Impressive brickwork adorns church known for glistening white steeple topped by cross.

Impressive reminder of the town's
past is solid, old building.
Unless you were into roses or horticulture, chances of your hearing much about the Conard-Pyle Company, a wholesaler, are slim until you visited West Grove. Its success is entwined in a story involving an enterprising Quaker, a French family, international intrigue and a pale yellow rose with a delicate pink crown. It has found a way for gardeners to grow roses without spending hours pruning, feeding and spraying.

The firm's acreage now totals 725, with its oldest dating to 1897. Several generations of the same Quaker family were active in the company whose specialty is its prize-winning rose collection. Many of its old-style roses are being reintroduced.

Acres of fragrant, large flowered roses abound in fields.
The company was one of the first to introduce easy-flowering, low-maintenance roses under the trade name of Star Roses. Today it is a leader in the production of tried and tested as well as new varieties. In 1939 the company introduced the Fairy rose which today is still an excellent choice for home landscapes.
Before the turn of the century, Alfred F. Conrad, a rose grower and one of the company founders, hired a helper. He was Robert Pyle, a Quaker educated at Swarthmore College who had a flair for marketing and promotion. The Pyles, an old Chester County family that owned several general stores, acquired a controlling interest in the rose-growing firm just before World War I. Conrad was from a prominent Philadelphia family and was the eldest son of Thomas Conard, who for years owned and ran a boarding school in West Grove.

In 1932 Pyle, in search of a new-type rose, visited Tassin, France (near Lyon) to meet Francis Meilland, a young rose breeder. The American entrepreneur left for home, promising to market any new rose Meilland created. Unfortunately, acres of rose beds were turned into vegetable gardens during World War II.

In 1939 Pyle received a parcel of cuttings from the American Consul in Lyons. Pyle worked diligently for five years and grew what he believed "will be the greatest rose of the century." On the day Berlin fell, Pyle named the rose "Peace." In 1951 the American Rose Society made Peace the first rose to receive its Gold Medal. Within a decade, 30 million Peace Roses bloomed worldwide. Today the Peace Rose remains one of the most popular roses in history.

Conard-Pyle's association with the world-famous House of Meilland continues with its 1995 introduction of such roses as Carefree Delight, Christopher Columbus, Marco Polo and Regatta. It is one of the major trial gardens, both here and in Wasco, California, for Meilland in its hunt for the perfect rose. Breeders say only three or four roses are likely to make it to market from an estimated 10,000 rose crosses in a given year.

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