Just Listed: Riverside Retreat in Gladwyne

If you lived here, you’d be on vacation now: the Schuylkill is the nicest of all the amenities offered by this house at 238 River Rd., Gladwyne, Pa. 19035 | TREND and Bright MLS images via BHHS Fox & Roach Realtors

Everybody knows Gladwyne, right? Spectacular, sprawling mansions on equally outsized lots that sprawl all over the hills and valleys that define this most affluent community in the entire Greater Philadelphia region.

But Gladwyne also includes one valley people tend to overlook: the one through which the Schuylkill River flows. The river forms Gladwyne’s eastern border, but it’s separated from the rest of the community by a railroad, a freeway, and about 300 feet of elevation.

What that means is that the relative handful of Gladwynites who are fortunate enough to own riverfront property enjoy a splendid isolation different in character from what the folks who live up on the hilltops experience.

With this Gladwyne riverside house for sale now on the market, you now have a chance to become one of those fortunate few.

Rear elevation

Like its neighbors on River Road, this house sits on a lot that’s tiny by Gladwye standards: just 8,276 square feet, or not quite two-tenths of an acre. As the photo at the top should make clear, your neighbors live unusually close to you for Gladwyne. But neither you nor they are looking for that kind of privacy. Instead, you’re looking to enjoy life on the water. And because lots of people want to do this but there’s only so much land for them to do it on, the lots become small.

The houses, in turn, become large relative to their lots, just like the vacation homes at the Jersey shore. And because this is a year-round vacation home, it takes its design and layout cues from those Jersey Shore houses. Just seven years old, this house was built in the “shingle style,” a 19th-century New England import that’s popular at the Shore.

Main floor

And like those Shore houses, the main floor is one level above the riverbank. Unlike them, it’s not an “upside down” house: Because you can be guaranteed at least one good flood every year on the Schuylkill unless there’s a drought, the house needs to be elevated completely above the very narrow floodplain.

Living room

Because this house has a little more room to spread out than those tightly-packed Shore houses, you also get a design that maximizes those river-facing views, especially on the open main floor. There’s not a place on it where you can’t look out its supersized windows and get a splendid view.

Kitchen and dining room

That includes the kitchen, which faces the dining room next to the main-floor deck.

Main-floor deck

When the weather’s nice, you can open up the doors from the living and dining rooms and make the indoors and the outdoors one. Stairs lead from the main-floor deck down to the riverbank and your private boat slip.

Second-floor master bedroom

Second-floor master bathroom

Third-floor master bedroom

Third-floor master bathroom

And when you want to commune with the river in a more private fashion, this Gladwyne riverside house for sale has two master suites, one on the second floor, one on the third. Both have their own private decks facing the river.

Family room

If the weather’s not nice, you and yours can relax and watch movies or read or study in the third-floor family room.

This handsome, energy-efficient waterside residence lets you take a vacation whenever you want without having to brave the Shore-bound traffic. And even though it’s close by, you won’t need to use the Schuylkill Expressway much either if you can work remotely. (It’s just far enough away that you won’t be disturbed by the traffic flowing along it when you’re enjoying your deck, either.)

THE FINE PRINT

BEDS: 4

BATHS: 4 full, 1 half

SQUARE FEET: 3,408

SALE PRICE: $1,350,000

OTHER STUFF: In addition to a two-car garage, this house has a one-boat garage as well.

238 River Rd., Gladwyne, Pa. 19035 [Randy Myer | BHHS Fox & Roach Realtors]