Mt. Airy Named ‘Best Old House’ Neighborhood
If you’ve ever looked to the New England home repair gurus Tommy (pronounced “tawmy”) and Norm (pronounced “noahm”) of This Old House on PBS for inspiration in fixing up your aging home, then you might take a special interest in the March issue of This Old House Magazine Online. The Yankee craftsmen have named Mt. Airy one of the nation’s Best Old House Neighborhoods.
“There is a lot of small business initiative along Germantown [Avenue]. We like to see that,” said Keith Pandolfi, associate editor of This Old House, about his team’s investigation of our neighborhood. “And of course the houses are amazing. We were just shocked by how beautiful those houses were.”
Every year This Old House names 51 Best Old House Neighborhoods, one for each state and an extra one for Canada, and every year Pennsylvania seems to top the list with the highest number of neighborhood nominations, Pandolfi said. Because of that, he’s heard of Mt. Airy before. He’s even had friends who have lived here over the years and raved about it. But thanks to all the responses he and his reporters got from area real estate agents and community and neighborhood groups, this year The Mount-below-The Hill got the nod.
To come up with the top neighborhoods, This Old House works with Preservation Directory.com to send out a yearly call for nominations to more than 15,000 organizations and individuals around the country that work in the business of old homes. The nominations process takes two months, and after that Pandolfi and his reporters start investigating the neighborhoods to see if they are all they were cracked up to be. And in the case of Mt. Airy it definitely is.
“In each neighborhood we want to see residents who are gung ho about restoring their old homes,” Pandolfi said.
Beyond that he liked the idea of promoting a place that was perhaps a little “overshadowed” by another prominent neighborhood close bye - Chestnut Hill. “We just like to point out neighborhoods that might be overlooked by a lot of people in the market for older homes.”
And it doesn’t hurt to have a good back story either, or strong neighborhood organizations to hold the community together.
“It’s always been a very progressive neighborhood,” Pandolfi said. “The residents have always been very passionate about fighting for what’s there. I know that in the 70s they really fought against white flight.”
The old house crew also liked Mt. Airy’s many trees (they don’t mention leaf pickup last fall), its proximity to the history of Germantown, the aristocracy of Chestnut Hill, and the easy rail access to Center City. While his site refers to Mt. Airy as very possibly “one of the most interesting neighborhoods in the country,” Pandolfi said it also reminded him of the best parts about doing his job.
“That’s what is so fun about doing this,” he said. “You get to discover all these really great neighborhoods.”
Visit thisoldhouse.com to see the official write up.
