Builder, Decorator and Wood-worker, vol. 16, no. 6 (February, 1891) quotes architect Minerva Parker about a "dwelling at Merion, cor. Haverford and Iowa [Iona] avenues, to be stone and frame, finished in hardwood, with all the latest improvements, the cost will be from 10,000 to $12,000." Minerva Parker Nichols: The Search for a Forgotten Architect (University of Pennsylvania, 2023), page 236, speculates that this was 105 Iona, despite Hotchkin's 1897 attribution, quoted below.
S. F. Hotchkin, Rural Pennsylvania (1897), pages 78, 81:
Florencia
The place of Sylvester J. Baker, bearing the above name, at the corner of Iona and Haverford Avenues, is one of the most pleasing objects that meets the view in beautiful Narberth. The house was built A. D. 1891, Oscar Frotcher being the architect, and Joseph Dyson builder. It stands on an elevated terrace, and is constructed of bluestone from Rock Hill quarries. The architecture is pleasing in its variety of outline. The double bay-windows give cheerful light to two stories, and the tiled roofs of house and piazza and porte-cochère, and the balcony above one bay-window, and the hooded window above another, and the two dormer-windows that hug the chimney are striking features. The two sides of the house are varied in plan. The roof is broken into picturesque angles, while windows peep out at the beholder from every quarter. One bay-window juts out in the form of an oriole [oriel?] tower, with shingle work underneath it. This makes a pretty observatory from which to view the blooming flowers below. The rooms within are pleasant and comfortable, and modern improvements serve this modern dwelling. A honeysuckle vine brightens the iron fence which surrounds the grounds. Mr. Baker has resided here during all the year since 1891.
Updated January 29, 2026.