When Karen Lewis, a designer in Boston, realized she needed to relocate to within a 2 hour drive of her family in Maryland, she determined four criteria for the next place she would live:
A really amazing coffeehouse.
A bookstore in which to get lost.
A diverse grocery market.
A cinema with varied offerings.
Lewis drew a 2 hour drive radius around her mother’s home and set out to discover a new city. After much research and eliminating other areas, she chose Harrisburg basically due to the ease of travel in the corridor between Boston, New York and Baltimore. She wasn’t in the city more than a day when she found: Little Amps Coffee Roasters, The Midtown Scholar Bookstore, The Broad Street Market and the Midtown Cinema.
And they were all within walking distance of a three-story row house in the process of being lovingly refurbished and just about to hit the market. Lewis was standing at a Green Street intersection trying to get a sense of the vibe of the city when, just by happenstance, she met David Butcher, president of WCI Partners, a company committed to purchasing, restoring and re-selling historic homes in the city. She looked a bit lost to him, and he asked if she needed any help. Amidst their chatting, she told him she was in Harrisburg trying to “smoke it out” to see if she could see herself moving here.
He said, “If you are not afraid to get in the car of a stranger you just met on the street corner, I can show you a house that we are about to list.”
Butcher unlocked the door of a historic, 1600 block Green Street home, sturdy and light all at the same time. At one time, an architect owned the home and, long ago, he put in skylights to open up the second floor. He built a deck around a magnificent tree in the backyard that rises higher than the homes clustered around it.
Kristine Werley of Urban Interiors, a city-focused design consulting company, was charged with the renovation of the home, and her skill makes it feel contemporary and open while paying homage to the character one can only find in an old home, Lewis said. “I loved Werley’s sense of combining old and new to make a space that is interesting, charming and practical all at the same time.”
To Lewis, it echoed the feel of Harrisburg neighborhoods.
She knew that she needed a city to thrive, but she found a deeper connection to Harrisburg. As a designer, Lewis studied patterns of public places and combined her learning with landscape planning and garden design. She developed a keen eye for effective use of parks and open space.
She learned that Harrisburg was part of the early 20th century “City Beautiful” movement inspired by urban designer Frederick Law Olmsted. Harrisburg’s part was led by Boston landscape architect Warren Manning – a trainee of Olmsted’s – and Harrisburg citizen Mira Lloyd Dock.
“City Beautiful” implemented modern foundations of urban planning and design to create beautiful, spacious and orderly cities that improved open space and quality of life. The design also was meant to inspire residents toward more civic involvement. Some examples of other cities that employed this framework were Washington, D.C., Seattle, Denver and Dallas. Central Park in New York showcases this design today, as do areas along the Charles River in Boston.
“It clicked for me that Harrisburg was aligned with all of my favorite cities in America. It’s no wonder I felt right at home instantly,” said Lewis.
Despite the city’s highly publicized problems with municipal finances and sensationalized crime reporting, Lewis was not deterred. “If you watch the news, you would think that New York City is the worst place to live on the planet. It’s all relative,” she said. She is used to hearing that kind of reporting, living in an urban setting most of her life. “I try to take a big-picture approach.”
Lewis also met nearly all of her neighbors during the whole moving process, so she instantly had a cache of people welcoming her to the city.
“There’s no better protection than a nosy neighbor,” said Jeff Couzens, a block south on Green Street. Couzens, a recently retired forensic accountant with the state Gaming Control Board, has lived in an elegant 1880s-era home on Green Street for more than a decade.
For the most part, the street is quiet, illuminated by window lights, streetlights and the warm buzz of the marquee of the Midtown Cinema across the street. People know each other; they shovel each other’s walkways in the snow. Aside from that, there is scant maintenance. “No lawn,” he says, sweeping his arm up and down the block dotted with decorative planters holding potted plants.
In the time Couzens has lived in the area with his wife, Jo Devlin, a psychotherapist, he has seen many properties bought and fixed up. The introduction of the bookstore, a Harrisburg Area Community College satellite campus and new office space is making it even more of a desirable location. “When the new courthouse gets built, we’ll likely see another jump in real estate prices,” he said. Funding for the construction of the more than $110 million federal courthouse, slated to be located at N. 6th and Reily Streets, is currently tied up in Congress.
A Philadelphia native, Couzens moved to the midstate for a job with the attorney general’s office. As an accountant, he knew it was smarter to buy than rent, especially with the home prices at the time. He was drawn to the city and all that it has to offer. By comparison to other major Pennsylvania cities, he finds Harrisburg clean, quiet and safe. “We live in a grand home,” he said. “And it’s cheap.”
There is plenty of street parking, and he has a garage behind the back patio. “We can get a car in there diagonally, even though it was built for a buggy.” It’s a small price to pay for a home with original hardwood floors, bay windows and a rustic brick wall adding character to carved woodwork and historic touches. The home was featured during a Harrisburg home tour in 2006.
A short walk leads Couzens and Devlin to the banks of the Susquehanna. The vista expands north and south. Couzens said that the most beautiful he has ever seen the river, ironically, was during the flood of September 2011. The couple’s house, just blocks from the Susquehanna’s banks, is not in the floodplain. They decided to walk to the river to check out the rising waters. “The current rushed by, the whole city was in a fog, and we stared at the lights across the bridge. It was captivating,” he said.
Just around the corner, on the 200 block of Verbeke, is the home of David Bixler, a York native. Evenings after work as an IT analyst with the Pennsylvania Medical Society, he likes to take a run on the path along the river. He runs north out of Midtown if he wants a quiet scenic run; south if he wants to see other people and end up in the picturesque Shipoke neighborhood. He likes it best in the winter when the sun is setting and he can hear the ice shifting in the shallows of the water.
In summer, Bixler said there is a natural camaraderie among his neighbors. They take in baseball games on City Island, go to gallery walks together and informally hang out. They easily can walk downtown to the many bars and restaurants. “Where I grew up, everything was a 20- to 30-minute car ride away. I chose to buy a home in the city where I could easily get anywhere I wanted to go,” he said.
And sense of community is unrivaled, as neighbors pay attention to one another. Among his neighbors, the only crime incident he can remember in the last few years is one house that was broken into and, within 20 minutes, one of his neighbors phoned him to tell him about it.
Ray Davis, a local RE/MAX realtor for more than 20 years, said he doesn’t just sell Harrisburg, he lives it. He spent 14 years in Midtown and the last dozen years in Uptown. What draws him to Harrisburg is the same sense of community that most Midtown, Olde Uptown, Engleton and downtown dwellers feel. “There’s a vibrancy here created by diversity and energy. I would just melt in the suburbs,” he said laughing.
Harrisburg has had somewhat of a renaissance over the last two decades, with a lot of community involvement, not just with the homes, but socially. “Residents are going to local events. They hold neighborhood yard sales, spaghetti dinners, turkey dinners, and they are participating in interesting projects like painting the fireplugs. The list goes on,” he said.
Lewis summed it up best, “It’s at the right stage to flourish. There is enough done for a strong framework. People are committed to their sense of place. It’s on the up and up as a city.”
