Philadelphia Row Houses

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Philadelphia Row Houses
By Don Letts and Lindsey Kieffaber
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Penn's Plan

• Penn's initial design for his 'green country
  town' was framed partly in response to his
  negative view of london- (pg. 10. Spaces, inside
  and outside in Eighteenth-Century Philadelphia by
  Sharon V Salinger)
• Philadelphia was the first large-scale gridiron.
• He designed the town for large mansions per block
  surrounded by gardens. A truly suburban setting
• Ironically, ...by 1750 the aspect of the toen
  bore a closer resemblance to London than to
  Penn's vision of a disciplined community. (pg.
  1. Houses and Early Life in Philadelphia, by
  Grant Miles Simon)

3
Row House Comprimise

• Row Houses were Philadelphias dominant building
  type for 300 years (pg. 14, The Comparative Row
  House Study an Introduction to Architectural
  Design, by Paul Hirsorn)
• Row House design is essentially a comprimise
  between what Penn wanted, and what London was.
• The majority of the row houses did not have
  gardens in front of them.
• However row houses allowed for individuals to own
  property rather than the appartment style New
  York.
• Penn encouraged, and there still remains a
  psychology within Philadelphia (especially the
  old Philadelphia area) that the inhabitants are
  city people, but country people at heart.

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Half Timber Construction
A few examples of half-timber construction

• Used in Germany and London (before the great fire
  of 1666)
• Relevance the first row houses were constructed
  in half-timber construction (Budds Row- the
  earliest recorded row in Philadelphia dating
  from about 1691 (pg. 140, Robert Mills and the
  Philadelphia Row House, by Kenneth Ames)

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Elfreth's alley - upper to middle
class inhabitants - 1702-1755 - one side is
primarily Georgian architecture,
and the other federal.
South Side of Elfreth's Alley
Georgian architecture - pediments - paneled
shutters
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North Side of Elfreths Alley
Federal Architecture -collumns around the
door -more aymewtrical and balanced. -have
elevated entrances more often
- pedimented gable - three full stories - roof
pitch reduced
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• York Row
• South side of walnut street facing sansom row
• originally very grand
• Built by BHL in 1807-1808, shortly before Mills
  created Franklin row

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• Franklin Row
• Built in 1810 by Robert Mills
• South 9th St, between Chestnut and Walnut St.

9
Colonade Row

• Corner of Fifteenth and Chestnut Streets
• residential four-storey buildings
• 1830
• John Haviland

10

• Sansom Row
• Brown Stone Façade (16 of 182 westward have
  common Philadelphia brick)
• Imbricated Shingles overlapping edges
• Mansards - upper story formed by a slanted roof
• Paired Doorways
• Continuous bracketed cornices molding

Built in 1860s By Benjamin Henry Latrobe
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Elfreth's Alley
Franklin Row
Sansom Row
York Row
Budd's Long Row
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Bibliography

• Bridenbaugh, Carl. Cities in the Wilderness. New
  York The Ronald Press Company.
• Burt, Nathaniel. The Perennial Philadelphians.
  Philadelphia University of Pennslyvania Press,
  1963.
• Salinger, Sharon V. Spaces, Inside and Outside
  in Eighteenth Century Philadelphia. Journal of
  Interdisciplinary History, Vol. 26, No. 1. 31.
  1995.
• Ames, Kenneth. Robert Mills and the Philadelphia
  Row House. The Journal of the Society of
  Architectural Historians, Vol. 27, No. 2. May,
  1968. 140-146
• Schweitzer, Mary M. The Spatial Organization of
  Federalist Philadelphia, 1790. Journal of
  Interdisciplinary History, Vol. 24, No. 1. 31.
  1993.
• The Octavia Hill Association. Certain Aspects of
  the Housing Problem in Philadelphia. Annals of
  the American academy of Political and Social
  Science.Vol. 20. July 1902, 111-120.
• http//www.uchs.net/HistoricDistricts/sansomrow.ht
  ml
• http//www.brynmawr.edu/cities/courses/05-306/proj
  2/ab2/Developers.htm

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Bibliography cont

• Simon, Grant Miles. Houses and Early Life in
  Philadelphia. Transactions of the American
  Philosophical Society. New Ser, Vol. 43, No. 1.
  1953.
• Murtagh, William John. The Philadelphia Row
  House. The Journal of the Society of
  Architectural Historians, Vol. 16 No. 4. December
  1957.
• Smith, Robert C. Two Centuries of Philadelphia
  Architecture 1700-1800. Transations of the
  American Philosophical Society, New Ser, Vol 43,
  No. 1. 1953
• http//www.philadelphiabuildings.org/pab/app/ho_di
  splay.cfm/781464
• http//sacredheritage.com/normita/images/sloth-3.j
  pg
• Hirshorn, Paul. The Comparative Rowhouse Study
  An Introduction to Architectural Design. JAE,
  Vol. 36, No. 1. 1982.
• http//www.brynmawr.edu/iconog/evans/files/phs178.
  html