A ‘new old house’

In the spring of 2020, during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic and related business shutdowns, the streets of Center City were practically deserted.

Two of the few people out and about were lawyers Amy Slater and Mark Silow, who were house-hunting — sort of.

They liked their neighborhood and the house where they had lived since 1989, and they preferred to remain there, but the house would need updating and modernizing. They didn’t know exactly what to do or, equally importantly, who should do it.

They did know that they didn’t want to do it piecemeal Silow said. Their solution: Walk the area until their “aha” moment came — the feeling that “whoever designed that is who we want to hire.”

Then they saw a home on Rittenhouse Square whose style they loved. So they slipped a note into the mail slot.

The original owners had moved on but the people living there knew who the architect was: Tim Kerner, principal architect at Terra Studio of Center City. They not only shared this information with Slater and Silow, but invited them over.

For Kerner, designing Slater and Silow’s home was an unusual challenge. Almost all his previous experience was with clients who were building from scratch, or at least moving into a house that was new to them.

Slater and Silow had been touring Scandinavia and Japan and envisioned a style that combined design inspiration from the two cultures: light, airy, and open.

Primary goals, Kerner said, were “to increase natural light and a feeling of openness” and to “update the interiors with more modern and cleaner lines.”

As art collectors, the couple combined their own acquisitions and art from Slater’s family. The renovation period gave them a chance to reframe or clean up some of the pieces.

They had detailed talks about every part of the renovation, Kerner said.

“Their appreciation for the integration of functional and aesthetic solutions was always evident,” he said. “Their thoughtfulness in considering the interrelation of space, finishes, colors, furniture, and technology were key to the success of the project.”

The clients wanted a new kitchen and a new roof, this one with a deck. And they wanted to redo the first-floor powder room and replace the concrete front steps. The mechanicals also needed to be updated.

Throughout the project, Kerner worked with interior designer Carlo Fiammenghi; structural engineer Amy Rivera; Springboard Automation for home controls, sound, and technology; Urban Jungle for roof deck garden design and planting; and Joanne Hudson for kitchen cabinetry.

The house has four floors and 3,000 square feet, plus a two-car garage, and they did not change the basic configuration other than knocking down a wall between the kitchen and the dining area.

There are three bedrooms, three full bathrooms, and a powder room, with the primary bedroom and library on the third level.

“We opened up and renovated the kitchen,” Kerner said, with new counters, cabinets, appliances and fixtures. The kitchen marble is Calacatta, which is quarried from the Apuan Alps near Carrara, Italy.

They installed a new roof deck with a pergola and some new plantings, and added new furnishings. They also replaced all windows and the entrance door, and opened the dining room to the exterior with a larger sliding glass door.

In the living room, they added a stone fireplace mantel and shelving.

The staircase was completely redesigned, with new railings from the basement to the roof deck, and was broken up by custom shelving on the mezzanine.

Bluestone treads and risers replaced the concrete front steps. And automated lighting and mechanical controls were installed, along with a new whole-house sound system.

Construction took nine months in 2022, with Slater and Silow living in a nearby apartment. Both Slater and Silow say they are delighted with the result.

“We call it our new old house,” Slater said.

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