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Mansion sold for $450,000By BILL ALNORSunday Times Staff WriterBETHEL — The mansion owned by the Rev. Frederick Drummond has been sold for $450,000.But officials at the B. Gary Scott Real Estate Agency in Chadds Ford will not reveal who purchased the property, known as the Buena Vista Mansion, at 2089 Foulke Road. A spokeswoman for the agency said that the name of the buyer would not become public until Jan. 6, the settlement date for the sale.According to a Chester County Board of Realtors listing sheet the pastor of the controversial Church of Our Saviour in Concordville entered into an agreement of sale on Oct. 31.The listing price for the mansion, which includes a groundskeeper’s house on a wooded 11-acre lot was $495,000.Drummond placed the home for sale On April 16, as his financial problems grew, according to numerous sources.He owed about $15,000 on back taxes on the property since 1982 and his home had been listed for a possible judicial sale. But numerous church members said that prior to the date of the judicial sale, Drummond paid the delinquent taxes.Sources close to the church told the Daily Times that the church paid for the delinquent taxes after Drummond repeatedly asked for donations in the late summer and fall to finance a huge tent to held services on the Concordville property.The tent was never purchased.Drummond did not return a phone call to discuss die sale of the mansion.Sources dose to the church — including several who left the church within the past several weeks—said Drummond has recently been talking about going on an extended “missionary journey” overseas early next year. iThe sale of the mansion by Drummond PASTOR’S HOME The Drummond homo on Foulko Rood In Bothol hot boon sold for $450,010 fo onis a contradiction of sorts. On May 26, 1984 — and at other occasions, according to former members of the church — he told his congregation that he gave his home to the church and asked that others in his congregation do the same.But the deed was never transferred to the church, and he listed it for saleDrummond, rocked by a recent law suit and continued controversy, came back to his church on Nov. 16 after an almost two-month trip to South Africa. As soon as he came back he expelled several assistant pastors and a handful of church leaders who had banded together to confront Drummond about his alleged domination of tiie lives of his members and extremefnnnrid irregularities in the church.The explusions have led to a church split as an estimated 30 Church of Our Saviour members left with the assistantsand are trying to form their own church in the Coatesville area.Drummond called the assistants “flakes ... Bible belt prime donnas” and said he had un “inclination to thicken their lips.”Embattled pastor denies chargesBy BILL ALNORSunday Times Staff Writer MEDIA COURTHOUSE — The Rev. Frederick Drummond denies involvement with the now-defimct Durawood kitchen remodeling firm, and he denies that he and his church force members to obey him through himtiiiga wnH humiliation.The denials came in the controversial pastor's recent answer to a lawsuit filed against Drummond, the Church of Our Saviour in Concordville, the Durawood Corporation, and two church members.The lawsuit, filed on Sept. 9 by Charles P. Fawthorp of Upper Providence, seeks to recover more than $27,000 in loans heclaims were made under duress and in the false belief the money would be used to send missionaries around the world.No missionaries were sent. And dozens of lawsuits were filed against Durawood, a firm in which Drummond was a principal.The suit alleges that the church and its pastor used public humiliation, insults and beatings of Bible school students to gain cult-like control over the congregation.It also states that Drummond and two co-defendants induced Fawthorp to secureloaned $27,319 to Durawood and eventually lost his house after quitting his painting business to work as a salesman for Drummond's company, the suit al-the money to Durawood.Fawthorp re-mortgaged his house,In Drummond’s answer, filed by Philadelphia attorney Thomas W. Ostrander, the pastor states that after “careful investigation” he has learned that “Richard Price and David Durham (brother-in-law of Drummond’s wife, Lorraine) promised he would be chairman of the board (of Durawood)” but that never happened. He denied using any Durawood money to enrich himself, as the suitDrummond also denied allegations that the church enforces conformity by “humiliation of members in public, personal insults, private pressure to conform by ministers and a demand for absolute conformity to the rigid rules of its leader Drummond, infractions of which resulted in beatings to its students and humiliation of its members.”Drummond called those allegations “patently fal e, slanderous and malcioualy averred,” according to his answer.New church formsSee PAGE 16 e
Newspaper Details
Upper Darby Sunday Times
Upper Darby, Pennsylvania, US
Sun, Nov 30, 1986
Page 5
Full Page
Clipped by
Kaeli B.
NA, 10 Mar 2025
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Upper Darby Sunday Times
