for a store and dwelling, for Mrs. E.C. Hartell, to be erected at Lansdowne, Pa., size 40 x 56 feet; three stories high, built of granite, slate roof, electric bells, plate and stained glass windows and all conveniences.” (October 23, 1889)

“Miss Minerva Parker, 14 South Broad Street, Phila., has plans for a residence for Mrs. Hartell, this spring, at Lansdowne, Pa.” (February 12, 1890)

“…also, a stone store and dwelling, erected at Lansdowne, PA, for Mrs. E.C. Hartel.” (March 26, 1890)

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Eliza C. Hartel and her husband John were grocers. John was a veteran of the Civil War, having fought in the battles at Gettysburg and Antietam. Upon returning home after the war, he worked in carriage making, mining, and as a foreman for the Knickerbocker Ice Company, before starting the grocery store with Eliza. (The two were married in 1880). This Minerva-designed commission appears to represent the launch of their business, as they started around the same time this project was advertised.

John Hartel died in 1903, and Eliza carried on the grocery business without him (with assistance from at least one of their children). Eliza was known to be a “very energetic and ambitious woman,” and was apparently a character: on two separate occasions, she mounted one-woman protests against local municipal workers tearing up the walks and trolley poles outside her store, clinging to the poles for hours at a time until the workers agreed to her terms for street improvements.

Based on the building’s footprint in historic maps, the house/store seen in the photographs below is generally consistent with Minerva’s original design, but it does reflect alterations/additions (likely, the ones Eliza Hartel hired the Lansdowne Construction Company to complete in 1913).