An Architect Spent 49 Years Redesigning This Philadelphia Carriage House. Now It's Listed at $2.75 Million.

Frank Weise moved into a 19th-century carriage house on South Chadwick Street in Rittenhouse Square in 1954. He began redesigning it in 1960. He was still redesigning the interior when he died in 2003. The building he left behind — now listed at $2,750,000 and added to the Philadelphia Register of Historic Places in 2023 — is considered one of the most significant works of postmodern residential architecture in the city.

What 49 Years of Designing Your Own Home Produces

The building at 307 S. Chadwick Street was originally built as a carriage house around 1865. Weise purchased it in 1958 and spent years drawing and redrawing plans before construction began in 1966. His year-by-year drawings — showing the design evolving away from pure Modernism toward something that incorporated historic elements in a distinctly postmodern idiom — are now held in the Frank Weise Collection at the University of Pennsylvania's Architectural Archives. The resulting structure has a tripartite facade: a central arched brick section inspired by Louis Kahn's rationalist language, flanked by a bold copper mansard roof (originally terne-metal, replaced in 2005) that signals the postmodern influence that Weise was among the first in Philadelphia to explore. A deeply projecting metal cornice and a furniture hoisting boom — installed because moving anything large into a Philly rowhouse is famously impossible — complete the exterior. Weise designed more than two dozen homes and buildings in the city during his decades on Chadwick Street, contributed to the renovation of Head House Square, helped restore Eastern State Penitentiary, and was a founding member of both the Wilma Theater and the Theater of the Living Arts.

The Property Today

The 2,698-square-foot building is configured as a duplex. The lower levels contain Weise's original studio and office spaces — a double-height room with four rows of arched windows, ample built-ins, and sculptural details throughout. A spiral staircase connects all five floors. The upper three floors comprise the private residence: a living room filled with light from oversized windows, a kitchen with a circular pass-through window, a lofted bedroom, and a primary suite with a Juliet balcony and city views. A rooftop terrace and a one-car carport round out the property. Following Weise's death, his heirs restored and updated the building while preserving its character. The property has previously listed at $3.5 million and $3.3 million; it is currently asking $2,750,000. The listing describes it as "a living piece of art reflecting Philadelphia's rich architectural evolution." That is accurate, if understated.

The Internet Has Thoughts

Naturally, this listing caught the attention of Reddit's r/zillowgonewild community. See what people are saying about it here.

A Louis Kahn-inspired facade, a copper mansard, a furniture hoisting boom, and 49 years of one architect's vision. View the full listing here.