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FeedLand of Riches
Birmingham is a township flush with history, scenic vistas and affluence.
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When their Birmingham Township properties backed into one another, Al Bush fondly recalls visiting—and even talking to—Ann Davis’ heifers. He’d often visit Ann, the former township secretary, and her first husband, Charlie. Then Charlie died, and Birmingham began to change.
The Davis dairy farm was one of two, each 100 acres, that went to market. The families—Davis and DeNenno—sold and moved. In the late 1980s and early ’90s, the large tracts became the Knolls of Birmingham and Birmingham Hunt. Those developments—along with Radley Run, a four-section, decades-long project on land once owned mostly by Gilbert Mather, who ran the Brandywine Hunt—transformed the character of Chester County’s oldest township from rural to residential.
“It was hectic,” says Bush, a 20-year member of Birmingham’s planning commission and now in his first six-year term as a supervisor. “We had to start meeting twice a month—and going late into the night. We used to meet on the porch at Ann Davis’ house.”
Halfway between West Chester and Kennett Square, Birmingham was founded in 1686 and is at the geographic heart of the American Revolution’s Battle of Brandywine, which was fought Sept. 11, 1777. Today, it has Chester County’s highest per-household median income at $152,516 (as of the last Census). “I suspect there was always quite a bit of money here,” Bush says. “But the farmers had it in their socks.”
Buoyed by admirable open-space planning, the township’s successful residential growth reflects on the quality folks it’s drawn—and those like Bush, who have steadfastly preserved its past. Like others, Bush relocated here 27 years ago as a general manager of a manufacturing plant. Many moved from Philadelphia to Delaware County and into Chester County in the 1980s.
Delaware state’s corporate friendliness—and the need to feed the likes of DuPont and Hercules—were draws. The growth of the Route 202 corridor played a part. The Unionville-Chadds Ford School District is excellent. But Birmingham Township’s real estate taxes are low (1.6 mills), and there’s no earned-income tax.
Quina Nelling, the township treasurer and secretary, manages a $1.7 million annual budget. She was part time for five years, then went full time in 1993, as Birmingham was in the midst of a building boom that more than doubled its population from 1,584 residents in 1980 to 4,221 by 2000. By comparison, population grew from 338 in 1930 to 453 in 1960. “It came on fast and furious,” Nelling says.
Now, says Bush, “There are no large parcels left, just some 4- or 5-acre sections that could be subdivided into two lots. We’re effectively built out—but we developed sensibly and appropriately.”
A Delaware transplant, Nelling lives next to the township building. Her husband, Tom, has been Birmingham’s police chief since 1993. Much of Birmingham’s security rests in his 24-hour force, an anomaly for a small township. “It’s one thing our residents fought for,” his wife says. “Safety is important to them.”
Status—and historical significance—comes with the territory in this rustic paradise just off the hustle-and-bustle of 202. Where there are developments, culs-de-sac limit through-traffic.
“It feels like we’re in the country, but we’re in close proximity to everything,” Nelling says. “Yet, it seems like when you cross into Birmingham, you enter into another dimension.”
