Home Remodeling in Unionville, PA
Careful remodeling for the historic village of Unionville and the East Marlborough houses around it.
Unionville began as Jacksonville, a crossroads where Doe Run Road and Embreeville Road meet in East Marlborough Township, which was carved out of the old Marlborough Township in 1729. The village historic district, listed on the National Register in June 1979, covers 120 acres and 69 buildings put up mostly between 1751 and 1887: the Cross Keys Inn of 1751, the Unionville Academy and the Union Hotel of 1834, a Friends meetinghouse of 1845 that later served as the Grange hall, Unionville Hall of 1849 and 1850, a country store from about 1875 and a saddle shop from 1887, with brick, stone and frame houses between them. The census counted 577 people in the village in 2020.
Outside the district, East Marlborough is rolling farmland and residential subdivisions, and Longwood Gardens is in the same township. A Unionville job is either an 18th- or 19th-century house whose exterior answers to a review board or a newer house that answers only to the township's permit office. Dawson's serves the village and the township around it, about fifty minutes from Middletown.
The Unionville HARB
Inside the district, no one may start building, altering, restoring or tearing down any structure until the township grants a certificate of appropriateness. The Unionville Historic and Architectural Review Board looks at proposed exterior changes, from renovations and additions to new buildings and demolitions, and advises the Board of Supervisors, which decides on the certificate. The current ordinance was adopted in December 2019 and amended in June 2022. Routine maintenance needs no certificate unless it alters or rebuilds something. Beyond the district, the township's Historical Commission reviews any request to demolish a historic resource anywhere in East Marlborough.
East Marlborough's permit list
East Marlborough issues its own permits under the state construction code, and its list is specific. A kitchen or bathroom needs one when a drain, vent or water line moves or new electrical or mechanical work goes in. A basement needs one when it becomes living space. Decks and patios, fences four feet and taller, and any structural change need one too, while a roof replacement does not. Wells and septic systems are permitted by the Chester County Health Department, so an addition on a house with its own system brings in a second agency.
Stone, brick and frame in the village
The village was built over more than a century, so one street can hold a stone house with deep window jambs beside a frame house of a later decade. Kitchens go in the rear rooms where they have always been, planned around walls that are rarely square; bathrooms are built new on stiffened floors with a fan vented outside. Windows, siding and trim are what the board sees, so they are planned first: old sash repaired or replaced to match, and trim profiles kept. The township subdivisions get a different list: an opened kitchen, a finished basement, a primary bath with a walk-in shower, and new windows once the originals start to fog.
Dawson's serves Unionville for kitchens, bathrooms, basements, additions, windows, siding, decks and carpentry.
Nearby, Dawson's also serves Kennett Square, Toughkenamon, Pocopson and Avondale.
Unionville is part of the Chester County, PA service area.
Ready to plan a remodel in Unionville?
Call Dom with the address and the project, or send the details through the form. The walkthrough is free and the estimate comes in writing.