If you've walked the Great Lawn loop at Stoneleigh on a Sunday morning, you already know the drill. Pull into the lot on East County Line Road, wander past the Oval Garden, maybe catch a volunteer deadheading something near the pergola, and leave without spending a dollar. That's been the routine since the garden opened to the public in May 2018.
This summer, the ground under that routine changed, even if the walk itself didn't. In June 2026, Natural Lands completed a set of property transfers that grew Stoneleigh from 42 acres to 52, reuniting it with a piece of land called Oakwell that had been split off from the original estate back in the 1920s and 30s. Natural Lands' president, Oliver Bass, framed the deal as a gift to the whole region, saying the expansion exists "for the benefit of residents and visitors from the entire region, free of charge."
Here's the part that makes this more than a press release: you can't actually walk on any of that new acreage yet. The garden you know is still exactly the same 42 acres it's always been. The other ten, the part that just got folded into Stoneleigh's deed, has no paths, no signage, and no public access. That gap between what's legally Stoneleigh and what's physically Stoneleigh is the real story here, and it didn't happen by accident.
The School District Fight That Made This Possible
Rewind to 2018, the same year Stoneleigh opened. Lower Merion School District used eminent domain to acquire two parcels collectively known as Oakwell, planning to build athletic fields there for Black Rock Middle School. The land sat directly against Stoneleigh's northern edge, and it came with a Tudor Revival mansion, a greenhouse complex, and decades of landscape work tied to some of the same designers who had shaped Stoneleigh itself.
Community members pushed back. A campaign called Save Stoneleigh drew enough support that Pennsylvania legislators introduced House Bill 2468, which passed with bipartisan backing and became Act 45. The new law requires Orphans' Court approval before any entity can seize a property protected by a conservation easement, closing the exact loophole the school district had used.
That standoff didn't resolve quickly. It took until early 2024 for ongoing conversations between Lower Merion School District and Natural Lands to produce a workable solution. Two years later, in the summer of 2026, the deal closed. Natural Lands purchased 10 acres of Oakwell to fold into Stoneleigh. The Wyncote Foundation separately purchased the remaining three acres, including the Oakwell mansion itself, and plans to restore and preserve that building on its own track, outside of Stoneleigh's ownership.
What's Actually Inside the New Ten Acres
The Oakwell parcel isn't empty ground. It carries its own architectural history, and Natural Lands has said it intends to restore rather than clear it. The complex includes:
- A greenhouse structure that once supplied the original Stoneleigh estate
- A former caretaker's cottage
- A garden feature known as the Tea House
All three were designed by architect Frank Miles Day, and the surrounding grounds were stewarded for more than 50 years by the Olmsted Brothers, the same landscape architecture firm founded by the sons of Frederick Law Olmsted. The one structure not staying is the pool house, a mid-century addition that Natural Lands has said doesn't fit the site's historic character and will be removed.
Natural Lands has released a master plan for how the two properties will eventually connect, describing an approach that weaves Oakwell and Stoneleigh together while adding new garden spaces and expanding room for educational programs. None of that construction has started. Right now, the ten acres exist as a landscape in transition, visible in early photos Natural Lands has shared but not yet walkable by anyone without a formal invitation.
Fifty-Two Acres on Paper, Forty-Two Underfoot
This is the detail that gets lost if you only read the announcement. Natural Lands has been direct about the timeline: the newly acquired acreage lacks paths, signage, and other visitor amenities, and it is not ready for public use. Access for now runs through a giving campaign called Stoneleigh is Growing, which will offer exclusive early tours of Oakwell later this year, but only to donors and members who support the expansion financially.
So if you're picturing an extra ten acres of trail waiting to be discovered on your next visit, that's not where things stand in September 2026. The garden that's open to everyone, free, seven days a week except Mondays, is still the original 42 acres. The other ten are legally part of Stoneleigh and physically still off limits, sitting in the space between demolition, restoration, and whatever the master plan eventually builds.
That's not a knock on the project. Land acquisitions of this size rarely arrive fully finished, and a nonprofit that spent six years getting here through legislation and negotiation isn't likely to rush the next phase. It just means the honest answer to "can I see the new part yet" is no, not yet, and probably not for a while.
The Calendar Hasn't Slowed Down
None of this has interrupted what Stoneleigh actually does on a weekly basis. The existing garden remains open Tuesday through Sunday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., closed only for Thanksgiving and Christmas, with free parking in the 63-car lot off County Line Road.
The fall programming calendar is already moving, with a Harvest How-To workshop on natural holiday decor on the schedule this month. Through the rest of the year, the recurring lineup continues: guided bird walks, seasonal volunteer gardening mornings, yoga sessions on the lawn, and Wine and Wander evening tours that open the gates after regular hours. This past summer, East Branch Brewing Company poured on select Saturdays, and the Savoy Company staged an outdoor Gilbert and Sullivan performance on the grounds, drawing enough of a crowd that overflow parking ran through the Villanova Law School garage.
None of that changes because of the Oakwell deal. What changes is what you'll eventually be able to walk into once the paths get built and the restoration work catches up to the paperwork.
If you already treat Stoneleigh as part of your weekend rotation, the thing worth knowing isn't that the garden grew. It's that growth here means something specific: a legal boundary moved this summer, a physical one hasn't yet, and the six-year fight that made the acquisition possible is now permanently written into state law through Act 45. That's a more interesting fact than "new acres added," and it's the one that actually explains what you're looking at the next time you walk past that northern edge of the property and notice the fence still hasn't moved.
For homeowners and buyers thinking about what makes a Main Line address worth choosing, details like this are part of the answer. A neighborhood's public spaces, their history, and how a community fights to protect them say as much about a place as square footage ever could. The Houder Nunez-Strid Team spends as much time following stories like Stoneleigh's as they do tracking listings, because understanding what makes Villanova, Wayne, and the rest of the Main Line worth living in is the same work as helping someone find the right home here. If you're weighing a move to this part of the Main Line and want a conversation grounded in what actually makes each town distinct, reach out to schedule a confidential market consultation.
