The houses of Chester County
Chester County was one of the three original counties William Penn established in 1682, and its oldest houses still reflect the Quaker farmers who settled it. The typical early house is a stone farmhouse built in stages: a modest first section, a larger block added as the farm prospered, and a kitchen wing or ell at the back. Each stage tells you something about the family that built it, and each may have been built a little differently.
The walls are usually thick rubble fieldstone laid in lime mortar. Look for deep window reveals, pent roofs running across the façade between the first and second floors, and datestones set high in a gable. Inside, you often find walk-in cooking fireplaces, winder stairs, wide-board floors, and plaster applied directly to the stone.
Chester County also has a stone found in few other places. Green serpentine, quarried near West Chester in the 1800s, gives many borough buildings and some farmhouses their gray-green color. It is beautiful and temperamental. Serpentine weathers unevenly, and over the years plenty of it has been patched, parged, or replaced, so every serpentine wall needs its own assessment.
Along the Brandywine, around Chadds Ford and Unionville, the old pattern of stone houses, bank barns, spring houses, and fieldstone walls is still largely intact, helped by decades of land conservation. The boroughs tell a different story. West Chester has a dense core of Federal, Greek Revival, and Victorian houses in brick and stone. Phoenixville grew up around its ironworks, and Malvern and Berwyn grew up along the railroad with late-Victorian and early twentieth-century homes. Kennett Square mixes Victorian borough houses with the farm buildings of the surrounding countryside.
Projects we take on in Chester County
Many families want an old farmhouse to work for modern life without losing what drew them to it. A whole-home remodeling project may bring new mechanical systems, insulation strategies that respect how stone walls handle moisture, and reworked floor plans that keep the original rooms legible.
Kitchens and baths in older homes get the same thinking. A modern kitchen frequently goes into the old kitchen wing, where it can open to the rest of the house without disturbing the original front rooms.
Home additions in Chester County follow a long tradition, since many farmhouses grew in phases already. We plan additions that stay subordinate to the original block, often with a connector or a stepped roofline, and in materials that belong on the property.
For families building on open land, we build custom homes that draw on the stone-and-timber vocabulary of the county without imitating it carelessly.
Because so many of the county’s older houses are stone, a historic home restoration here often starts with the walls: removing hard cement repointing that traps moisture, repointing with lime mortar, and dealing with water where it enters instead of sealing it in. We also repair original sash, restore plaster, and document what we find in a house record.
On larger properties, bank barns, spring houses, and carriage houses are candidates for barn and outbuilding conversions into studios, guest quarters, or full-time living space.
Historic districts and approvals
Chester County has several layers of review, and a single property can fall under more than one.
Borough historic districts. Under Pennsylvania’s Historic District Act (Act 167 of 1961), boroughs can create local historic districts reviewed by a Historical Architectural Review Board (HARB). West Chester Borough has one of the best known in the region. Its HARB reviews exterior work in the historic district and makes recommendations to Borough Council, which issues the Certificate of Appropriateness. Other boroughs in the county have their own review processes.
Township historic resource rules. Many Chester County townships regulate historic resources through their zoning ordinances, often with a historical commission that reviews demolition or significant exterior changes to buildings on a local inventory. These rules can apply to a farmhouse far from any borough.
Conservation easements. In the Brandywine Valley and elsewhere, many properties are protected by easements held by land trusts. An easement can limit additions, new buildings, and changes to the landscape, and the holder’s approval is typically a separate step from the township permit.
Requirements vary by municipality and change over time, so homeowners should confirm the current rules with their borough or township before design begins. We help prepare applications alongside your architect, including existing-conditions photos, material samples, and construction details, and we can attend review meetings to answer questions about how the work will be built.