Category: Home & Design

For Cheryl and Jesse Jacobs, the three-bedroom, 2½-bathroom twin in Mount Airy had it all: friendly neighbors, good schools, nearby parks, and a short walk to the Sedgwick SEPTA Regional Rail station.

And for Jesse, a finished basement he called “my man cave,” where he played with the couple’s son.

The house had been in their family a long time. Cheryl grew up there. When her father died in 2013, they decided to make major renovations.

They opened up the kitchen on the lower floor, reworked the primary bathroom to enlarge the shower, installed recessed lighting, and replaced the water heater and home heating system.

Now the Jacobs family — he’s a retired facilities manager for large corporations; she’s a semi-retired HR consultant — are downsizing to a home in South Jersey and planning to winter in Florida with their son.

The Mount Airy house, built in the 1920s, is 2,062 square feet and has a brick-and-stone facade.

The main level has a large living room with hardwood floors, and the dining room has the original plaster detailing. Arched French doors lead into the kitchen, which has stained glass windows.

There are working wood-burning fireplaces on the first level and in the basement.

The three bedrooms are on the second level.

The basement could serve as a home office, media room, or in-law suite.

The house has a covered front porch, a two-car garage with extra storage space, two green outdoor areas, and a rear patio.

Mount Airy Playground, Pleasant Playground, and Benjamin L. Johnston Memorial Stadium are all easily accessible.

The house is in the Henry H. Houston School catchment area.

It is listed by Cherise Wynne of Compass Realty for $600,000.

“It has a country feeling,” said Sruthi Selvam, “but if you walk out the gate, you’re downtown in 10 minutes. And the landscaping is beautiful.”

Selvam and her husband, Kamesh Arumuzam, spent three years in the three-bedroom, 2½-bathroom end-unit condo in the Naval Square community.

The couple bought the unit in 2022 while Selvam, a dentist, was in an international dental program at the University of Pennsylvania. Now the two, both natives of India, and their two young children have returned to California, where she is setting up a practice, and he is a software engineer.

The unit features a private terrace spanning the width of the property. On the first level, it has an open-concept living and dining area and a kitchen with Shaker-style maple cabinetry, stone countertops, a glass tile backsplash, Brazilian cherry hardwood flooring, and a half bath.

There is also a coat closet tucked under the stairs.

The second-floor primary suite includes an exposed brick wall, an oversized walk-in closet, dual sinks, a soaking tub, and a separate stall shower.

Two other bedrooms have French sliders that open to a covered terrace, a laundry area, front-loading washer/dryer, and shared hall bath.

The attached one-car garage has ample storage and an electric car charger, and there are dual thermostats and a Ring alarm system.

The water heater was replaced in 2022, the HVAC system in 2024.

Community amenities include a pool and fitness center, picnic areas, guest parking and a community room.

Naval Square is close to the South Street Bridge, the University of Pennsylvania, Rittenhouse Square, and Schuylkill River Park. It is also pet-friendly.

The unit is listed by Jocelyn Morris of Compass Realty for $749,000.

Last spring, Katie Kring-Schreifels noticed two mourning doves fluttering in the maple tree outside her bedroom window. With the help of binoculars, over the course of several weeks she watched as the birds made a nest in the crook of two branches, then two eggs appeared in the nest, then fledglings hatched, and finally the baby birds grew up and flew away.

Kring-Schreifels wasn’t surveying birds from a house in a bucolic suburb. She was watching from her second-floor apartment in a brick rowhouse in Bella Vista.

Wanting to share the urban wildlife’s saga, Kring-Schreifels alerted her upstairs and downstairs neighbors to the nesting doves so they could watch, too.

The Temple graduate loves city living, shopping at the Italian Market two blocks away, and taking courses at Fleisher Art Memorial down the street.

Having grown up in Elkins Park, she values nature and has found ways to bring it into her one-bedroom rental. Her walls are painted pale sunshine yellow, for instance, and a flock of paper bluebirds is suspended from string, creating the illusion that they’re flying across a living room window.

Kring-Schreifels’ mother, Julie, found the birds at a craft show. Julie, an artist, also created the framed collage with red poppies. And her prints of a fanciful salmon and a raven were purchased on a family trip to Vancouver.

A map of London combining drawings of birds and foxes with street names was acquired by Kring-Schreifels when she spent a college semester abroad.

The beige pullout couch and coffee table in the living room came from Wayfair. The green chair, globe lamp, and the beige, cream, and black rug were purchased from Ikea, one of her favorite shopping destinations. “I love Scandinavian design,” she said, “It’s simple and warm.”

In warm weather, marigolds and other annuals fill pots on the balcony, which is furnished with a blue storage cabinet from Target, blue chairs from Ikea, and a black metal table from her aunt, Mindy Kring. A brass sunburst headboard has been repurposed as a resting place for a green and bronze dragonfly found at the flea market on Head House Square.

Inside, on an accent wall painted taupe, hangs a multihued Geologic Shaded-Relief Map of Pennsylvania. Kring-Schreifels finds ancient rock croppings fascinating. “I wish I had been a geology major,” she said.

Instead she was a public relations and art history major and now works as an executive assistant for a promotional products producer.

Plants and books fill shelves over a dining nook furnished with a white table and red chairs from Ikea.

The kitchen, with pale pine cabinetry and stainless steel appliances, including an apartment-size dishwasher, and the apartment’s oak flooring were installed after Kring-Schreifels’ landlord, Nate Carabello, bought the house in 2005.

It had been boarded up for 30 years, he said, and a tree was growing in the middle of the then-roofless house. The brick rowhouse probably had been built in the early 1900s and enlarged in the 1920s, said Carabello, who lives nearby.

The reglazed white fixtures and black-and-white tile in the bathroom were the only items from the 1920s he was able to salvage.

In the bedroom, Kring-Schreifels’ favorite find is the coral, green, and cream-colored fan above her bed, which she purchased on Facebook Marketplace for $30. The fan’s colors are picked up in the small armchair from the Habitat for Humanity ReStore and in the William Morris-inspired floral patterned rug from eBay.

The iron bed came from Amazon. The gold drapes, green-and-white bedding, and tan blanket came from a nearby Target. The leather trunk with brass fittings belonged to Kring-Schreifels’ great-grandmother.

Shades covering storage spaces above two closets were hung by Kring-Schreifels’ father, Jeff, who also provides transportation when his daughter, who has no car, wants her purchases hauled home.

Under the bedroom window hangs a photo of a seascape with roiling blue waves. On the windowsill next to an ethereal print called Evening in Paris are binoculars awaiting the return of mourning birds next spring.

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Living in the Fox Chase Manor neighborhood in the mid-1990s, Linda and Mike Tobin admired the location of houses across the street. So in 1997, they decided to buy one and enlarge it.

They raised their two children there and sent them to the Abington School District. But now the children are grown up and have moved to Cherry Hill, where Linda is from, so the Tobins will follow them there.

Mike installs telecommunications systems for businesses, and Linda is a retired telecommunications professional.

Mike said they were particularly attracted by “the quaintness of the neighborhood, the big oak trees,” and township-residents-only Alverthorpe Park, with its variety of athletic facilities.

So they undertook a major renovation of the house on one of the larger plots of Fox Chase Manor, with a two-car attached garage and driveway parking for four more cars.

The renovation comprised an expanded eat-in kitchen, first-floor powder room, and a family room with a gas fireplace and a large patio.

The second level was expanded for the house to have four bedrooms, two full bathrooms, and a laundry room.

Entrance to the house is through a covered front porch into the foyer, living room, and formal dining room.

The second level has the bedrooms, and the primary bathroom has a stall shower and walk-in closet.

The partially finished basement has heat.

There are hardwood floors in most of the home, and tile in the kitchen and bathrooms.

The roof was replaced in 2015 and there is 200-amp electric throughout.

The house is close to Huntingdon Valley Shopping Center and a Giant supermarket.

It is listed by Don Rowley of Coldwell Banker Hearthside Realtors for $599,900.