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A Lovely Home With a "Juliet Balcony." Which Means ... What?

Curbed University delivers insider tips and non-boring advice on how to buy, sell, or rent a home or apartment. Additional questions welcomed to philly@curbed.com.

Here's the thing about a Juliet balcony that you should know: The word "balcony" is relative. Merriam-Webster defines balcony as "a platform that projects from the wall of a building and is enclosed by a parapet or railing." One example given to understand the definition is:

· On summer mornings I often have breakfast out on the balcony.

If a listing features a Juliet balcony, you will not be breakfasting on it. In fact, you may not even be standing on it at all—unless you want to topple to the ground. The house in Verona, Italy, where Juliet answered Romeo's cries with her plaintive and oft-misunderstood "Wherefore art thou Romeo?" (wherefore means why, not where), is small. Of course, people were smaller then, and she was probably almost midget-like, being a teenager and all. Maybe to her, the balcony was spacious.
And it is spacious enough to have weddings there, now that the city of Verona permits it (below—those people are not the real Romeo and Juliet).

Here in the States, a Juliet balcony is less romantic and less capacious. Let's take a look at some examples. These are all houses that are on the market currently and are in Fairmount, Society Hill, Center City and Queen Village.

That being said (or shown), there are many people who really don't care about a balcony at all, let alone whether it's a Juliet one or a Rapunzel one or a Room With a View one. And the plus side of a Juliet balcony is that it allows you the opportunity to live in one of these nice homes in the city and still have fresh-grown rosemary to cook with your lamb (or tofu).