On the market: Victorian twin in West Mount Airy for $435,000
Built in 1925, the house is in the Pelham neighborhood, is air-conditioned throughout, and has ample light on all three floors
Freyda Neyman was raised in the Bronx in an apartment with a small kitchen and a scenic view of the fire escape.
So when she first viewed the six-bedroom, two-bath house in West Mount Airy, it was natural for her to be drawn to the spacious kitchen with the open view.
“I just loved that you could look out and see the yard,” she says.
Neyman, a pediatrician, had been renting houses in Germantown and Mount Airy since 1983 and bought the house in 1995, moving in with her then-partner. Their twins were born in 1997 and raised there.
“It’s one of the most integrated neighborhoods in the country,” she says. “As a lesbian couple with kids, that’s where you want to be.”
In 2009 and 2010, in a remodel designed by Neyman’s new partner, they took down a wall and opened up the kitchen-dining area.
“That way you could see the kids doing homework at the dining room table while we cooked dinner,” she says.
They also brought the washer/dryer up into the breakfast nook.
In 2011, Neyman’s partner, also a physician, took a job in Vermont, and they both commuted back and forth between 2011 and 2015 while the twins were finishing school.
Neyman began spending more time in Vermont, finally joining a practice there, but continuing to commute back to Mount Airy. Since 2017, she has been living and working in Vermont.
Built in 1925, the house is in the Pelham neighborhood, is air-conditioned throughout, and has ample light on all three floors.
The living room has a wood-burning fireplace decorated with Victorian tile and a mantel with ornate millwork and pillars.
The kitchen has tiled counters, an island, and a commercial-grade range.
There is a fenced upper patio good for entertaining, and a large backyard filled with mature trees.
The house is close to the Allen Lane and Carpenter Lane SEPTA stations and the Weaver’s Way Co-op and a short walk from the growing commercial area on Germantown Avenue.
But to Neyman, perhaps the most unusual touch is the outside powder room on the back porch, “so everyone can clean up before coming inside.”
The property is listed by Kathy Krebs of Elfant-Wissahickon for $435,000.