Thank you to everyone near and far for making the trip to Loretto, PA to celebrate with us! All events for our wedding will be hosted at the Kimball family property (Rob’s maternal side), Klein Immergrun, known affectionately as The Farm. We hope you experience the magic of The Farm during your stay, and enjoy the following history of the family property.

439 Brick Rd, Loretto, PA, 15940

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In the early 1900s, Charles Schwab, a rural Pennsylvania boy who became an engineer and steel industry magnate (as president of U.S. Steel and Bethlehem Steel), asked his New York City architects Dana and Murphy to design a Norman Village; a replica of a farm complex he visited in Europe. The village would be the home for his prize animals, which he showed at the county fair.

When it was completed in 1920, the property consisted of five ivy-covered buildings with stuccoed walls and steeply pitched, slate-covered pointed roofs, and comprised a working farm where pigs, sheep, and horses were raised. The farm buildings enclosed the courtyard on a hillside, with the smoke house, butcher shop, carriage house, and forge on the upper level, and a piggery and sheepfold at the base of the slope. Schwab, who took up golf in 1915, commissioned eminent golf course architect Donald J. Ross (1872–1948) to design a nine hole golf course south of the former farm. Today, Immergrün Golf Course is now owned and maintained by St. Francis University and open to the public. We recommend you get a round in during your stay in Loretto this week!

In 1965, Schwab's Norman Village became the summer home of the Kimball family of 7 girls and 2 boys, and was named "Klein Immergun" or "Little Evergreen" in German, while affectionately referred to as "The Farm." Rob's maternal grandfather, Leo Robert, and his bride Mary Louise put decades of love, care, and dedication into changing the property with their children from a wild landscape to the magical place it is today. What was once woods and brush was periodically transformed into gazebos, bridges, spring houses and ponds. The barns have been converted over the years into rooms and apartments to better accommodate the Kimball family (L. Robert and Mary Louise’s nine children, their grandchildren, and great-grandchildren; 99 and growing!). The tennis court, swimming pool, and playground were added over time, and the Kimball family children and grandchildren spent many summers playing sports or catching frogs in the pond, hosting parties, and winters skiing on the hill.

27 Kimball family weddings have been hosted at The Farm, including Rob's parents Patty and Jeff in 1983, Rob's sister Meredith to her husband James in 2021, and Rob's brother Pete to his wife Alanna in 2022. Rob and Josie will be the 28th! Weddings at the farm come with many special family traditions. A commemorative plaque for each wedding can be found on the Wedding Bridge, with photos and relics stored in the Wedding Room. The bride and grooms initials J+R will be painted on the hill with lightbulbs, and they will spend their wedding night up on the hill in the Art Studio, where the late L. Robert Kimball painted, read books, and engineered the many treasures on the property.

This farmhouse property was supplemental to Schwab's 44-bedroom country home next door, which is now the St. Francis Friary and beautiful gardens of Mount Assisi. We recommend you visit the fabulous gardens during your stay in Loretto!