Sansom Row

Eighteen row houses built between 1869 and 1871 in Philadelphia, near the University of Pennsylvania, make up Sansom Row. Sixteen of the houses are faced in rough-textured brownstone laid as random ashlar, and the westward end buildings are faced in common Philadelphia brick. The houses are built in mirror-image pairs sharing a party wall, with paired doorways and continuous bracketed cornices. Their Second Empire detailing includes round-arched doorways, segmentally arched windows with projecting keystones, heavy bracketed cornices, and mansards pierced by round-headed dormers. The row is regarded as significant for its architecture, especially the brownstone facades and imbricated mansard shingles, which distinguish it from the typical red brick rows of the city. It is also considered one of the last surviving examples of the post-Civil War building boom in the region. Residents over the years included Madame Elena Blavatsky, founder of the Theosophists, and stone carver John M. Gessler.