Three Waverly Street Carriage Houses, Transformed

This week we're featuring the interiors of the homes that were on this weekend's Philadelphia Modern Home Tours. It was the first time Philly was a featured Modern Home Tours city, and Curbed staff photographer Laura Kicey zoomed from North Philly to Chadds Ford to Mt. Airy to get pictures.

It's sort of hard to explain Joan Wadleigh Curran's artwork. If you say it's about the natural world, that doesn't come close to conveying the darkness and menace of some of her paintings. Her plants and trees tangle with metal fences; the roots of an uprooted tree look like eels.

Wadleigh Curran, who lectures at Penn and is represented by Seraphin Gallery, had Metcalfe Architecture and Design convert three late 19th-century Center City carriage houses into a 3-bedroom, 3-bath home and showcase. The industrial notes in the 4,555 square foot home interestingly butt up against old religious iconography and wooden beams. Wadleigh Curran's paintings on the walls are infused with deep greens, lightly mimicked in the paint color chosen for the central space. It is, indeed, a haven for a quirky artist in Center City.