Neighborhoods With The Best Historic Architecture? (Philadelphia, York: best neighborhoods, apartment, houses)

[leavingnyc1]

Hi,

I'm planning on visiting Philly this summer (coronavirus permitting..). In addition to all the fun tourist things the city has to offer, I'd love to visit neighborhoods with great Colonial and Victorian architecture. In other cities, I've loved walking around Beacon Hill, Back Bay, Georgetown, Park Slope, and the West Village and I'm hoping to add some great Philly architecture to the list. It seems like Philly has a large list (Rittenhouse, Society Hill, Old City, Fairmount, Chestnut Hill, and I'm sure many others). Since my goal is to basically go walk up and down every block in the neighborhood (or every block like 3 times when I get lot in Beacon Hill...), I'd like to hone in my search to the best neighborhoods this forum has to offer.

My one oddity is that I greatly prefer cohesive architecture. I really enjoy being able to walk through quaint historic areas that don't have a lot of modern buildings strewn in--I'll enjoy the sightseeing regardless but if there's areas that are more uniformly historic I'd definitely prefer it.

I'm planning on being in the city for a weekend and I'm happy to uber between locations if they're far apart.

Thanks for the help!

[banjozac]

It sounds like you’ve got a pretty good list going already. For more Victorian architecture, I recommend Powelton Village and Cedar Park in West Philly.

[Muinteoir]

Agreed with Banjozac. Old City and Society Hill are very doable in one swoop and are not particularly large. Especially in Society Hill, you will get your colonial architecture fix. In Old City, there's going to be less cohesion of architecture, especially closer to and north of Market, save for Elfreth's Alley. Elfreth's Alley is definitely worth a visit for someone of your tastes.For Victorians, I definitely suggest Cedar Park just north of Baltimore Ave.

Germantown/Mt. Airy/Chestnut Hill all have some remarkable historical architecture. Germantown alone has Grumblethorpe, Loudon Mansion, Rittenhouse Town, Mennonite Meeting House, etc. This section of town (the Northwest) is more removed from the other neighborhoods of interest, but if you are truly an architect nerd, it's worth the visit. You can take regional rail from Center City along either Chesnut Hill route. Germantown won't feel as cohesive as say Society Hill, but it's worth it.

[AJNEOA]

You definitely have to throw Mt. Airy and Chestnut Hill into the mix. I took a walk early this morning and the stone houses are just beautiful. Germantown would be a true contender, but so many houses are not maintained well and it's hard to marvel at the architecture with so much deferred maintenance.

[Muinteoir]

There are plenty of well kept blocks in Germantown. The whole cluster of houses "north" of Coulter and "west" of Wayne are pretty much well kept, as just one example.

[kyb01]

OP, there are wall photos in the PATCO concourse, under Locust St between 15th and 16th Sts, which show various Victorian buildings in that immediate part of Rittenhouse that are no longer there. Very interesting stuff.

Also in Rittenhouse there are three, intact, mansions ( no longer residences). The Rensselaer mansion at the NW corner of 18th and Walnut, Curtis Institute of Music , SE corner of 18th and Locust, and Art Alliance half a block south of Curtis.

Don't miss Delancy St in Rittenhouse. You'll love it.

[AJNEOA]

Originally Posted by Muinteoir

There are plenty of well kept blocks in Germantown. The whole cluster of houses "north" of Coulter and "west" of Wayne are pretty much well kept, as just one example.

Thanks for the tip (although I still see a boarded up house here/there on those blocks too). I'm definitely not saying that all of Germantown is disqualified because of deferred maintenance.

I took a walk in Mt. Airy this morning and this time of year is beautiful. I only saw one other person from a distance and the sun was out, birds chirping, stone houses shining, gardens, fences, walls, etc. This part of the city has some of the best houses in the metro IMO. Mt. Airy is getting better, as I see investment and houses cleaned up in places. The southeast part of Mt. Airy is tougher/less beautiful, but hopefully that will improve at some point.

[Muinteoir]

Originally Posted by AJNEOA

Thanks for the tip (although I still see a boarded up house here/there on those blocks too). I'm definitely not saying that all of Germantown is disqualified because of deferred maintenance.

I took a walk in Mt. Airy this morning and this time of year is beautiful. I only saw one other person from a distance and the sun was out, birds chirping, stone houses shining, gardens, fences, walls, etc. This part of the city has some of the best houses in the metro IMO. Mt. Airy is getting better, as I see investment and houses cleaned up in places. The southeast part of Mt. Airy is tougher/less beautiful, but hopefully that will improve at some point.

Yeah, what you see in that section of Germantown isn't too different from much of Mt. Airy.

I completely agree with you about how beautiful it is up here this time of year. Springtime is my favorite time of year in Philadelphia. It is a much truer spring than anything I had growing up in Upstate New York. I was thinking of moving back closer to Center City, but this season may persuade me otherwise.

[MarketStEl]

Specifically, the Germantown neighborhood you want to include in your perambulations is the Tulpehocken Station Historic District.

This district is in Germantown's more affluent northwest quadrant (on the map, it looks like due west because Germantown's street grid is roughly 45 degrees NW-SE off the main city grid). It consists of the 100, 200 and (truncated) 300 blocks of West Walnut Lane, West Pastorius Street and West Tulpehocken Street, plus the 6000, 6100 and part of the 6200 blocks of McCallum Street, Greene Street and Wayne Avenue; Tulpehocken Regional Rail station sits at the district's west edge. This is a neighborhood of gorgeous Victorian mansions, including the Ebenezer Maxwell House, which some claim Charles Addams based his "Addams Family" home on.

Once we get back to the new normal, it should be open for tours.

[MarketStEl]

Originally Posted by Muinteoir

There are plenty of well kept blocks in Germantown. The whole cluster of houses "north" of Coulter and "west" of Wayne are pretty much well kept, as just one example.

Compass points in quotes because of the skew of the Germantown street grid. "East-west" streets in Germantown run southwest-northeast, and "north-south" ones run northwest-southeast. "Southwest" Germantown actually lies at the neighborhood's southeast corner when you look at it on the map.

That area includes the Germantown Cricket Club, an old blueblood institution that survives to this day and has managed to weather the changes in its neighborhood. There's one block that heads south from the Cricket Club main entrance that captures well Germantown's polyglot character: its north end consists of two rows of well-kept two-story rowhouses, then in midblock, those give way to freestanding Victorian and Gilded Age houses along with a 1950s garden apartment building. Maybe by the time you get here, restoration of one of those Victorians will be underway; I visited the house when the couple who bought it staged a "'before' open house" to solicit ideas on how to restore it from friends and neighbors.

Across Wayne Avenue to the "east" from this area is Penn-Knox, another fairly well-off patch of Germantown. There are a few late-19th/early-20th-century houses you might want to scope out, but the bulk fo the housing there is 1920s twin bungalows.