Just Listed: Renewed Richard Neutra House in Jeffersonville
The midcentury modernist master designed a handful of houses in the Philadelphia area. This one has been beautifully updated and polished to a high gloss.
109 S. Marshall Rd., Jeffersonville, Pa. 19403 | Photos: Michael Hirsch via Kurfiss Sotheby’s International Realty
When you are handed a masterwork that’s faded over time, you do whatever you can to preserve its character while restoring it.
That’s what the owners of this house Richard Neutra designed in 1956 have done with their gem in Jeffersonville. They were fortunate in that they had access to a wealth of documentation about it, including renderings in the Museum of Modern Art in New York, three publications concerning it and drawings, papers and correspondence in the University of Pennsylvania’s Architectural Archives.
This house for sale is one of only a handful Neutra designed on the East Coast. Five of them are in this area, the result of a visiting professorship Neutra held at Penn in the mid-1950s. The famed modernist architect, who won the American Institute of Architects Gold Medal in 1977, designed houses that were meant to both incorporate and harmonize with the natural world outside them.
The landscape architect the owners hired, Blue Bell-based S. Edgar David & Associates, understood this. The landscapers have surrounded this house for sale with flowering trees and shrubs that complement the stone-and-stucco facade and frame the pool in the back.
Living room
Inside, the owners restored the original cedar plank ceiling that spans the living areas and the walnut cabinetry found in several of the rooms. Combined with stone, brick and glass, the warm wood brings the nature that surrounds this house inside it.
Family room
The nature also pours in through the walls of windows that line the rear of the main living areas. A double-sided stone fireplace splits the open main living area into distinct living and family rooms.
Kitchen with seating area
Presaging the way we live now, Neutra placed the kitchen next to the family room and tied the two together with a peninsula with bar seating. Together with the dining room behind the family room, this creates a central space through which dinner guests and hosts can flow and interact with one another continually.
Kitchen
The kitchen itself got restored cabinetry and updated stainless-steel ažpliances.
Master bedroom
Master bathroom
Cedar planks also grace the wall of the master bedroom, whose bathroom also doubles as a guest bathroom via a door leading to the hall.
Sun porch
Out in back, a sun porch extends the dinner-party-guest interaction zone into the backyard.
Pool
It looks out onto a serene pool framed by a flagstone terrace. A pool house with changing rooms on one side and landscaping on the other two sides turns this into an outdoor rec room.
All of this sits on a quiet street with only one access point just off Main Street in Jeffersonville, just west of Norristown. You will enjoy not only beauty, style and tranquility here — you will also enjoy easy access to downtown Norristown, King of Prussia, the Pennsylvania Turnpike, the Schuylkill Expressway and SEPTA Regional Rail into the city.
THE FINE PRINT
BEDS: 4
BATHS: 2
SQUARE FEET: 1,983
SALE PRICE: $650,000
109 S. Whitehall Rd., Jeffersonville, Pa. 19403 [Susan Ravenscroft | Kurfiss Sotheby’s International Realty]
