City House of the Week: Arts & Crafts Stunner in East Mount Airy

It was designed Ashton S. Tourison.

TREND images via Redfin.com

TREND images via Redfin.com

Prior to stopping its presses in the mid-1950s, The American Magazine published a piece by builder Ashton S. Tourison in its May 1920 issue. His essay? “What People Want When They Come to Buy a Home.” The deck reads: “Some points about human nature picked up by a builder with fifty years’ experience.” You can read the first section of the article here, but we can tell you now, Tourison was perfectly confident when it came to knowing what people, especially “Philadelphia people,” wanted out of their homes.

So, what does a residence by such an authoritative figure look like? Surprise, surprise, Northwest Philadelphia – his birthplace and early building grounds– claims some of his works still around. This one, an East Mt. Airy beauty designed with the Arts & Crafts philosophy in mind, happens to be one of them.

Born out of his turn-of-the-last-century Sedgwick Farms development, the home has been conserved by the same couple for the last forty-nine years. It’s got a distinct Tudor façade and deep porch with stone columns, but the real show can be seen inside: living room paneled in quarter-sawn oak wainscoting; glass-enclosed porch accessed through French doors in the dining room; and a colorful panoply of rooms that includes a, well, how to put it? A thoroughly blue bedroom.

Of its more notable details, the home is in the good fortune of having built-in bookcases, leaded windows, beamed ceilings, and hardwood floors.  Perhaps the only hitch worth mentioning is the “cook’s kitchen,” an amply-sized room the listing says might fare better with a little updating. All in all, though, it’s conveniently situated (WalkScore gives it a 96/100) and with a laundry and separate mud room on its first level. Specs and photos below.

THE FINE PRINT
Beds: 6
Baths: 3 full, 1 half
Square feet: 3,749
Price: $500,000

TREND images via Redfin.

Listing: 50 E Sedgwick St, Philadelphia, PA, 19119 [BHHS Fox & Roach-Jenkintown]

Note: An earlier version of this post had the home’s price listed as $525,000. Agent Joseph Dougherty tells us it has since been reduced to $500,000.