Wissahickon stone houses behind hedges on a cobbled Belgian block avenue, and the bridge HBO's Task used on Forbidden Drive.
What Chestnut Hill looks like
runs through the shopping block in Belgian block paving, trolley rails still set into the stone down the middle of the road. Storefronts sit two and three storeys under gabled and mansard roofs, awnings out over the sidewalk and cars parked along both curbs. Side streets peel off the avenue and go quiet almost immediately.
Large stone houses sit back from those side streets behind clipped hedges and low fieldstone walls. Anglecot, on Evergreen Street, has a steep peak of red fish scale shingle over rubble stone. Brick gateposts flank the drive. Another house nearby rises straight up from a hedge topped stone wall, its chimney splitting the roofline at the peak.
On Millman Street near , a low grey house cuts its whole front into one triangular gable, a chimney breaking through the peak and an arched lintel over the recessed door. The park itself is a pond ringed by lawn and mature trees, a short walk from the avenue's shops.
Forbidden Drive runs along the Wissahickon Creek at the western edge of the neighborhood, gravel underfoot and dense woods on both sides. A red wooden covered bridge crosses the creek partway down the drive, stone retaining walls along the path on the approach to it.
Shot in Chestnut Hill
The HBO series Task filmed exteriors at the and along the creek path near it in July 2024, during its first season. A PBS crew visited the on Millman Street in 2012, filming the peaked grey front Robert Venturi designed for his mother for the documentary 10 Buildings That Changed America.
Task, 2024
Thomas Mill Covered Bridge
The HBO series Task filmed along Forbidden Drive and at this covered bridge in late July 2024, during its first season. The same production moved to Wises Mill Road and then Glengarry Road over the following ten days, all within Wissahickon Valley Park. Street View
10 Buildings That Changed America, 2012
Vanna Venturi House
A WTTW Chicago crew filmed here in April 2012 for the PBS documentary, hosted by Geoffrey Baer, on houses that changed American architecture. The current owner, whose family bought the house from Venturi in the 1970s, still lives there and let the crew film around her. Street View
What Chestnut Hill can double for
Bronxville in Bronxville, New York
Bronxville's Tudor Revival stone buildings line a compact block of shops the way Chestnut Hill's Wissahickon stone storefronts do, both village centers built for a commuter rail line into a bigger city. The houses above the shops sit close to the sidewalk in the same two and three storey scale. Bronxville's streets curve more than Chestnut Hill's straighter blocks and its stone runs a redder brown, so a straight block with pale grey stone keeps the comparison honest. Try searching Tudor stone village shops now.
Lake Forest in Lake Forest, Illinois
Lake Forest's Market Square and the estates around it share Chestnut Hill's mix of stone mansions set behind clipped hedges, both towns built for the same commuting class along a rail line in the same decades. The shopping block itself sits low and stone fronted, close in scale to Chestnut Hill's own avenue. Lake Forest's ravines and taller pines give away the Midwest in a wide shot, so a tighter frame on the stone and the hedges reads safest. Try searching stone mansions behind hedges now.
Hampstead's hilly streets and hedged brick and stone houses carry a similar old money quiet to Chestnut Hill's side streets, though Hampstead's houses run mostly brick rather than fieldstone. A tight frame on a hedge line and a gabled roofline can still hold the comparison. British road markings and postboxes need dressing out, and Hampstead's brick reads redder than Chestnut Hill's grey stone in any wide shot. Try searching hedged houses on a hill now.
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