From rundown to restored: How the Hohenadel House in East Falls came back to life

Felicite Moorman is always eager for a new adventure, so when the abandoned, circa-1856 Italian Revival home known as the Hohenadel House in East Falls became available in 2014, she viewed it as a challenge.

At more than 4,000 square feet, the property was rundown, but it had six bedrooms, three bathrooms, and a history to it.

“There’s a rainbow stained glass piece of art over the front double doors and as I stood on the patio, it just felt right,” she said. “I could feel the potential and the love even though I knew it was going to be hard.”

Moorman’s husband, Sean Hawley, immediately understood the gravity of the project — and knew his wife’s mind was made up once she spotted the hand-built spiral staircase that goes down into the basement.

“There’s a weak spot in her heart for spiral staircases,” said Hawley, an author. “And she’s pretty fearless. So we embarked on this journey.”

And quite a journey it’s been, rehabbing a house more than a century and half old to its original glory.

While there are gaps in the home’s history, Steven J. Pietzman, president of the East Falls Historical Society, suspects that it was built by Samuel Sloan, a prominent Philadelphia architect at the time.

“We know that he did other Italianate and Gothic-style properties in East Falls, or what was then Falls of Schuylkill,” he said. “The 1876 property atlas shows the owner to be Charles F. Abbot, who was a state representative who fought in the Civil War and came to Philadelphia and became active in textile work.”

The home was later sold to the Hohenadels, owners of a local brewery during the pre-Prohibition era. According to Steve Fillmore, an amateur historian and cofounder of the NW Local newspaper, the liquor cabinet that sits behind the paneling in the dining room wall is believed to be a remnant of prohibition.

Moorman and Hawley were also told of a secret tunnel once connected to the home.

“We met someone who grew up in the house in the ‘70s who said there was a tunnel under the spiral staircase that you could crawl through,” said Hawley. “It went to some kind of a cellar that maybe the Hohenadel brewer was using at the time.”

In 2012, Moorman was living in Oklahoma when she became CEO of the East Falls-based tech firm BuLogics. She waited until she found the right home in 2014 to move to Philadelphia.

The project became a family affair for Moorman, Hawley, and their three kids. They spent the next two years investing sweat equity and determination to create a home that honored its original history for a busy modern family.

The first obstacle was getting a loan.

“The house had been on and off the market repeatedly for a number of years but it isn’t the kind of house where you could go with a traditional FHA [Federal Housing Administration] loan, which requires a move-in ready house at inspection,” said Moorman, an entrepreneur who recently launched Boss Tech, a business operating smart solution. “We had to get super creative.”

A different type of FHA loan — called a 203(k) — allowed them to finance both the purchase of the house and the cost of its rehabilitation through a single mortgage. They had to zone the home multifamily to secure the amount of financing they needed.

“The historic nature of the property is what swayed the zoning board,” said Moorman, who worked closely with the East Falls Community Council to help save the house from knockdown.

Once the loan was secured, the heavy lifting began. The couple replaced two miles of knob and tube wiring and removed lead paint, hazardous radiators, and a dilapidated exterior. There was no plumbing or lighting.

Some treasures did remain in the house, including a large gilded mirror over the fireplace and hand-carved children’s faces in the mantel, which Moorman believes are modeled after the first homeowner’s children.

The stained glass throughout the house remained largely intact, including the leaded glass door over the Juliette balcony.

Moorman and Hawley served as the contractors on the job and hired subcontractors for specific tasks. Initially, the family was living in an apartment nearby, but when the landlord wouldn’t renew their lease on a monthly basis they moved into the house as renovations were happening.

The family crammed into half of the third floor for the first six months. That included kids Soleil, Finn, and Lili who were 13, 10 and 6 at the time, and their two 60-plus-pound dogs November and Stout.

“At the end of a school day, you’d get a couple kids together ripping off some wallpaper and getting elbows deep in vinegar instead of watching TV,” Moorman said.

Another challenge: the water in the radiators had frozen and burst, destroying all of the second-level flooring and most of the walls.

“You could see from the first floor to the third floor directly,” recalled Hawley.

The project was also a labor of love for community members, who even helped peel wallpaper and paint the third floor.

“We had been watching the Hohenadel House go to ruin right in front of our eyes, and it was heartbreaking,” said Gina Snyder, a nonprofit consultant who served as director of the East Falls Development Corporation when Moorman bought the home. “It was so wonderful to see the house be rescued and the community saw someone who had the actual capacity and the passion to do it right.”

While Moorman insisted the house is a work in progress — and might always be — the family is enjoying the fruits of their labors. The home’s exterior has fresh stucco, and the original internal shutters, covering some 60 windows, have been restored.

The interior boasts 12-foot ceilings on the first floor, which contains the kitchen, dining room, a small ballroom, great room and powder room. A grand wooden staircase leads to the second floor, where three bedrooms, a bathroom and the primary bedroom suite are found.

The third floor operates as an apartment, with three bedrooms and a bathroom, perfect for guests or a quiet space for Hawley.

As for home decor, “we kept it eclectic. And I’m super-oriented to color,” Moorman said of the deep blue great room and red accents in the kitchen.

Hawley is the family chef and he made do with limited counter space in the original kitchen for the first five years. “It’s not a huge kitchen so we needed to optimize the space to make it as efficient as possible,” he said.

They found a secondhand 48-inch Sub Zero refrigerator and splurged on a red Bluestar 36-inch range with six burners and a convection oven. They also installed a double sink and meticulously planned out storage for their pots, pans, and utensils.

Because the house is zoned for multiuse, a future sale could allow a buyer to completely change the home’s structure. Moorman is trying to avoid that.

“My goal is to have the home in a historic trust and let it be used for events,” said Moorman, who also purchased the rectory next door. “I’d like people to get a feel for what it was like to live in that time. It’s just so easy for so many to take things back down to the ground. That would break my heart.”

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