Chadds Ford cleans up at Delaware County Preservation Awards + Bates Awards
A few weeks ago, Delaware County honored some of our neighbors for their preservation and conservation efforts, and Chadds Friends… our Chadds Ford neighbors showed up! 🏆 They did not leave empty-handed.
What are the Delaware County Preservation Awards and Bates Awards?
At Delaware County’s 48th Annual Preservation Awards and Bates Awards ceremony, held Saturday, May 2nd, Chadds Ford Township and its community members walked away with four recognitions — a remarkable haul that reflects how much quiet, committed preservation work is happening in our backyard.
The awards, presented jointly by the Delaware County Council, the Delaware County Planning Department, the Delaware County Planning Commission, and the Heritage Commission of Delaware County, honor excellence in historic preservation, site planning, and innovative land stewardship throughout the county.
Chadds Ford’s collection of awards this year wasn’t luck. Years of intentional investment by the Township, individual citizens, and neighbors passionate about preserving the stunning history and character of our community earned every ounce of recognition they received.
Here’s who brought home the hardware for Chadds Ford!
Trails Blazed: Sunset Hill Preserve Trail Plan
Municipal Innovation & Investment Award
Chadds Ford Township had a beautiful problem: it owned a stunning piece of open space — Sunset Hill Preserve — and needed to figure out how to share it with the public.
Rather than letting informal foot traffic carve its own path 👣 (literally), the Township’s Board of Supervisors, Open Space Committee, and Administration used funding from the Brandywine Creek Greenway Mini Grant Program to develop a formal Trail Plan. The Chadds Ford Township Open Space Committee led the project, which will hopefully be completed and ready for public use in the coming months.
The conservation efforts resulted in a thoughtful, publicly available document that traces the history of the space and the project, includes maps showing where trails will go, and outlines possible future improvements as community use of the space matures. Public input shaped every turn of the plan. The Sunset Hill Preserve Trail Plan is now the Township’s guide for managing a cherished asset, ensuring that public access and land protection are complementary goals.
The Keeper of the Folly: Professor Edward Worteck
Individual Achievement Award
When Professor Edward Worteck, Professor Emeritus of Art and Art History at Goucher College, first turned his camera toward Painter’s Folly in 2024, he probably didn’t anticipate becoming one of its most dedicated champions. But here we are, and that’s what he’s become.
Worteck began photographing and documenting the architectural features of the historic property and was appointed the township liaison beginning in August 2024. Unfortunately, the township chose not to reappoint Worteck as the liaison as of January 2026 (for reasons they’ve so far not shared with him despite multiple requests) and has instead left the position open.
As is often the case in life, the setback only furthered Worteck’s resolve. He loves Painter’s Folly dearly and believes in its possibility as a future asset to the community under the right stewardship. Over the last year, a remarkable burst of community-building around a single endangered place has taken shape.
With the help of Heritage Commission member Emma Leuschner, Worteck commissioned historian Thomas Wood to record oral histories with Helen Murray Sipala, a longtime steward of Painter’s Folly and a close friend and model for Andrew Wyeth. Those recordings, covering more than 40 years of life at Painters Folly, are permanently housed at the University of Kentucky’s Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History.
Worteck also helped launch a public letter petition that gathered more than 800 signatures and co-founded the Painter’s Folly Preservation Alliance to mobilize broader community support for the site. Worteck additionally facilitated the Delaware Art Museum’s acquisition of Sipala’s diary and photo albums documenting her decades-long friendship with Wyeth.
Worteck is a passionate advocate of historical preservation, particularly through photography, one of his favorite media. While Painter’s Folly is currently owned by Chadds Ford Township and sits idle, he continues to advocate for a dedicated preservation partner to take over the property and open it to the public.
Good stories travel best from neighbor to neighbor.
If this story matters to you, pass it along. It’s the best way to keep community journalism growing in Chadds Ford. Email or text it to a friend. Share on socials. Spread the word.
A Life Well Documented: Helen Murray Sipala
A. Richard Paul Lifetime Achievement Award
If Professor Worteck is the keeper of Painter’s Folly’s future, Helen Murray Sipala is the living embodiment of its past. The A. Richard Paul Lifetime Achievement Award honors a life spent in service to place, to art, and to memory, and Sipala is a fitting recipient.
When the Sipalas first purchased the property, the landscape was overgrown and the exterior aging. They restored it. And then, in 1989, Andrew Wyeth came to paint, and a 20-year friendship was born.
Sipala became Wyeth’s model, confidante, and collaborator. Wyeth used the home’s widow’s walk and third-floor room as a studio and workspace throughout their friendship. She documented it all in a nearly 445-page diary spanning 1989 to Wyeth’s death in 2009. That diary, along with ten albums of photographs, letters, and ephemera, was donated to the Delaware Art Museum last November and will be preserved as part of its permanent archive.
Digging In: Archie’s Corner Preservation Assessment
Historic Preservation Planning Award
Archie’s Corner is a quiet site at the intersection of Bullock and Ring Roads with a complicated history. Once the Bullock Octagonal Schoolhouse, Lydia A. Archie, a pioneering Black woman and the first ordained female preacher in the African Union Methodist Protestant Church, purchased the property in 1891 and turned it into a worship space.
Rather than waiting for deterioration or development pressure to force their hand, the Township proactively commissioned a comprehensive preservation assessment of the Archie’s Corner site to document existing conditions, evaluate historical and archaeological resources, and lay out a clear framework for long-term stewardship.
Funded in part through the Certified Local Government grant program, the assessment brought in professional historical, architectural, and archaeological expertise to inform long-term strategies for preserving, interpreting, and honoring the history and cultural impact of Mother Archie and her congregation.
Why Preservation Matters
Thompson Mayes, author of Why Old Places Matter, offers one of the clearest answers. Old places, he writes:
“spur our memory, delight us with beauty, help us understand others, give us a deep sense of belonging, and perhaps more fundamentally, remind us who we are.”
Historic preservation isn’t about keeping things frozen in amber. It’s about staying rooted in space and time. Mayes describes how old buildings and landscapes free us from the relentless hurry of the present, allowing us to experience time at a different pace, within a much larger expanse of it.
In a world that moves fast and forgets faster, historic places slow down the pace of life. They put life in the context of time and remind us that we’re part of a much broader span of time than is accounted for by the commitments piling up on our calendars.
Chadds Ford knows this intuitively. The former Girl Scout trails that wind through Sunset Hill Preserve, the historic stones of Archie’s Corner, and the widow’s walk where Andrew Wyeth once stood, paintbrush in hand, create the connective tissue of character and place that define Chadds Ford. They link who we were to who we are, and they create the conditions for who we might become.
Without thoughtful preservation and a mindful approach to development, the character of a place erodes incrementally until, one day, people look around and realize it no longer feels like itself. The work honored by these awards pushes back against unfocused development. In each of these cases, the award recipients dedicated countless hours to preserving the natural and historical elements that define Chadds Ford’s character.
Mayes also notes that people “care deeply about the old places that embody their shared identity.” That care translates into measurable community benefits like jobs, resilient property values, heritage tourism, stronger neighborhoods, and a sense of continuity. Preservation isn’t just nostalgia about the past; it’s investment in the present and the future.
This year’s award winners demonstrate what it looks like to care for something beyond yourself, and to do it with enough rigor and love that the work lasts. Congratulations to all four (and all the other Delaware County recipients). You’ve made your neighbors proud.
