Dignan Mansion

Cedar Grove Road, Princeton, New Jersey

Built in 1930, for Thomas Sherman Dignan (b.1902) and his wife Helen Ward (1907-1989). Mrs Dignan was the only grandchild and sole heiress of Dr Leslie D. Ward (1845-1910) who built Brooklake Park on the neighboring estate to Florham, having co-founded the Prudential Life Insurance Company and served as its first Vice-President. Tom and Helen were married in 1926 and they employed Princeton's most pre-eminent architect of the period, Ralph Bauhan to build them a family home....

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Thomas Sherman Dignan

Thomas S. Digan, of Princeton; Member of the New Jersey State Assembly

b.1902

Helen Ward

Mrs Helen (Ward) Dignan

1907-1989

The spacious, 22-room mansion was Bauhan's largest residential project and cost $300,000 to build. It was home to the Dignan family until 1947, at which time it was purchased by the Marianites of the Holy Cross. In the late 1990s, it was purchased by Princeton Academy of the Sacred Heart and they refer to the it as the "Manor House".