Look Who Finally Sold the Vince Fumo Mansion: John Bolaris
The sixth time on the market was the charm for this historic 1885 manor near the Art Museum, which went for $2.6 million.
Former State Sen. Vince Fumo’s residence on Green Street in Spring Garden sold for $2.6 million on October 8th. / House photographs by Plush Image Corporation
Sooner or later, every home will find its buyer.
Yesterday afternoon, former State Senator Vincent Fumo’s Art Museum-area mansion finally found its.
The Fumo estate sold for $2.6 million in a transaction handled by John Bolaris, managing partner of Black Label Keller Williams Luxury at KW Empower, and Black Label’s director of sales, Dan Deckelbaum.
This was the sixth go-round on the market for this 1885 Victorian manor. And the sale price this time was a far cry from the $7 million Fumo sought for the house when he first tried to sell it.
It’s also less than half the $5.5 million he asked for the next three times he tried to sell it.
Even so, the $2.6 million sale price is, per Bolaris, the highest for an Art Museum-area townhouse in the last three years.
Foyer
“It took us just under 60 days to find a buyer,” says Bolaris. The buyer, he says, is a couple who plans to use the house as a multi-generational family residence and is willing to make the renovations needed to bring this one into the here and now.
Not that it really needs major renovations, as the photos here and these from its previous listing two years ago should make clear. But some of the rooms could use a refresh, and some of the things you don’t see, like mechanical and electrical systems, needed updating. (Things like these are often dealt with in the negotiations leading to the closing, which is why the trip from offer to signed contract took three months.)
Living room
“In the past, this house had been a commercial property, with six apartments,” Bolaris continues. “We decided not to go that way” and sell to a developer “because it would be too problematic with all the zoning rules and regulations.” (Its block is zoned for multi-family residential, so this could have been done.)
“They loved the home,” Bolaris says of the buyers. “They felt like this was something really special for them, their family, relatives coming up to visit, picturing the holidays at the home.”
Game room on top floor
As you may recall from that previous listing, Fumo outfitted this house for large-scale entertaining and regularly held political fund-raisers there. It even has a commercial kitchen on its lower level. The buyers intend to keep it.
“It also has a shooting gallery on the lower level,” Bolaris says. “I don’t know if they plan to use that.”
Roof deck
The house also has two more kitchens, a wine cellar, a roof deck with panoramic views, a media room and game room, a guest suite, an apartment with its own entrance and a 2,000-square-foot patio next to the commercial kitchen and media room.
Bolaris (left) and Deckelbaum
The buyers have hired Peruto Custom Homes to do the work on this house. Bolaris praised the quality of the firm’s work and noted that it has done many historic restorations and renovations, noting in particular a recent conversion of a church in Graduate Hospital into a residence.
