A new sanctuary
In Spring Garden’s former Christ Reformed Church, four roommates in their 20s, and one orange and white cat, have made a home.
The four roommates have hosted costumed Halloween parties for more than 80 people in their Spring Garden residence. Last year a guest came as a nun and another came as Jesus. They were, after all, visiting a church.
Philadelphia Architecture in the 19th Century, described the city’s Spring Garden neighborhood as: “Houses, Quaker in Excelsis with pocket handkerchiefs of terraces and here and there a reticent church where one could sleep comfortably through hour-long sermons.”
In that neighborhood, decades later, Corwynne Peterson, Riley Sperger, Ashlee Propst, and Magdalena Becker share a four-level unit in what was once Christ Reformed Church. The Romanesque-style brownstone place of worship was built in 1860 in the middle of a block of terraced houses.
Times changed, the church’s congregation dwindled. The increasingly deteriorating building was used for several years as a recreation center and for after-school programs. Then in 2003 it was purchased by the Regis Group, a property development company.
Regis converted the church into 17 multilevel rental units, preserving the soaring ceilings, decorative plaster moldings, several leaded glass windows, and pine flooring. The eclectic decor includes whitewashed brick interior walls, new skylights and ceiling fans, exposed pipes and beams. Remnants of ecclesiastical patterned wallpapers still cover the wall near a door leading to the communal courtyard.
For Halloween the roommates screen It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown on the columned dome of what was the church sanctuary. At the top of the dome is a painted gold cross and crown, symbolizing the reward in heaven (crown) after trials on earth (cross).
Peterson said she and her three roommates, all women in their 20s, call the sanctuary “the stage.”
The sanctuary, furnished with a dining table and chairs, is on a raised platform a few steps above the living room, kitchen, powder room, and “library,” with bookshelves and Peterson’s piano keyboard.
On the next level are Peterson’s and Sperger’s bedrooms, a bathroom, and a sitting area. Both women work as restaurant servers.
An ornately carved oak banister between the bedrooms and overlooking the sanctuary might have once been the church’s Communion rail.
Propst, a research specialist at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine, has the largest bedroom and a private bath on the third level, where there is also a washing machine and dryer the women share.
Up a spiral staircase on the top level is Becker’s bedroom, adjacent to a rooftop deck. She shares a bathroom with Peterson and Sperger two flights down.
A pair of silver stiletto-heeled boots decorate a shelf at the bottom of the stairs. Becker is a writer for Static Media and a dancer, “which is why I have a lot of shoes,” she said.
The roommates separately found the converted church on Facebook, moving in at different times over the last 2½ years. They collaborated on the furnishings, sourcing the gray sectional in the living room, the gray sitting-area sofa and purple ottoman, and other furniture on Facebook Marketplace. Their parents and grandparents contributed oriental rugs.
The vintage typewriter, which sits on a desk gifted by a neighbor, was a prop from a play in which Peterson performed. The Vanya poster is from an Off-Broadway, one-man show of the same name autographed for Peterson by the star, Andrew Scott.
Abstract nature prints came from Etsy, and a Vogue magazine cover, old records, and other art displayed on the walls were purchased at thrift stores. The women’s colorful clothes hang on racks.
Light streams from a tall window comprising various shapes of clear glass, which replaced disintegrating leaded glass. Some of the arched doorways still have stained-glass transoms.
The roommates admit they don’t do much communal cooking. They each have their own shelves in the fridge and in the chestnut kitchen cabinets.
But they do host parties together. Besides the Halloween festivities there was a birthday party for Sperger in September.
For Christmas celebrations, the sanctuary sparkles with green and red lights.
The women also share affection for the only male in residence, Peterson’s orange and white cat, Hugo. And he is fond of all of them.
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