Biography:

Penelope Hartshorne Batcheler (1928-2007) attended school at Dana Hall School and Bennington College in Vermont. She then moved to Chicago to earn a degree in architecture from the Illinois Institute of Technology, studying under Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. After graduating in 1953, she moved to Sweden where she worked with her relative Gerda Boëthius at the Zorn Museum in Mora, studied Swedish architecture, and worked for the Nordiska Museet in Stockholm. After returning to the United States in 1954 she lived with her aunt and uncle, Robert Chandler Sahlin and Nancy Roe Sahlin, at Greenfield Farm in Chester County, Pennsylvania. In the 1960s she was hired by the National Park Service as a preservation architect, the only woman working on the restoration of Independence Hall. Around the same time, she moved to the Society Hill neighborhood of Philadelphia and became involved in the restoration of historic homes in that area. Penelope's preservation and restoration projects included Assembly Hall, Congress Hall, Old City Hall, Franklin Court, the City Tavern, the Edgar Allen Poe House, and Old Swedes Church. She retired from the National Park Service in 1993, but continued to contribute to restoration projects as a consultant and volunteer. After her retirement, she was also active in various cultural projects, including an oral history project about Society Hill and an assistance program for elderly Society Hill residents. In 1991 she earned the Preservationist of the Year Award from the Pennsylvania Museum and Historical Commission and in 2000 she was awarded the James Biddle Award for Lifetime Achievement in Historic Preservation by the Preservation Alliance of Greater Philadelphia. She passed away in 2007 in Philadelphia.

In 1968, Penelope married George Batcheler, an architect, whom she met while restoring homes in Elfreth's Alley. She was one of four children born to Richard and Ellen( Fritz Sahlin) Hartshorne.  In the 1960s, Ellen and Richard moved to Philadelphia into a house on American Street renovated by Penelope and her husband George Batcheler.