A townhouse in Philly’s Hawthorne neighborhood offered the space they needed in the pandemic

Chris Balbi credited the townhouse he bought in the Hawthorne section of Philadelphia in January 2020 with saving his relationship with his soon-to-be-husband, Frankie Rowles. At the time, the couple were sharing a 700-square-foot studio apartment.

“Had we not done it right before the pandemic, we probably wouldn’t be together because we both ended up being home a lot more often and needed the space,” said Balbi, director of marketing for the Meesha Aesthetics med spas.

They now share 1,300 square feet in their circa 1920, three-story home, with three bedrooms (one including a loft), two bathrooms, and a roof deck. When they moved in, all the walls were white, giving them a blank canvas to build upon.

Among their many personal touches, the most recent involved replacing the home’s wooden railings with black wrought iron for a more modern feel. They also created two green walls, a larger one on the second floor landing and one smaller, framed like a piece of art, behind the living room sofa.

“I’m more of a dreamer, and Frankie is more of a realist, so I dreamed up this plant wall and sketched it out, and he figured out how to make it happen,” said Balbi, who drew inspiration from a similar wall in Ikea and a TikTok video.

Armed with recyclable material plants that looked real — there isn’t enough light for living plants — Balbi added faux rock texture and worked to make it look as organic as possible.

“We added a bunch of different varieties of plants in different tones, textures and colors to give it that breathing, living look,” he said.

His pride and joy is their colorful resin coffee table, made by Jason Frantz, whom Balbi met on Reddit. The table was built from an old oak bench that had been reclaimed from a church, split down the middle and filled with resin. Balbi appreciates the table’s beauty but also the meaning that went into its design.

“Frantz explained to me that his wife had terminal breast cancer, and she would help choose the colors of the resin so a piece of her got to live on in every table he made,” Balbi said.

At Balbi’s request, the artist etched dinosaur footprints into one corner, a nod to Balbi’s love of all things dinosaur. Dinosaurs initially roamed the entire house, but at Rowles’ urging, Balbi moved his collection into the guest room, where visitors now sleep in the “dinopad” among an array of dinosaur toys and artwork.

While the couple are living with the home’s original kitchen, a renovation is on the to-do list. For now, Rowles, a freelance graphic designer and illustrator, does most of the cooking, often relying on Hello Fresh for inspiration and instruction.

The couple love to entertain, often gathering with friends, neighbors and their Jack Russell terrier, Maggie, around the fire pit in the open lot next door. They volunteer to keep the lot clean of trash and overgrown weeds, and Rowles painted a colorful mural on the wall. There, they’ve hosted Pride events, seafood boils, and movie nights.

Since sprucing up their roof deck with a lattice wall covered in creeping vines for shade and privacy, that’s become another space where they enjoy hanging out.

“What I love most is the community we’ve built,” Rowles said. “We love our neighbors, who look out for one another, keeping everyone up to date on what’s happening. Some people have been living there since the ‘90s while others are just now moving in. It’s an array of people from all different walks of life who like to hang out with one another.”

The couple met in 2015 at Barnes & Noble in Center City, when Balbi spotted Rowles reading his favorite book, The Giver by Lois Lowry. They plan to wed this fall.

“Our love for Philadelphia makes me want to make our home a showpiece,” Balbi said, “because I want to make Philadelphia a brighter and better place.”

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