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W. & M. Herkness was a real estate development company in Montgomery, County, Pennsylvania in the early twentieth century.

Biography
Brothers Wayne and Malcolm Herkness--builders, developers, and real estate magnates--had a thriving real estate business in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, in the early 1900s. The brothers were partners, but Wayne was the visionary who drove their firm. Wayne started developing the family farm in Rydal, and that led him to the real estate business. He studied a great deal from books about English architecture, and he developed the houses in his favorite styles, English Tudor and stone colonial, with grand center halls and on large lots. Wayne Herkness saw a market for houses for the next generation and for professionals migrating out the Reading Railroad north of Philadelphia, particularly in the Abington area. He studied a great deal from books about English architecture, and he developed the houses in his favorite styles, English Tudor and stone colonial, with grand center halls and on large lots. Wayne Herkness saw a market for houses for the next generation and for professionals migrating out the Reading Railroad north of Philadelphia. By the 1920s, the Herknesses acquired and divided the sprawling old estates of the area and set the character of the community.

Susan Hamburger, Ph.D. The Pennsylvania State University