Changing Skyline: Gratifying tale of buildings preserved

Though no one denied the pair had once been beautiful, city officials seemed intent on demolition in 2004. A deep-pocketed buyer offering to replace them with something new had retained two powerful law firms to make the case for demolition. Once the local Council representative joined the hanging party, the buildings looked like goners.

But neighbors, preservationists, and the Historical Commission fought back, and today the two former white elephants on West Johnson are gleaming palaces, playing a useful role again as housing for low-income seniors.

There will be a ribbon-cutting April 30 to celebrate Nugent's transformation. (Presser was finished in 2010.) No doubt, city officials will be there to applaud its preservation. They will surely praise the developer, Nolen Properties, for sticking with the project in difficult times. Justly so, too.

But though Nolen deserves enormous credit for bringing these two historically certified buildings back from the grave, its work is only partly why the distinctive Mount Airy landmarks still stand.

Philadelphia hasn't had much patience lately with its big, challenging historic buildings, as last month's decision on Chestnut Street's Boyd Theater attests. Although Nugent and Presser had been vacant only two years by 2004, they were much farther gone than the Boyd. A company that operated them as group homes badly neglected them for 20 years.

If you were paying attention in 2004, you would have heard the same complaints made about the state of the Boyd voiced verbatim about Nugent and Presser: The blighted properties were holding the neighborhood back. The hollowed-out shells had become magnets for rats, graffiti, loiterers. Restoring them, some claimed, would cost a fortune. What profit was there in saving two obsolete, over-sized boardinghouses?

The first difference was that the neighborhood sensed there was value in keeping evidence of its grand past around. The stately homes were built by local business magnates. George Nugent made his money in textiles, and Theodore Presser had cornered the market in sheet music.

Both progressive thinkers, they wanted to provide an alternative to the dismal almshouses that were the last resort for the poor and elderly in those days. In 1895, Nugent hired Franklin J. Stuckert, known for his hotels, to cook up a turreted chteau in the healthy Mount Airy countryside.

To head off the demolition effort, neighbors nominated the buildings for the city's historic register. The Preservation Alliance took up the cause. But what made the real difference was that the Historical Commission rushed to their defense by fast-tracking the nominations.

Nolen's original plan was to ride the booming real estate market and create luxury apartments, but the housing crash forced it to switch gears. The demand for senior housing was still strong. So, even though the company's bread-and-butter is suburban housing, and affordable housing is a specialized niche, managing director Richard J. Sudall said Nolen decided to give it a try.

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Changing Skyline: Gratifying tale of buildings preserved