PHILADELPHIA — Walkability. Sometimes it's planned in cities but more often than not it's something that evolves organically over time. These days, it's always on the lips of urban planners and aficionados.
Most North American cities have walkable neighbourhoods in their cores; a few lucky ones have suburban areas fit for the flâneur. Architectural pundits may run me out of town on a rail for suggesting this, but I've always thought that our own Don Mills, planned by Macklin Hancock as a "new town" in the early 1950s, is as flâneur-friendly as the Annex or Cabbagetown.
Last month, I visited Philadelphia, a city whose Center City district is famous for its walkability. Having never been to the City of Brotherly Love before, I was pleasantly surprised (and am happy to report it rather appropriately on the Fourth of July) to find that Chestnut Hill — an affluent community hugging Philly's northern border — is also a feast for the feet.
Although a little further out from Philly's core than Don Mills is from Toronto's, an inexpensive train whisks commuters (and architourists) to the lush Wissahickon Valley in well under an hour, and the train station is a one-minute walk from our first stop, the Chestnut Hill Historical Society on Germantown Avenue, the area's main commercial corridor.
Architect Robert Venturi designed this 1,800-square-foot home for his mother, Vanna, in the early 1960s – arguably the first postmodern home built in the United States. (PHOTOS BY DAVE LEBLANC FOR THE GLOBE AND MAIL)
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Wealthy Philadelphians first came to the sleepy farming community in the 1820s to beat the city's heat. But many enjoyed it so much that, by the 1840s, they had converted their summer homes into year-round dwellings. In 1854, when Chestnut Hill officially became part of Philadelphia, it also got its first railway line, followed by a second in the 1880s.
"It's very unusual for a neighbourhood to be served by two railroads," says Veronica Alpenc, executive director of the historical society, who, minutes before, welcomed us at the door of the lovely, former church parsonage. She is now unfolding her organization's award-winning architectural map and tracing the route we'll follow while giving us a brief history lesson.
In addition to smart urban planning — one of the earliest planned suburban streets was built here in 1854 — Chestnut Hill is a walker's paradise because there's just so much delicious domestic architecture to nibble on.
Indeed, 75 per cent of the homes were architect-designed, and the guide map reads like a who's who of the profession: Victorians Frank Furness and Horace Trumbauer, and George Howe in the 1920s. (In 1929, Mr. Howe and Swiss architect William Lescaze designed the first international style skyscraper in the United States for the Philadelphia Savings Fund Society downtown, a building that's now my hotel, the Lowes.)
Modernist masters Louis Kahn and Oscar Stonorov as well as postmodern paladin Robert Venturi are also represented.
Of course, some of those names would never have come to build here if it weren't for the biggest name of all, that of railroad executive-cum-urban planner Henry H. Houston, who purchased 3,000 acres in 1880 and attracted potential residents with a Queen Anne-style hotel, a cricket club and an Episcopal church.
By the time of his death in 1895, Mr. Houston had built approximately 100 houses (mostly rentals), and his son-in-law, Dr. George Woodward, would build many more.
We head out into the sunshine on Germantown Avenue to begin our architour. Even on a weekday afternoon, the many shops and cafés are jumping. Down almost any street are mid-sized Victorians rubbing shoulders with workers' row houses, much like Cabbagetown.
"Philadelphia was known as a blue-collar manufacturing town, a manufacturing powerhouse up until the 1950s," Ms. Alpenc explains, "and every worker could own his own home."
Being dyed-in-the-wool modernists, my wife and I seek out the little 1,800-square-foot house Robert Venturi designed for his elderly mother, Vanna, in the early 1960s (completed 1964). With its parapeted wall, split-pediment and oversized door opening and chimney, it's arguably the first postmodern residence built in the United States.
The architecture gods are smiling down on us, because in the garden is the daughter of the university professor who bought the home from Mr. Venturi in 1973. She assures us that camera-toting gawkers are common; in the late 1970s and early '80s, she says, 35 people a day would come down the driveway, "usually in groups of four or five, usually Europeans." (She asked that her name not be used.)
She says the home has been painted recently and, because her father always involves Mr. Venturi, "it's a rather theatrical experience." Apparently, the architect labours over colour choices for his "baby" and will observe test-patches applied directly on the house at different times of day before making a final decision.
"I love watching it, I respect it, I love to see what he goes through to get it right," she says.
After getting a peek inside the living room, we walk the short distance to Sunrise Lane to see Louis Kahn's 1958 Esherick House, which failed to sell at auction for $2-million (U.S.) in May.
In leafy Pastorius Park, we check the map and realize we would need another few afternoons on foot to see everything we'd like. As Ms. Alpenc puts it, "You find everything here in Chestnut Hill — you just have to know where to look for it."
So, with a promise to return, we look for some sushi instead.
For more information on Chestnut Hill, visit www.chhist.org/.
