Elkins Park is an unincorporated community in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, United States. It is split between Cheltenham and Abington Townships in the northern suburbs of Philadelphia, which it borders along Cheltenham Avenue roughly from downtown. It is four station stops from Center City Philadelphia on Septa Regional Rail. Historically Elkins Park was home to Philadelphia's early 20th century business elite, among them John B. Stetson, John Wanamaker, Henry W. Breyer, Jay Cooke, William Lukens Elkins and Peter A.B. Widener. In the later 20th century it was home to Ralph J. Roberts, co-founder of Comcast, as well as to the Gimbels family, founders of the department store chain. Today it remains home to many gilded age mansions such as Lynnewood Hall, a 110-room, neoclassical estate, the Elkins Estate presently being restored as a hotel-spa, distillery and events center and the Henry West Breyer Sr. House, the former residence of the ice cream magnate which now serves as the Cheltenham Township Municipal building. Elkins Park is notable for its varied architectural styles its wealth of homes designed by renowned 19th and 20th century architects such as Horace Trumbauer, Louis Kahn and Robert A.M. Stern and its diversity of religious institutions. With six synagogues it also makes up the foundation of the "Old York Road Corridor" of the Philadelphia area Jewish community, supported by the approximately 25,000 Jews in the Cheltenham-Jenkintown-Abington region.
, an 11-acre park with four distinct ecosystems, was the original grounds of Cheltenham High School and became a township park in 1996 after the building burned down
Lynnewood Hall, a 110-room, derelict Gilded Age mansion
Toward the western end of Elkins Park is Pennsylvania Route 611. In Elkins Park, Pennsylvania Route 73 runs along Township Line Road, mostly marking the border between Cheltenham and Abington townships.
Locale
Notable people
Jay Ansill, composer and folk musician
Jan Berenstain and Stan Berenstain, writers and illustrators best known for creating the children's book seriesThe Berenstain Bears
Michael S. Brown, Nobel prize winner in medicine or physiology
Ilene Chaiken, American television producer, director, writer, and founder of Little Chicken Productions
Bill Cosby, actor, comedian and recently convicted felon lives in Elkins Park
Eleanor Elkins Widener, founder of Widener Library to honor her son
Harry Elkins Widener, grandson of Peter A. B. Widener and namesake of Widener Library at Harvard University; born in Elkins Park and died on the Titanic
Peter A. B. Widener, head of a wealthy and historically prominent family
In the AMCperiod drama television series Mad Men, the character Betty Draper was raised in the "tiny Philadelphia suburb of Elkins Park, Pennsylvania". During the show's second season, Betty's father has a series of strokes, and is taken to "Elkins Park Hospital". This would have actually been the former Rolling Hill Hospital, which opened in 1953, and is now known as MossRehab and Einstein at Elkins Park, part of the Einstein Healthcare Network. Ann Patchett's 2019 novel The Dutch House is primarily set in Elkins Park.
