Just Listed: Modern Rowhouse in Bella Vista
This handsome four-year-old rowhouse offers minimalist elegance with splashes of color.
Bare white rooms can look very spare and bleak, but the designer of this living room put bookcases in that make it warm and inviting instead. You’ll find it inside this house at 833 Bainbridge St., Philadelphia, Pa. 19147 | Images via Kurfiss Sotheby’s International Realty
White is a very popular neutral color because you can pair it with just about everything. But interiors done up in nothing but white feel even emptier than rooms done up in gray.
What saves this modern rowhouse wedged between South Street and the Italian Market in Bella Vista from that bleak fate is: It had a — builder? designer? owner? some combination of all three? — who understood that white spaces perk up when you add some color to them.
Nowhere is that more apparent than in the second-floor living room of this Bella Vista modern rowhouse for sale.
What adds life to this room is its accent wall, where built-in bookcases frame a marble-faced gas fireplace and a big-screen HDTV. If you’re a bibliophile, you will love the possibilities this room presents to you; if you collect objects, these shelves let you show them off; if both apply, imagine alternating the two collections.
Master bedroom
The two bedrooms on the third floor also have colorful accent walls. The one in the master bedroom is particularly intense, while the one in the other bedroom on this floor is a more subdued pastel.
Master bathroom
And the bathrooms are anything but blank. All of them have floating dark wood vanities and tile tub/shower enclosures in black-and-white or marble. The master bathroom, above, is all decked out in stone tile in varied shades of gray and beige.
Basement rec room
Red walls add spice to the basement rec room, which this house’s current owner uses as a music studio. You might want to put it to some other use, and it’s flexible enough to accommodate it; the presence of a full bath on this floor means it could even be a guest bedroom or au pair suite.
Foyer and main floor
Even the whitest space in the house, the main floor, gets relief from monotony with its lighting, kitchen fixtures, and wood trim on the main staircase.
Kitchen
That kitchen, by the way, is a slick Eurostyle number outfitted with top-flight appliances, including a Sub-Zero refrigerator that blends right in with the cabinets surrounding it and a wine fridge. Note the absence of an island; you could conceivably put a small table here for informal dining if you like, for there’s room enough for one.
Rear patio
The dark-stained concrete patio just beyond the kitchen offers another bit of color. Making it greener would add even more, and it would help reduce stormwater runoff to boot.
Roof deck
But if you really want color, go up onto the full-floor roof deck, stopping to fix yourself a drink at the third-floor wet bar on the way. There you’ll enjoy a 360-degree view of Center City and South Philly.
Exterior
Of course, given that this house is in a colorful part of town as it is, maybe a heaping helping of white might be just what you want to calm yourself after work, shopping, dining or leisure.
THE FINE PRINT
BEDS: 3
BATHS: 4 full, 1 half
SQUARE FEET: 2,756
SALE PRICE: $1,395,000
OTHER STUFF: This Bella Vista modern rowhouse for sale is also wired for sound throughout, with built-in speakers in every room. It also comes with a one-car garage.
833 Bainbridge St., Philadelphia, Pa. 19147 [Michele Witkowski and Melanie Stecura | Kurfiss Sotheby’s International Realty]
