Laurelton Center (former) – Laurelton PA

Description

Laurelton State Village was formed in 1913, but several buildings were added during the Great Depression:

“This project called for the construction of two cottages, buildings for administration, recreation, and hospital purposes, and improvements and extensions to the existing plant. The administration building contains in the basement a garage, psychological laboratory, a post office, and various service and storage rooms. On the first floor are board and staff rooms and a number of offices. The second and third floors are devoted to living quarters for the staff and officials.

The building is reinforced concrete with exterior walls of local stone, wood trim, and a slate roof. It was completed in May 1939 at an estimated construction cost of $178,550 and a project cost of $201,314.”
(Short and Brown)

The hospital for mentally ill women closed in 1998. In 2005, the property was purchased by Mountain Valley Inc. As of December 2011, the “proposal to turn the former state institution into a convention center, restaurant, dude ranch, along with other outdoor recreation activities have yet to come to fruition. While the property has been returned to the tax rolls, for the most part the mountain stone buildings and the beautifully landscaped property, eight decades in the making, remain off limits.”
(www.millmonttimes.com)