December 15, 2025
Provided Image/By Landmark
Chelten House, a mansion of the grounds of the Elkins Estate in Montgomery County, will become an event space with a distillery and tasting room. Morgan Stillhouse, the distilling business, will launch a Stork Club liquor label with vodka, gin, bourbon and rye made on-site.
A distillery and tasting room will debut in the summer at the 42-acre Elkins Estate in Montgomery County, occupying the stables of a 19th century mansion designed by famed Philadelphia architect Horace Trumbauer.
The estate, one of several Gilded Age properties in Elkins Park, will open Morgan Stillhouse as part of a multiyear renovation of Chelten House. The Tudor-style mansion is one of seven buildings on the estate, which is anchored by the 138-room Elstowe Manor hotel and wedding venue that opened two years ago.
Hospitality company By Landmark, which bought Elkins Estate for a reported $6.5 million in 2019, said the distillery will revive the Stork Club liquor label as an homage to New York City's renowned Prohibition-era speakeasy. The high-society nightclub, which closed in 1965, was frequented by the likes of Frank Sinatra, Grace Kelly, Ernest Hemingway and John F. Kennedy.
Morgan Stillhouse's tasting room will have space for up to 60 guests to attend barrel and experimental whiskey tastings, paired dinners and tours of the production area. There also will be a bottle shop that sells spirits and a line of Stork Club cigars.
Morgan Stillhouse will operate out of stables at Chelten House, the Elkins Estate mansion where the new distillery will have a tasting room and bottle shop.
The brand's first spirit, a multigrain vodka proofed with Pennsylvania spring water, is expected to be available in the spring. The distillery will follow up its vodka with limited releases of gin, bourbon and rye. The brand will initially roll out in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and New York.
Trumbauer, whose most notable buildings include the Philadelphia Art Museum and the Parkway Central Free Library, designed Elkins Estate in the late 1890s for the family of railroad entrepreneur William L. Elkins. Chelten House was built for Elkins' oldest son, George, to live next to the Italian Renaissance-style Elstowe Manor.
Elstowe Manor, the centerpiece of the Elkins Estate, is a 138-room hotel that features a ballroom for weddings. The Gilded Age property was designed by architect Horace Trumbauer.
In the 1930s, the estate was sold to the Dominican Sisters of St. Catherine de' Ricci, who for decades operated the grounds as a religious retreat. The Land Conservancy of Elkins Park took over the retreat in 2009 and later went into bankruptcy, sparking a legal battle with the Dominican Sisters in the years before By Landmark bought the property.
When Chelten House opens, the restored mansion will hold special events, corporate retreats and overnight stays across 16 guest rooms. The property features terracotta roof tiles, arched windows and rooms with marble fireplaces. The 42-acre estate has several manicured gardens that surround Elstowe Manor.
"The estate’s story has always been about gathering, and now that spirit lives on in new ways," Jeanne Cretella, co-founder of By Landmark, said in a statement.
The distillery at Morgan Stillhouse will be led by Carlos DeVito, the former owner and winemaker of Hudson-Chatham Winery who's considered one of North America's top spirits researchers.
The restoration of Elkins Estate is one of two major projects to bring life back to Gilded Age properties in Elkins Park. The nearby Lynnewood Hall, also designed by Trumbauer, is now being restored by preservationists with plans to use the 34-acre property as a cultural center, event space and public garden in the coming years.
