The Aston Terrace Hotel
On June 18, 1870, Charles "Squire" Thon, a Justice of the Peace in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, rode the train from the village of Pomeroy located west of Coatesville to Downingtown. Thon was staying the night at the Pennsylvania House Hotel which was sandwiched between the railroad tracks and Lancaster Avenue and next to Downingtown's train station which at that time was located on the north side of the tracks. Around 10:45 that night he heard frantic cries from outside – Downingtown's new hotel was on fire! Thon went to see for himself and about a quarter mile down the tracks he could see the building was in flames. The fire was so large it was said that the light from the flames could be seen in Pottstown, 17 miles away and even in Oxford, 20 miles away! The hotel was completely destroyed. Thon later wrote in his diary: "the conflagration of the large structure was a grand sight; even the sparks, representing artificial stars, ornamented the horizon for surrounding miles."
This print of the Aston Terrace Hotel is currently hanging at the Downingtown Area Historical Society.
The Aston Terrace Hotel was just weeks away from completion when it burned down on that warm Saturday night. The project's main developer, Joshua Kames, had arrived in the Downingtown area nearly a decade earlier and launched several businesses, including the town’s first gas and water company. However, Kames had a less-than-stellar reputation – his personal promiscuity and legal troubles in business seemed to follow him wherever he went, both before and after the hotel went up in flames.
Nevertheless, the hotel was an impressive structure and a source of great pride for the town. Like other hotels emerging along the Main Line at the time, it was designed to attract wealthy Philadelphians seeking respite from the city's summer heat by offering a cooler and more tranquil country retreat with easy train access.
Kames hired William Bernshouse to construct the 100-room hotel. Bernshouse was from New Jersey and built some of the first homes in Atlantic City. Workers at the site in Downingtown, many of whom lost their tools in the fire, were putting the final touches on the hotel as they were getting ready for its grand opening in early July.
The Aston Terrace Hotel was located on a 20-acre tract (in yellow). The approximate location of the hotel is outlined in red. The hotel's footprint was determined by analyzing historic aerial photographs which still showed the flat terrace (albeit faint) the building was constructed on as well as current topography. The cul-de-sac of Donofrio Drive is located about in the center of where the hotel stood.
Its location was ideal. The hotel was built on 20 acres of land just south of the railroad and west of the train station. It was located on a shelf of a hill, situated approximately across from a point midway between what is now Hunt Avenue and Aston Avenue. At the time, half of the hotel property was in Downingtown Borough and half in Caln Township, thought the hotel itself was entirely in Downingtown.
A rendering of the hotel was drawn, and though there was a bit(!) of artistic license taken, it was nevertheless a beautiful building and would no doubt have been a popular destination for years. The hotel's frontage facing the railroad was three hundred feet and it had two wings on each side extending two hundred feet to the south. The center and each end of the building had ornamented towers and a veranda ran across the entire front. Guests with rooms at the front of the hotel would look out on a beautiful scene of meadows, woods, and farms set against the north valley hills. Carriage paths and walking trails wound throughout the property.
This image was taken on West Lancaster Avenue in Downingtown between Hunt and Aston Avenues. The front of the Aston Terrace Hotel would have stood a little further back from these homes seen above the cab of the locomotive.
The drawing depicts a bridge crossing over the railroad from Lancaster Avenue to Aston Terrace. A bridge was constructed about at this location to span the tracks laid between 1832 and 1834 by the Philadelphia and Columbia Railroad. It was built because the railroad bisected the land owned by Joshua Hunt, necessitating a crossing to connect his two separate parcels. It is unknown if this was the same bridge or if another one was planned to be built for Aston Terrace and added to the drawing. Documentation does mention, however, that Hunt's bridge was so low that engineers had to lower their locomotive’s smokestacks to pass under the bridge. If this is the same bridge it may explain why the train's smokestack on the print appears to be taller than the bridge.
It was determined at the time that the fire was the work of an arsonist, and a $500 reward was offered for the arrest and conviction of the "devilish incendiary". There’s no indication it was ever paid. Kames did, however, have a large insurance policy on the structure.
This advertisement for a $500 reward appeared in the Philadelphia Inquirer about a week after the fire.
The fire was still smoldering and smoke was still rising from the hill when talk of rebuilding the hotel commenced. However, it was not meant to be. The hotel was never rebuilt. The following year the Pennsylvania Railroad purchased the land from the hotel company in anticipation of extending their quarrying operations and repair shops, but little of it ended up being used. At some point about half of the original 20 acres were sold off by the railroad. The piece in Caln Township became part of Downingtown when it was annexed by the Borough in 1952.
Both Aston Terrace and Aston Avenue were named after the Aston family. George Aston purchased 500 acres in 1723, which later became the northwest section of Downingtown. Coincidentally, Kames purchased much of the former Aston property and planned to develop it as a "suburb of Downingtown" called "Kamestown" but these plans were scrapped probably as a result of the Panic of 1873. However, some homes were built and portions of some streets were laid out including William Street and Mary Street named after two of Kames' children.
This article appeared in the Lancaster Intelligencer Journal soon after the fire.
The print of the hotel was owned by Ed Wagner, former engineer for the Borough of Downingtown, who later gave it to former Borough Manager Don Greenleaf. It hung in Borough Hall for many years and in 2023 Don gave it to the Historical Society where it is currently on display.
It's interesting to speculate what the impact would have been on Downingtown, especially the development of the Borough's west end, if the fire never happened and the hotel opened and stayed in business for a period of time. It most likely would not have survived to this day, or perhaps even into the early 1900s, as resorts like this along the Main Line fell out of favor due in part to changing travel behaviors. Plus, it would cost quite a bit to keep a frame structure like this maintained! Though the Aston Terrace Hotel was lost before it could ever welcome guests, it remains a fascinating 'what-if' in Downingtown's history – one that invites us to imagine a very different west end of the Borough.