On the market: Century-old Queen Anne home in Swarthmore for $750,000
A 1940s Swarthmore College student became enchanted with a Queen Anne house near campus. In 1968, he and his wife bought it for their family and lived there for 50 happy years.
In 1944, Joe Anderson’s father moved into his dormitory at Swarthmore College, just across the street from an eight-bedroom Queen Anne-style home on South Chester Road.
The student was taken by the view on the opposite corner. “He used to sit in his window and stare at the house and dream about how interesting it would be to live there one day,” Anderson said.
Anderson’s father went on to marry and raise his family in the leafy suburb, but never forgot about his dream home. In 1968, the family was living about a block away.
“We were walking back from a Cub Scout meeting, and we went by the local real estate broker’s office where they used to pin up Polaroid pictures of houses for sale,” Anderson said.
There, he saw a picture of the Queen Anne house, designed in 1906 by Swarthmore College alumnus Howard B. Green and built by Turner Construction. “I remember pointing to it and saying, ‘Hey, isn’t that the house up on the corner over here?’”
The rest happened quickly.
“He went over to the house the next day and looked at it. The day after that, he took my mother over there to look at it. The day after that, they bought it,” Anderson said.
It had appealed, too, to Anderson’s mother, who grew up in Pittsburgh’S Squirrel Hill neighborhood.
“She always lived in big, grand homes herself,” he said. “They both loved the house. They just enjoyed it.”
The eight-bedroom, nearly 5,000-square-foot property became the perfect family home. “I loved the fact that we had so much room,” Anderson said. “All three brothers had control of the whole third floor. My parents and sister had the lower floor.”
His parents loved the breakfast room, he said, which looks out on flowering bushes and cherry trees.
“It just floods in with light in the morning,” he said. “My mother was a big grower.”
Anderson’s father died in January, and he and his siblings are ready to sell the family estate.
“A lot of years were spent there,” he said. “Half that house’s life was used by our family.”
New buyers will have some updates to make, Anderson said. As a builder, he knows what it will take to modernize the home. “Any older home is not for the faint of heart.”
Although his parents made cosmetic changes over the 51 years they lived there — and major ones such as replacing windows — Anderson said new owners should be prepared for work.
“You really have to love old homes to maintain old homes,” he said. “You just have to be that type of person.”
Anderson said he thought his father would be pleased with the idea that the family home was going to make new memories.
“He always wanted to make sure another family had a chance to have the house,” he said.
The property is listed with Pam Cloud at RE/MAX for $750,000.