On the market: Secluded French Colonial near Media for $575,000

The trajectory of George Dickson’s life until now can be traced through the places he has lived in the Philadelphia area.

There’s the house where he grew up in Wallingford, Delaware County. There’s the apartment in Center City where he lived when he got married.

There’s the house in Rose Valley, Delaware County, where he raised his family while regularly commuting to a job in New York City.

And now, with his children grown, will come a move to New York, where Dickson, a money manager for a bank, and his wife, Victoria, a nurse-practitioner and a research professor at New York University, are working.

So his present home, a five-bedroom, 2½ bath French Colonial, is up for sale.

“As a kid, I had always wanted to live in Rose Valley,” Dickson says. “My kids walked to the School in Rose Valley summer camp and attended Wallingford Elementary, where I went.”

Rose Valley was founded in 1901 as an Arts and Crafts community by renowned architect Will Price. The Dicksons have enjoyed the community feel there, including an active and welcoming neighborhood group, and the bucolic setting, with walking trails and old mills dating to the first Quaker settlers in 1682.

A wood-burning fireplace is the centerpiece of a formal living room; the formal dining room has two built-in corner hutches, and the kitchen has granite countertops with stainless steel appliances and cherry cabinets.

But to Dickson, the home’s most distinguishing feature is a 52-foot TimberTech deck along the rear of the house, overlooking the Saul Wildlife Preserve.

The deck area was in disrepair when the Dicksons bought the home in 1994, “but to me, that was the selling point,” he says. They’ve even learned about bird-watching from a neighborhood couple.

The home, set deep in the woods, also has a two-car garage, a high-efficiency green heating system with three zones, and an industrial-quality air conditioning system.

It is in the Wallingford-Swarthmore School District.

“We’ve kept looking for reasons to stay,” Dickson says, “but it wasn’t logical. It was enough with the nostalgia.”

The property is listed by Perri Evanson of BHHS Fox & Roach Media for $575,000.