House of the week: A 19th-century Queen Anne Victorian twin in West Philadelphia for $975,000

It isn’t often that a couple’s purchase of a home is like a sentimental love story, but Angela Kent and Paulo Arratia were the exception.

They set their sights on the first house they saw in 2012, the stately Queen Anne Victorian in the Spruce Hill neighborhood of West Philadelphia, only to see another buyer beat them to it.

But as they looked for other houses, Arratia said, “the flame just wouldn’t die.” Even if the five-bedroom, 2½-bath twin was more house than they needed in terms of both space and dollars.

“We moved on in our search but not in our hearts,” Kent said. “We liked it so much, and we hadn’t found what we wanted.”

Then, while still house-hunting a year later, Kent saw that the original sale had fallen through and the house was back on the market. This time, they gulped and wrote the check.

“Young, ambitious, probably a little stupid” is how Kent described the couple at the time. “But it turned out to be one of the best choices of our life.”

Now, a decade older and more established, they and their 4-year-old daughter are moving again, probably to Swarthmore.

“We just wanted to experience something else,” said Arratia, a professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Pennsylvania, but he still likes the idea of an academic community.

Kent, an interior designer, is looking forward to “a little more green space.”

The 3,142-square-foot Spruce Hill house is in the Chester-Regent Historic District. It was designed by renowned Philadelphia architect Willis Hale, and built in 1892, around the same time Hale designed the iconic Divine Lorraine Hotel on North Broad Street. When Kent first saw and loved that building, “it felt like a sign.”

The house, previously owned by an architect who made numerous renovations, is next to West Philadelphia’s Clark Park and Baltimore Avenue’s shops and restaurants, and has a trolley stop at the corner.

The front garden leads to a covered wraparound front porch, and the wood-paneled entry vestibule has original mosaic floor tiles and William Morris wallpaper.

Ceilings are 12 feet high on the first floor, 10 feet on the others, with large, updated windows, cherry wood pocket doors, plaster crown moldings, and oak flooring.

The living room has a recently restored working fireplace with original decorative tiles and a powder room.

The kitchen has stainless steel appliances, a butcher-block island, and an adjacent breakfast room that has full glass doors opening to a large back garden. There are front and side gardens, too, with mature shrubs and ornamental trees, many from nearby Bartram’s Garden.

The primary bedroom is on the second floor, and other bedrooms have, at various times, served as a family TV room, office, and exercise space.

An original bedroom was converted to a spa-like master bath suite with a soaking tub, tiled shower, and double vanity. The third-floor bathroom has a claw-foot bathtub and pedestal sink.

There is ample storage space in the attic, which has a skylight, and the basement, which has clerestory windows.

“It’s just a magical house,” Kent said.

It is listed by Lindsey Vogel, Duffy Real Estate Narberth, for $975,000.