Honoring historical homes in Lower Merion | Real Estate Newsletter

Residents in Lower Merion have old homes, and they want everyone to know.

Tudor-style homes built a century ago line the streets of the English Village section of Wynnewood. They look mostly the same now as when they were constructed, except for new, shiny pieces of hardware placed on some of them.

This year, Lower Merion joined communities such as Radnor and Philadelphia in offering plaques for historical homes. (I see them often walking around the city.) The hope is to eventually expand the township’s pilot program to raise historical awareness and pride and encourage preservation.

Keep scrolling for that story and to see why some Cherry Hill residents are against a plan for senior housing, peek into a combo home/wedding venue in Burlington City, and learn about the role of Philadelphia’s “baby zoning codes.”

📮 What year was your home built? I’m looking for the oldest home among my readers. For a chance to be featured in my newsletter, email me.

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— Michaelle Bond

A pilot program three years in the making in Lower Merion has been adding brass plaques to historical homes.

More than a decade ago, an architect bought an old home in English Village, and residents — including a couple who had turned the inside of their home into an English Tudor replica — didn’t like what the owner had planned for the property.

A local conservation group pushed Pennsylvania to name the village a historic district. The designation and the township’s preservation ordinance lets the township block major changes to the exterior of certain buildings.

Lower Merion’s plaque program joins others across the region. The Philadelphia Historical Commission issued 23 plaques last year and seven in the first couple months of 2023.

Most plaques are made in a town in western Pennsylvania, and sales are up.

Lower Merion’s historic preservation planner said the new program “instills a sense of pride in people’s historic properties.”

As my colleague Kevin Riordan writes in his latest story, Cherry Hill is a place “where developments named after farms long ago supplanted the real thing.” The township has few large tracts that are available for development or preservation.

Cows still graze in a meadow on a patch of Holly Ravine Farm. But the family that owns the property is selling it.

Tonight, the township zoning board is scheduled to vote on whether to allow the proposed development of a senior housing complex on the farmland to move forward.

The plan calls for three buildings with 175 units, 200 parking spaces, and indoor and outdoor amenities. It would give more senior residents an opportunity to stay in Cherry Hill as they age.

Read on to see why some township residents are against the proposed senior living community.

Want to build a roof deck on top of your Philadelphia home? Whether you can may depend on where you live in the city or even where you live within your neighborhood.

City Council shapes how Philadelphia is built, in part through zoning overlays — carve-outs in the broader zoning code.

As my colleague Jake Blumgart writes in an explainer about this practice, these are hyperlocal sets of rules for specific sections of the city that Council members can use “to appease constituents, punish enemies, and implement hyperlocal priorities.”

Greg Pastore, a former member of the Zoning Board of Adjustment, called them “baby zoning codes.” These babies add to the city’s dizzying patchwork of land use rules.

Read on to learn more about zoning overlays and why Philadelphia has so many.

Growing up, I liked walking along the Delaware River in Burlington City and imaging living in one of the large, fancy old homes along the water.

Claudia and Ran Toby fulfilled their dream of living near a waterfront in 2018 when they bought a pale yellow twin with a front porch in Burlington City. The Brooklyn natives raised their children in Willingboro and Burlington Township but now live just two blocks from the Delaware.

The couple has kept the Victorian features of their three-story, five-bedroom house that was built in 1889, including a Tiffany-style chandelier in the hall.

The home’s living room doubles as a venue for micro weddings. The Tobys are officiants who run a business offering ceremonies for couples and up to eight guests. In front of their walnut fireplace mantle, 40 couples have tied the knot.

Peek into the couple’s home and wedding venue.

The Philadelphia home where the internationally acclaimed Black artist Henry Ossawa Tanner lived in the 1800s has been deteriorating for years. Preservationists have been trying to protect the National Historic Landmark.

Question: What was the latest development in the fight to preserve the home? This story has the answer.

Do you know which Philadelphia library branch this photo shows?

📮 If you think you do, email me back. You and your memories of visiting this spot might be featured in the newsletter.

I’m thinking maybe I need a statement piece like that dragon in my home. What do you think? Enjoy the rest of your week.