1635 LOCUST STREET 37

PHILADELPHIA, PA 19103

Entire building on a prime corner in the Rittenhouse Square neighborhood of Center City. The building is perfect for a private club, retailer/showroom, restaurant or corporate office. Located one block from Rittenhouse Square and less than one block from Rittenhouse Row’s Walnut Street, the building is located in the city’s best shopping, dining and high-end residence area. It is only a few blocks to the Market Street and Broad Street office corridors, and provides easy access to Septa and PATCO. The space was most recently used as a national retailer's corporate headquarters. The entrance to the space is on 17th Street. The Rittenhouse Square neighborhood, ranked by Places Rated Almanac as the 6th best neighborhood in North America, is home to a meticulously landscaped open space park and more than 175 restaurants and 199 retailers within a three block radius. There is over $2 billion of real estate around The Square. The Avenue of the Arts is a quick 3 block walk, the Market Street office corridor is a mere 3.5 blocks, and there is easy access to Amtrak’s 30th Street Station, the Philadelphia International Airport, and all major regional thoroughfares and transportation hubs. In 1893, banker and financier Charlton Yarnall commissioned architect Frank Miles Day to design he and his wife a city house that would beat out any other in the neighborhood. Day’s design—a four and a half story, 35 room, 18,000 square foot Collegiate Gothic Revival mansion—made the other nearby Rittenhouse Square mansions seem like oversized carriage houses. At one point there were murals by the artist Violet Oakley—the first woman to get a public mural commission for the Pennsylvania State House—in every dome, pendentive, lunette and octagonal panel she could find. The murals were called The Building of the House of Wisdom and told the story of the rise of education and knowledge; they quickly became the talk of the town and the envy of every other wealthy family. When the house went up for sale in 1927, the public was concerned that a new owner would destroy them. To prevent this, the Philadelphia Republican Women’s Club purchased the house and made it their headquarters, calling it the “Hannah Penn House” in honor of William Penn’s wife. By 1940, the building was in poor condition and sold to the Philadelphia branch of the United Service Club, another female-founded organization. The son of the original architect was commissioned to design a remodel. The United Service Club was like a YMCA for enlisted men. Throughout the 1950s and 1960s the Yarnall House was the local American Red Cross. In 1973, the house was converted for the Institute of Paralegal Training and the murals were removed and put on display in the Chestnut Hill Museum where they still reside today. The Yarnall House was used as law offices in the 1990s, then became the Urban Outfitters headquarters, then used as the headquarters of an advertising agency where the old dining room was used as the company’s conference room, and today is the headquarters of a national sports retailer.

Listing courtesy of Allan Domb Real Estate



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