After 325 tours, hundreds of phone calls, and more than a dozen offers, that hauntingly beautiful historic home at 1221 Pine Street is pending sale.
The accepted offer is an individual who plans to restore the property into a single-family home, says listing agent Tom Smitley. Only two of the 15 or so offers were below the asking price of $550,000.
"This was a fun and exciting property to market because there was a huge amount of interest in the community," Smitley told Curbed Philly in an e-mail. When the listing hit the market on September 15, calls immediately began rolling in from as far away as California, Australia, and the U.K., he said.
For years, the home has caught the eye of passersby and neighbors. It dates back to 1829, when it was built by Joseph & Eliza Shoemaker, Jr. and used as a drug store on the first floor. An intrigued Curbed reader Andrew Terranova also shared that a former slave and author named William Albert Sinclair lived here in 1908. While living here, he wrote the book The Aftermath of Slavery and was a member of the National Negro League, which was a predecessor to the NAACP.
The latest owner, a craftsman, bought the property privately in 1985, and spent years working to restore the building.
There’s still a lot of work to do—there’s just one half bath for a six-bedroom house, for example—but it’s nice to know that the restoration of the historic home will continue with the new owner.
- 187-year-old Washington Square West home needs saving, asks $550K [Curbed Philly]
- General Catalogue of the Theological Seminary [Google Books]
- 1221 Pine Street [Kurfiss Sotheby's International Realty]