Architectural rendering of new Carriage House
It started with a 50-cent cigarette igniting a plastic smoker’s outpost, and ended with a $5 million reconstruction.
Hanson Properties, which owns Normandy Farm Hotel & Conference Center at 1401 Morris Road in Whitpain Township and Blue Bell Country Club, is expected to reopen the carriage house doors in March 2023, per the report.
The new three-story, 18,268-square-foot carriage house will have a red and white theme with 21 suites, totaling 153 rooms at the conference center. Select suites have private porches, patios and fireplaces. A terrace and fire pit was made outside.
Bud Hanson told 6ABC after the fire that the building dated back to the 1800s and "was the original carriage house when (the hotel) was just an inn.”
The March 4, 2021 fire demolished the nine-room carriage house, located next to the hotel, just before a wedding was scheduled at the locale.
According to 6ABC, the bride, Caitlin Kerezsi, and groom-to-be were staying on the first floor. The wedding went ahead as planned, and the couple had canceled their wedding once before.
"We saw smoke and I started running," Kerezsi said to 6ABC.
According to Philly Voice, Whitpain Township Fire Marshal Dave Camarda said the fire started from a cigarette that ignited inside the outpost, which had been moved away from the carriage house and was left against a building.
