These Are the 10 Most Expensive Homes in Society Hill
We've been looking at how little you can get away with paying in order to live in popular neighborhoods across the city. Starting now, we're also going to look at how much you might pay.
This pair of townhomes at 238 S. 4th St. offers more than 14,000 square feet of interior space. It’s the value leader on this week’s ten-most-expensive list. | TREND image via Allan Domb Real Estate
Tom Scannapieco isn’t the only person in Philadelphia playing “Can You Top This?” with residential real estate these days, though the only person he’s playing against is himself.
The scorching real estate market in the city means that prices in even middling neighborhoods have begun to rise to new heights. Meanwhile, prices in the most desirable neighborhoods, while not rising as fast, are also marching upward.
Because of this, it’s time we started looking at the action at the top of the local real estate market, beginning with the city’s most affluent neighborhood, Society Hill.
Sure enough, sitting at the top of our ten-most-expensive list is a full-floor empty box Scannapieco is inviting you to fill. Located on the 16th floor of 500 Walnut, this 4,300-square-foot condo is ready for you and your architect to design and build to your specifications.
The other homes on this list are already completed. All of them, even the one home with a contemporary exterior, demonstrate just how much the classic Colonial style dominates when it comes to interior design at the top of the market.
All of them save one, that is. 608 Spruce St. flips the script: It’s a typically Philadelphian early 19th-century Georgian home on the outside, built by house and ship painter Alexander Thompson. Inside, however, it mixes things up. The main floor and lower level are strikingly modern in style, with a three-story light-filled stairwell joining the living room with the master suite above and the great room below. A bridge connects the living room to the restrained formal dining room, while the kitchen off the great room downstairs is all Eurostyle modern, a custom Bolthaup design.
Yet even here, you’ll find Colonial elegance in the master suite.
Colonial and contemporary mix it up in this 4,289-square-foot townhome at 608 Spruce St. | TREND image via BHHS Fox & Roach Realtors
In terms of space, you can find some relative bargains in this rarefied price range: 238 S. 4th St., the fourth-priciest listing, is also the largest by far, offering a whopping 14,131 square feet of space in two adjoining Colonial townhomes.
“The largest properties are often not the most expensive,” said Constantine Valhouli, director of research for NeighborhoodX. “The condo at 500 Walnut St. is asking over $1,600 per square foot, while the other properties ask between $350 and $889 per square foot.”
That double-bill on 4th Street is the bargain of the bunch at a mere $350 per square foot.
