Home together, one floor up

Hunter Pippin and Kedzie Teller moved in together the way many couples do these days: compelled by a lease’s end.

The term for Pippin’s Bucks County rental was coming up. They’d been together for only eight months when they decided to make the leap.

“We were very much in love,” said Teller, 35, perched at the dining table of the Old Kensington rental he and Pippin, 26, have shared since April 2024.

“Everyone warned us about moving in and building furniture and all that where things can get really messy,” Teller said. And yet, “it was so smooth.”

It helped that Teller, who runs marketing agency KedzieT Consulting, was already familiar with the building. He’d lived in the hulking, formerly industrial structure since 2020 and knew he liked it enough to stay put.

Teller inquired about openings for a larger apartment that could include a home office as both he and Pippin, who is a geographic information systems (GIS) analyst for an environmental consulting company, work from home. He learned that the unit directly above his one-bedroom would be available soon. It was a bi-level unit with two bedrooms and two balconies.

Teller and Pippin jumped at the opportunity to tour it, maybe too quickly. Pippin had a hard time envisioning the 1,200-square-foot space without the outgoing tenant’s belongings, which were stacked from floor to ceiling, he said. But Teller knew it was the right space for them. They inked a $2,300 per month lease.

The apartment’s kitchen, dining area, living room, and powder room are on the building’s top floor. Its wood ceiling is one of Pippin’s favorite details. It lends visual warmth and also helps bring the outside in.

“It’s amazing when it rains,” Pippin said. “It can be really loud … it’s like a rain stick. It’s super relaxing.”

The pipes that run through the apartment aren’t for building mechanicals, the couple explained. They’re storm drains that add to the drippy chorus when they send water whooshing down to street level.

Teller, a house plant aficionado, is particularly grateful for the somewhat rare urban amenity of natural light. The apartment’s windows let plenty of it in and provide a vantage over the city skyline.

Another thing they love about their building: A high school friend of Pippin moved into Teller’s former unit downstairs.

“She’ll literally just text me at 9 p.m. sometimes and be like, ‘I just made cookies. Do you want some?” Pippin said. (The answer is always yes.)

Their building is located where Old Kensington, Fishtown, and Northern Liberties meet, and they both enjoy bits of each neighborhood’s culture from their dining scenes to demographic makeup. Teller has seen the neighborhood transform in the five years he’s lived in the building, as new housing continues to spring up on formerly underused lots in all directions.

It has inspired Pippin to look into the building’s history. He and Teller thought it was an old textile factory due to the area’s history. He learned it was home to crafts wholesaler Eugene Chernin and, before that, a manufacturing hub for store fixtures. They aren’t exactly sure how old the building is but are proud to live in a structure that has found a new life as the area transforms around it.

Teller and Pippin don’t anticipate becoming neighborhood old-timers. Although any move is a ways off, they expect to eventually move to Teller’s home state of Maine. Pippin, for his part, has always felt called to New England and has fallen in love with the landscape of Teller’s childhood.

“I don’t take advantage of living in a city anymore. When I was younger, I was always out, always doing,” Teller said. “Now I want to be able to just walk to the coast and sit on a rock and look at the water.”

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