Philadelphia Home: Inside Drew Becher’s Chestnut Hill Home

Tucked on a rolling two acres in Chestnut Hill, the 1926 English Tudor home of Pennsylvania Horticultural Society president Drew Becher is a mix of crisp modernity and enchanting country charm.

A “cheap pine table” Becher found sits against the fieldstone wall on the back terrace. Becher painted it and topped it with a slab of bluestone; it now bears Lochner’s collection of succulents from PHS’s Meadowbrook Farm. “They have one of the best succulent collections in the whole area,” says Becher. “And that’s not just me being the PHS person.”

After peeling back layer upon layer of floral wallpaper that sheathed everything from walls to ceilings—“It was like an archaeological dig,” Becher says—the couple painted the living and dining rooms in Benjamin Moore’s crisp Sterling Gray. An eclectic mix of furnishings includes a white Knoll stool and a black velvet Louis XIV chair, a London flea market score. The vintage Lucite-and-glass coffee­ table was originally in a 1980s nightclub; Becher found it at a D.C.-area antique shop. The “birdcage chairs” by Kenneth Cobonpue are made of wicker-wrapped steel, shellacked to a glossy black finish. The low-slung sofa is another custom piece by Berkus. Lochner found the antique cabinet while traveling in Shanghai.

In the walk-through kitchen, marble subway tiles stretch up to the ceiling. Custom built-in cabinetry conceals all appliances—including two dishwashers and a wine refrigerator—­and black granite countertops add depth to the otherwise all-white space.