My copy of the April 2018 House Beautiful arrived Saturday, just when I most needed a dose of color and warmth to carry me through winter’s last few days. ALL the tours sang of spring, but this 1840s Philadelphia home charmed me the most with its boho mix of old and new, pattern and color, and collections that personalize everything.
See if you don’t agree…
A Dutch door says welcome no matter where it turns up. This one greets visitors at the front entrance.
Owner Wendy Wurtzburger says she and partner Chris Bentley theme rooms around their collections and their art. “But it’s not literal,” she explains. “We group things by instinct to create visual storytelling.”
And what a cozy story this living room tells! I especially love the curtain panels folded and draped as simple window treatments, as well as the Murano glass paperweights arranged in the pewter platter on the coffee table.
A mix-and-match collection of Kit Kemp’s Folk Thread Chairs, designed for Anthropologie, look so welcoming combined with majolica birds and candlesticks in a variety of contours.
Candlesticks are one of my favorite things to collection, too, though I go for turned and/or carved wood, usually (but not always) teak. Candlesticks are affordable, easy to store and to display in a variety of ways, and they make an architectural statement en masse.
Those cocky parrots are from South Africa.
The sandstone covering the island top once paved the hallowed halls of Philadelphia’s Independence Hall.
I’d do more than sit down to breakfast in this kitchen nook. Put a Keurig nearby and I’d never move from this spot all day.
The library features a gallery wall of Bentley’s collection of gilt-framed snowy landscapes.
This master bedroom simply sings spring to me with its pistachio walls, lemon coverlet and rooster-appliqued shams.
Bentley grew up in nearby Historic Bucks County, where a lot of the homes resemble this 1840s Philadelphia colonial.
What I wouldn’t give right now to pull up a chair under this pergola and let the sun warm my back.
If you want more…
- Continue your tour of this home either in the print version of the April 2018 House Beautiful, or follow the link to the magazine’s website and view electronically. Either way, Celia Barbour’s interview with the designer owners, “Philadelphia Storybook,” will take you away to another place and time. The gardens alone–all designed by Bentley–are a dose of warmth and bloom that just looking at will help you get through winter’s last hurrah.
- Learn more about Wurtzburger’s home products venture with Mitzie Wong, Roar+Rabbit, and purchase items from the collection at retailer West Elm. Wendy also has a fashion venture called Until Soon, which you can read about HERE.