Walk the Rooms

I have a map of you—made of thresholds. The first step lifts you off Pine Street and into the side-hall current. Turn right for ceremony, left for work, upward for rest, outward for errands toward Waverly. Follow it, and you'll read the same plan thousands of feet have followed before you.

The Marble Stoop and Threshold

Begin where everyone begins: the white marble step. This is a Philadelphia signature, found on townhouses throughout Center City. The stone has taken iron-rimmed wheels, winter salt, and 170 years of daily wear. It is the narrator of this building—measuring hours by arrivals, seasons by temperature, eras by the shoes that cross it.

This same step welcomed the Rosets in 1854, received the Plumb wedding party in 1901, and felt the determined tread of suffragettes in 1915. Touch it, and you're touching the one element of the house that has witnessed everything.

The Side Hall

Step inside and you're in the circulatory system of the house. The side hall is logistics in brick: a card tray sat here during 'At Home' days, umbrellas and overcoats accumulated in winter, staff passed through on their way to answer the bell. Today, caterers and event crews use this same corridor to move between kitchen and parlors without disturbing guests.

Notice how the hall runs the full depth of the house, connecting front door to rear service areas. This wasn't accident—it was the genius of the Philadelphia townhouse plan. Movement flows; functions stay separate.

The Double Parlors

Two rooms in a line, with pocket doors that can open them into one grand space or close for intimacy. Imagine a wedding breakfast laid end-to-end, as at the Rolin-Plumb celebration in 1901. Imagine a suffrage circle facing each other across the divide, as when Miss Martha Davis organized Equal Franchise Society events in 1915.

The 1899 renovation under Duhring, Okie & Ziegler refreshed these rooms—new finishes, updated services, a clearer separation between show and function. The 1905 fireplace still warms the front parlor, the same hearth where Mrs. Davis held her 'At Homes' a hundred and twenty years ago.

These proportions weren't decorative. They were designed for hospitality—for receiving, entertaining, celebrating, and yes, for organizing. The same geometry that made Victorian ceremonies possible makes modern events feel natural.

The Dining Room and Rear Corridor

Behind the parlors, the house turns practical. The dining room connects to both the formal spaces and the service world—doors to the garden, the corridor to Waverly Street, the back-of-house logic that keeps a dinner party seamless.

The lot runs 90 feet back to Waverly Street, and that depth has always defined how the house works. Service enters from the rear. Delivery happens invisibly. Guests experience only the gracious front while the mechanics stay hidden.

The Stair Hall

Stand at the turn and look down into the hall, up into the light. The staircase is the spine of the house, and it tells you the social logic: public life on the ground floor, semi-public chambers on the second, private quarters above, and service tucked at the rear and top.

These same stairs carried the Roset children to their rooms, bore the weight of Victorian mourning, climbed under suffragette feet, and still carry guests to their chambers today. The geometry hasn't changed; only the costumes have.

The Chambers

In the Roset era, the principal bedrooms occupied the second floor—larger, more formal, with better light. Children and guests took the third floor. Servants slept in rear rooms or the attic, their quarters designed for efficiency rather than comfort.

Today, the house sleeps sixteen comfortably, with space for eighteen using the sofa bed. The Victorian hierarchy of chambers has been democratized, but the bones remain—different ceiling heights, different exposures, different degrees of formality that guests can still read if they know how to look.