What Do They Look Like?

Because the Association Documents are directed more towards the exterior of homes in the Mews and the courtyard, and sets few limits on the interior design and characteristics of each home, each one of the 35 homes in the Mews is unique.  There are, however, several key elements shared by many of the homes, and there are a few basic home layouts in the Mews.

Fifteen of the homes in the Lombard Mews have one- or two-car garages.  This is the case for all the homes, obviously, which have direct access to Lombard Street, Darien Street or South Street.  The other 20 homes in the Mews have no private parking.  Many residents use nearby public parking garages, park on the street, or eschew a vehicle altogether in favor of public transportation or car sharing (ZipCar or Philly Car Share).

All of the homes except for one consist of three levels, and many of our homes have the front door situated on the middle floor, as the majority of the courtyard is elevated from street level by about 10 ft.  The one exception to this design is our "Tower House," which has a whopping FIVE levels of living space.  There is currently no handicap access to any of the homes in the Mews.

While every home in the Mews is unique unto itself, when the Mews were constructed in the late 60s and early 70s, they were built around a few basic layouts, and all the houses present a rough footprint of about 30ft. x 20ft:

  1. The four houses surrounding the Lombard Street gate fountain all have lower-level entry doors, and share a common feature of having a private deck which extends over the fountain area.
  2. The four houses immediately above the fountain area, have a mid-level entry door, and each has an outdoor patio area to the rear, level with the lower level (street level)
  3. The five houses along the east side of the Northern courtyard all have private rear patios sheltered by the century-old parking garage on 8th Street, which are on a split-level between the lower and middle floors.
  4. The seven houses that form the east side of the Southern courtyard are all bereft of private parking, all have central, switchback-style stairs and were constructed with an open-air, lower-level "gladiator pit" patio on the courtyard side.
  5. The seven houses along the west side of the Northern courtyard all have garages which are accessed from Darien Street.  They were originally constructed with open-air porches on the courtyard side of the middle floors.  Those porches have since all been enclosed.

The remaining eight houses were built using design features from each of the other designs, and were either altered too greatly since their original construction to discern many features in common, or they were built in a manner to "fill the gap" of the remaining courtyard exterior.

Everyone, of course, has put their own personal touch into their homes, and the mix of common features and personal elements gives the Mews the feel of something between the hedgerow cottages of Olde England and the quaint courtyard squares of Germany.  All with a nice, healthy dose of Americana for good measure.