George Brooke Roberts turned the western half into a model dairy farm, with a herd of Guernsey cows. He erected a new farmhouse, tool house and chicken house, and the eaves of the barn were extended into an "over shot" (shed roof) in 1886. He demolished the old greenhouse in 1890, and replaced it with a new "Iron and Wooden one." His farm also featured an ice pond and spring house. A new bridge carrying City Avenue over the Schuylkill River was completed in May 1890. City Avenue was paved and gas streetlights were erected. Farm Road, which separated the two halves of the farm, was renamed Monument Road, and paved in 1891. Some of the farm buildings were converted into residences in the early 20th century. By the time of T. Williams Roberts's death in 1962, the size of the farm was down to about . George Brooke Roberts had been born a Quaker, but became an Episcopalian prior to his 1868 marriage to Sarah Lapsley Brinton. She died the following year, at age 23, after giving birth to their only child, George Brinton Roberts. He married Miriam Williams in 1874, and they had five children together. Roberts was the driving force behind building the Church of Saint Asaph. Roberts obtained permission to create a new Episcopal parish, organized its Board of Trustees, and hosted its first vestry meeting, at Pencoyd, on November 16, 1887. At the second vestry meeting, December 12, 1887, several sites along City Avenue were discussed, and the name "Saint Asaph" was chosen. At the third vestry meeting, January 30, 1888, architect Theophilus P. Chandler, Jr. was an invited guest. He submitted a general plan for a church, which was accepted, and he was elected to the vestry that night. At that same meeting, Roberts announced that he and his sisters wished to donate land at the west end of Pencoyd Farm, along Conshohocken State Road, as the site for the church, which the vestry also accepted. Chandler may have based his design on Saint Asaph Cathedral, a small 14th-century cathedral in Saint Asaph, Denbighshire, Wales. Superficially, both churches share a squat, flat-roofed tower at the crossing. Excavation was to begin in mid-March, but was interrupted by the Great Blizzard of 1888. The church's cornerstone was laid, May 8, 1888.