Penn Valley is an unincorporated community located within Lower Merion Township, Pennsylvania, United States. Penn Valley residents share a zip code with Merion, Narberth, or Wynnewood because the community does not have its own post office. However, Penn Valley is a distinct community whose civic association demarcates its boundaries with iconic signs featuring William Penn and a farmhouse in blue or red on white, dating from 1930.^[1]

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Penn Valley
Unincorporated community
Penn Valley sign on Montgomery Avenue
Penn Valley
Coordinates: 40°01′31.72″N 75°15′35.23″W
Country	United States
State	Pennsylvania
County	Montgomery
Township	Lower Merion
Elevation	295 ft (90 m)
Population
• Total	Under 4,000
Time zone	UTC-5 (EST)
• Summer (DST)	UTC-4 (EDT)
Zip Code	19072
Area codes	610 and 484

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Lower Merion was settled in 1682 by Welsh Quakers and in 1713 became a township with about fifty residents. Before 1930, what is now known as Penn Valley consisted of the areas of the township known as "Fairview," "Crow's Hill," and "Bowler's Woods."

Initially, Penn Valley was a farming community, known especially for Percival Roberts's 539-acre dairy farm, "Penshurst," and the smaller farms that surrounded it, located on PA Route 23, Conshohocken State Road, Hagy's Ford Road, and Old Gulph Road. It grew more suburban in 1939 when Penshurst's 75-room mansion was demolished in favor of residential development. Other farms in Penn Valley included "Crow's Hill", which was sold in 1921; "The Grove of the Red Partridges" on Old Gulph Road; and Charles W. Latch's 41-acre family farm. Today, silos can still be found in Penn Valley on Fairview Road.

The 2010 Census found that Penn Valley has less than 4,000 residents. Racially, 88% of Penn Valley's residents are Caucasian, 4% are Asian, 2.4% are Hispanic, 1.8% are black and the rest are two or more races, Pacific Islander, American Indian or another race. Of Penn Valley's Caucasian residents, 14.7% have Russian ancestry and 4.0% have Eastern European ancestry.

Penn Valley's median income is more than $100,000 per family, statistically in the top 0.3% of the United States. None of the children in the community live below the poverty level.^[7]

Penn Valley is located between Merion and Gladwyne in the heart of the northern tier of communities belonging to the Philadelphia Main Line, a part of suburban Philadelphia named after the Pennsylvania Railroad's original rail line to the West. The railroad runs from 30th Street Station in downtown Philadelphia due west through the communities of Overbrook, Merion, Narberth/Penn Valley, Wynnewood, Ardmore, Haverford, Bryn Mawr, Rosemont, Villanova, Wayne, Strafford, Saint Davids, Devon, Berwyn, Daylesford, and Paoli.

Most of Penn Valley is residential, except for parts of Montgomery Avenue, which separates the western part of Penn Valley from the borough of Narberth, its post office cousin.^[8]

Penn Valley is only a valley in some places. The Merion part of Penn Valley slopes steeply down General Lafayette Road and Woodbine Avenue to Gulley Run Creek, a tributary of Mill Creek; Hollow Road slopes more gradually down toward the Schuylkill River and an east-only entrance to the Schuylkill Expressway into an old ravine that ends in the river; and Conshohocken State Road/PA Route 23 slopes steeply from the gates of the former Penshurst Estate down to a hollow where it meets Mill Creek Road and bends in a 90-degree angle toward the steep slope that leads into the village of Gladwyne.

The highest point in Penn Valley is on the ridge above the playing fields of Welsh Valley Middle School, from which the tallest skyscrapers of Center City Philadelphia may easily be seen. Elevation at that point is 380 feet above Hagy's Ford Road.

Lower Merion Township maintains its recycling and refuse burning center at the foot of Woodbine Avenue in Penn Valley, just beyond the limits of Belmont Hills, the easternmost section of the township that slopes down to the Schuylkill River, flanked by Fairmount Park.

Police and public works are managed in the Lower Merion Township Office Building at 75 East Montgomery Avenue in Ardmore.

Penn Valley is served admirably by the Lower Merion School District, headquartered at the bend of Montgomery Avenue in Ardmore where it meets Church Road, across from Lower Merion High School's Hap Arnold Field.

Before Welsh development, Penn Valley's forest was home to bears, cougars, wolves, rattlesnakes, otters, beavers, weasels, turkeys, grouses, woodland bison, trout, and bald eagles. However, after forest destruction by the Welsh and home building after World War II, most of the rarer animals left.^[12]

Today, the area is filled with squirrels, chipmunks, rabbits, white-footed mice, horned owls, red-tailed hawks, red foxes, opossums, skunks, raccoons, woodchucks, pheasants, songbirds, crayfish, butterflies, and white-tailed deer.

White-tailed deer occasionally pose a problem in Penn Valley. They can halt traffic, destroy the forest underbrush, devour expensive ornamental flowers, and spread Lyme disease. When last counted, Penn Valley harbored 44 deer per square mile, 34 more than the recommended average.

A coyote was spotted just outside of Penn Valley in 2017.

Penn Valley's residents primarily speak English. However, 3.5% of the residents primarily speak French.^[7]

In the state legislature, Penn Valley lies within the boundaries of the 148th District and is currently represented by Mary Jo Daley; Amanda Cappelletti is its Pennsylvania Senator. In the U.S. Congress, Penn Valley is represented by Madeleine Dean. In the 2020 Election, Lower Merion voted 78% for Joe Biden and 20% for Donald Trump.

Penn Valley does not have a mayor or city council. However, it is represented in the Lower Merion Ward of Commissioners by Daniel Bernheim and Joshua Grimes.^[19]

Local events are covered by The Main Line Times newspaper; Main Line Life monthly magazine; Philadelphia magazine; and The Philadelphia Inquirer. Over the air waves KYW Newsradio 1060 AM follows events in the city and suburbs by the minute and local television stations KYW-TV (CBS 3), WCAU (Channel 10), WPVI-TV (6 ABC), WPHL-TV (PHL17), and WTXF-TV (FOX 29) broadcast news and entertainment 24 hours a day.

Penn Valley tends to have hot, humid summers and cold, snowy winters. Precipitation in Penn Valley tends to be higher than the national average as well as higher than in Center City Philadelphia, thanks to its ubiquitous woods, proximity to water, and elevation above the riverbanks.^[9]

No recorded major natural disaster has ever taken place in Penn Valley. However, major natural disasters have taken place nearby. In the summer of 1972, torrential rains caused the Schuylkill River to rise well above its banks, flooding Belmont Hills south of the river and Manayunk north of it. In 1994 a 4.6 mb earthquake took place 46 miles from Penn Valley, with a maximum Mercalli intensity of V (Moderate), causing some damage in the Reading area.^[20]

In both 1994 and 1995, tornadoes took place within 20 miles of Penn Valley, resulting in four deaths and causing millions of dollars of property damage.^[9]

• David J. Adelman, CEO of Campus Apartments and the co-founder and chairman of FS Investments, grew up in Penn Valley
• Joe Banner, former President of the Philadelphia Eagles and former analyst with ESPN, lives in Penn Valley
• Charles Barkley, former professional basketball player for the Philadelphia 76ers, Phoenix Suns and Houston Rockets and current NBA analyst, owns a condominium in Penn Valley
• Aaron T. Beck, MD, American psychiatrist, creator of cognitive therapy and professor of psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, lived in the Wynnewood section of Penn Valley
• Judge Phyllis W. Beck, Esq., American jurist, the first woman member of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania's Superior Court and professor of law at Temple University's Beasley School of Law, lived in Penn Valley
• Judith S. Beck, PhD, American psychologist and director of Beck Institute for Cognitive Behavior Therapy at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, was raised in Penn Valley
• D. Dudley Bloom, Esq., American naval officer and businessman, the US Navy's youngest ship commander during World War II and the inventor of rolling travel luggage, lived in the Merion section of Penn Valley
• Elias Burstein, American physicist, theorist of solid-state optical telecommunications and professor of physics at the University of Pennsylvania, lived in Penn Valley
• Gene and Joan Crane, American husband-and-wife television personalities with WCAU Channel 10 in Philadelphia (c. 1950–1990), lived in a house on a cliff overlooking the bifurcation of Route 23 into Manayunk Road in the Bala-Cynwyd section of Penn Valley, where they raised their son, David
• David Crane, American television producer of the popular sitcom, Friends lived in Penn Valley
• Oliver Spurgeon English, MD, pioneer of mind-body medicine and longtime chairman of the department of psychiatry at Temple University School of Medicine, lived on Righter's Mill Road
• Jennifer Fox, American documentary film maker, lived in Penn Valley
• Richard L. Fox, American lawyer and author, lives in Penn Valley
• Richard J. Fox, American real estate executive and philanthropist, lived in Penn Valley
• Walter Deane Fuller, American publisher and businessman, president and board chairman of the Curtis Publishing Company, built his estate, a working farm well into the twentieth century, on lower Righter's Mill Road, which still stands and once included what is now Eco Valley Park
• Jim Gardner, American retired news broadcaster for 6ABC, lived in Penn Valley
• Hans Jacob Hagy, American paper manufacturer, supplied Benjamin Franklin paper for publishing Poor Richard's Almanack and other tracts, and the US Constitutional Convention (1787) for publication of the Bill of Rights from his mill on Mill Creek, built in 1769
• Ben Hibbs, American journalist, longtime editor of Country Gentleman and editor-in-chief of the Saturday Evening Post and Reader's Digest, lived in Penn Valley
• Vincent Kling, AIA, American architect and pioneer of modernism, lived on lower Righter's Mill Road in Penn Valley
• Josh Kopelman, American entrepreneur, venture capitalist, and philanthropist, lives in Penn Valley
• David W. Leebron, Esq., American academic, dean of the faculty and Lucy G. Moses Professor of Law at Columbia Law School (1996-2004) and Rice University's seventh president (2004-2022), was raised in the Weinrott family compound on Bryn Mawr Avenue in Penn Valley
• Garry Maddox, American Major League Baseball player with the Philadelphia Phillies and television commentator, lives in Penn Valley
• Gerald J. Marks, MD, American surgeon, professor of surgery and founding chief of the Division of Colorectal Surgery at Jefferson Medical College, lives in Penn Valley
• Aaron McKie, American professional basketball player, star with the NBA Philadelphia 76ers and current head coach of the Temple Owls college basketball team, lives in Penn Valley
• Marjorie Margolies Mezvinsky, American journalist and politician, US representative from Pennsylvania's 13th Congressional District (1993–95), lives in Penn Valley
• Mel Richman, American advertising executive, longtime president of Philadelphia's Poor Richard's Club, lived where Righter's Mill Road crosses Woodbine Avenue in Penn Valley
• Joseph Ritter, MD, American pediatrician, chief of medicine at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and professor of pediatrics at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, lived on Bryn Mawr Avenue
• George Brooke Roberts, American industrialist, president of the Pennsylvania Railroad and owner of Pencoyd Farm in Penn Valley
• Percival Roberts, Jr., (1857-1943) American industrialist, civil engineer and gentleman farmer, president of the Pencoyd Iron Works (later part of US Steel), expanded family's Pencoyd Farm to 571 acres and built "Penshurst", his opulent 75-room estate on Conshohocken State Road/Route 23, in 1903
• Bobby Rydell, American rock and roll singer, famous for Bye Bye Birdie (1963) and "Wild One," lived in Penn Valley
• Byron Saam, longtime voice of the Philadelphia Phillies Major League Baseball team on TV and radio, lived where Hagy's Ford Road meets Fairview Road in Penn Valley
• David Shulkin, American civil servant, former US Secretary of Veterans Affairs under President Donald Trump, lived in Penn Valley
• M. Night Shyamalan, American writer and director of Hollywood films, grew up in Penn Valley
• Steve Spagnuolo, American football coach and current Defensive Coordinator of the Kansas City Chiefs, lived in Penn Valley
• Lawrence H. Summers, PhD, American economist, US Secretary of the Treasury (1999-2001), president of Harvard University (2001–06); chief economic adviser to President Barack Obama (2009–11), and current Charles W. Eliot University Professor at Harvard University, grew up in the Merion section of Penn Valley
• Samuel Weinrott, American banker, businessman, and philanthropist, founder and chairman of the board of the Industrial Valley Bank (1903–86), built his family's compound where a bridge crosses Gulley Run in Penn Valley