Frank Weise-designed Fairmount home offers modern touches for $760K

Weise was a prolific modern Philly architect

By Anna Merriman@Anna_Merriman Nov 5, 2018, 10:54am EST

Philly doesn’t have an abundance of Midcentury Modern architecture, and what is here is likely designed by one of a handful of architects; Louis Kahn is the most well known, but Robert McElroy, and Richard Neutra are others.

However, there’s one architect who really sunk his teeth into residential modern design in Philly: Frank Weise.

And now—amazingly—one of Weise’s homes just came on the market, asking $759,999. The two-bed, 2.5-bath home on 26th Street in Fairmount is an example of Weise’s later work. The prolific architect designed homes in and around Philly in the 1950s through the 1980s, finishing up this private residence in 1980, according to the listing.

It has several modern and post-modern touches, starting on the first floor, where a covered garage leads into the home and long, horizontal windows accent the space. Upstairs, an asymmetrical fireplace sits in the living room, which connects to the dining rom and kitchen. The third story—where the bedrooms are—looks out over the living area.

Outside, there are two stories of patio space, with a floating staircase between them.

It’s the first time the house has ever been listed for sale. Weise designed the space in the 1980s for the now-owners, who have lived in it ever since. While it’s certainly more contemporary than Weise’s other work, it draws a lot on his modern pieces of the 1960s and ‘70s.

Weise focused largely on residential homes, designing several commissioned pieces in the counties around Philadelphia, as well as in the city itself. But his projects also included restoring Head House Square in Society Hill, adapting Eastern State Penitentiary, and co-founding the Wilma Theater and the Theater of the living arts.