The Brooke Mansion (aka Brookeholm) in Birdsboro was built in 1887 for Edward Brooke II as a present for his new wife and second cousin, Anne Louise Clingan. They were married in St. Michaels Episcopal Church in Birdsboro on October 12th, 1887. The Brooke family’s relevance in the area stems from Edward’s grandfather, Matthew Brooke III. Ironmaker William Bird’s (after whom Birdsboro is named) forge was the largest producer of American iron by the Revolutionary War. After the war ended the need for iron waned and Bird was foreclosed on by his creditors. They hired a man named John Barde to continue operations of the business and Matthew Brooke was hired by Barde to assist. After Barde’s death Brooke continued operations until his father and brothers formed Brooke & Buckley, and put Matthew’s brother Clement in charge. Matthew married Barde’s daughter and had two sons, Edward I and George. After both Matthew and his wife died suddenly by 1828, their children were left in guardianship of brother Clement and eventually became partners in the forge business. Edward II was the son of George, graduated from University of Pennsylvania in 1886 and immediately joined his father’s iron and steel business.

Edward Brooke II hired renown architect Frank Furness to construct this mansion. Brooke himself designed an addition on the mansion in 1893, bringing the floorspace to a whopping 14,000 square feet consisting of 42 rooms; 16 bedrooms, 11 bathrooms and 10 fireplaces. It was the third of the Brooke family estates to be built on the hill overlooking the town of Birdsboro.

A July 21st, 1887 Reading Times article described the mansion, “Everything that modern science can contribute for the convenience of mankind will be incorporated in this building. Electric burglar alarms, call bells and annunciators will be put through the entire house.” The mansion had two hundred lights, and was wired for both electric and gas light fixtures.

The October 13th, 1887 Reading Times described the Brooke-Clingan wedding as the “greatest social event of the season in Birdsboro“. Over 500 people were invited to attend the ceremony at St. Michaels Episcopal Church and reception at the nearby Clingan Mansion, which sat further west off of what is now route 724. After a honeymoon tour of the New England States the couple returned to live at George Brooke’s “Brookewood” until their neighboring “Brookeholm” was completed.

Edward and Anne had three sons and a daughter; George Brooke III (b. 1888), Edward Brooke Jr. (b. 1890), Charles Brooke (b.1892), and Mary Brooke (b. 1897). The Brooke’s split their time between their 235 S. 18th Street house on Rittenhouse Square in Philadelphia and their estate in Birdsboro. In addition to the family’s steel, iron and land development businesses, Edward was involved in the Pennsylvania Trust Company of Reading, Birdsboro National Bank, Birdsboro Water Company, and the Wilmington and Northern Railroad Company.

Edward was very passionate about horses and designed an ornate carriage house and stable he had built directly behind the mansion in 1898. There he housed some of his many carriages and prized race horses. Above the estates on top of the hill there was a racetrack where he exercised his horses. There was a pond on the property where the children used to swim in the summers and ice skate in the winter.

In August of 1935 Anne sold 3,780 acres of the nearby Hopewell Hills estate she had grown up on and inherited from her mother to the federal government. On this property they planned a $400,000 park project that became Hopewell Furnace National Historic Site and Park. Only a month later 71-year-old Anne died of pneumonia on September 6th in Philadelphia.

Edward died in 1940 after he slipped and fell into a bathtub full of scalding hot water in his mansion. He was transported to Reading Hospital where he succumbed to his burns a few hours after the accident. The coroner issues a certificate of accidental death and said that Brooke apparently lost his balance and fell into the half-filled tub as the water was being drawn. He was severely burned on the back, left hand and arm.

The children sold the home and all of its contents at auction in 1944, and by 1948 it was purchased by Philadelphia nurse Elizabeth Spanier who used it as a nursing home.

The nursing home closed in 1978 and the 34 acres it sat on was sold to a developer who subdivided and built the “Mansion Heights” housing development on the site. Edward Brooke’s carriage house burnt to the ground in a suspicious fire in 1986. Some locals believed it was the developer’s doing to make room for three more lots to be sold. The mansion still sits on a 3-acre parcel, but seems oddly out of place surrounded by a modern suburban neighborhood.

In 1990 new owner Carmelo Leggio moved into the building and wanted to make $1 million in improvements and open a bed and breakfast, restaurant and bar in the mansion. Fifteen neighbors opposed these plans at a Birdsboro council meeting citing increased traffic and noise will disrupt their peaceful streets. Ultimately the restaurant part of the project was nixed but the Bed and Breakfast was given the go-ahead by the municipality.

After two years of improvements were made an open house was scheduled on April 5th, 1992 to benefit the Birdsboro Community Library and promote the new “Brooke Mansion Victorian Inn“. It operated for about a decade and closed 2002. Again the mansion sat for sale and abandoned for 16 years. In 2018 the home was auctioned; a Canadian couple purchased it for $572,000 and said they intended to restore it. The status of the restoration is unknown.

The Brooke Mansion in 2024 – surrounded by modern suburbia