Habitat: A Light-Filled Home in Jenkintown

A fresh palette inside this classic home in Jenkintown makes the decor stand out against a backdrop of crisp whites and airy neutrals.

All photos by Sam Oberter

All photos by Sam Oberter

I wouldn’t say I don’t like color,” says Anne Flynn, who, along with her husband, Sean, has owned this light-filled home in Jenkintown for 12 years. “I like the color to be in the art.”

It’s a straightforward statement, but one that holds true throughout each of the perfectly, if serendipitously, curated spaces on the home’s first floor. Works from local artists Jimmy Lueders and Martha Madigan as well as iconic street artist Shepard Fairey share wall space with the home’s framed original 1936 blueprints.

The house’s classic features — tall windows with deep sills, the winding main staircase, a sparkling fireplace — remain front and center, but it’s the crisp, light walls that serve to highlight decor that’s new, vintage and, in some cases, found.

The antlers on the sconces in the entry hall, for example, were “picked out of a pile” in a roadside shop in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, and only later transformed by Merit Metal Products of Warrington into statement pieces.

“I think it’s true with anyone’s home,” says Anne. “You put in it what you love, and it should work.”



This article originally appeared in the June 2015 issue of Philadelphia magazine.