TWIST OF FATE

LUCKY CHANCES BROUGHT TOGETHER AN INTERNATIONAL

COUPLE AND A LOUIS KAHN-DESIGNED HOUSE
BY
MEGHAN DRUEDING
PHOTOGRAPHY BY
DON FREEMAN

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 I BRUSH MY WAY THROUGH THICKETS of brambles and ankle-high poison ivy, following
a tall Frenchman and his Italian photographer wife. I've just met them half an hour ago, and
now we're traipsing through the woods, a lush tangle of bamboo, deciduous trees, and silver
lace vines behind their house. am wearing a pair of sturdy leather clogs hastily borrowed
I

from the wife, Bianca Sforni, along with business attire not especially suited to hiking.
"You've got to see this tree!" calls out Sforni's husband, Charles Firmin-Didot. Sunlight
glints off Pennypack Creek, which meanders through the 2.6-acre property in suburban
Philadelphia. The white flowers of the silver lace are just beginning to bloom, and already
their sweet fragrance perfumes the air. As we arrive at the must-see tree, a magnificent,
70-foot-tall tulip poplar, Sforni places her hand on it reverently.
This walk in the woods wasn't what expected from my visit to the couple's house, a 1967
I

masterpiece by the great Modernist architect Louis Kahn. But considering that much of the
best Modern architecture-- and Kahn's work, in particular-- is about connecting with the
outdoors, our quick hike feels like the most appropriate introduction imaginable.

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 RIGHT
The Fisher-Kahn
House's inset window
units allow the owners
to control light and
privacy-- and to keep
their windows open
during rainstorms.
Next to the dining
table, a minibaris
hidden behind a
paneled oak door.

ONLINE EXCLUSIVE:

For more on the

Fisher-Kahn House, visit
PreservationNation.org/online.

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 The towering tulip poplar was just a sapling when house would grip you. It
Dr. Norman Fisher and his wife, Doris, contacted was about connecting at
Louis Kahn in 1960. Residents of Hatboro, Pennsyl a deeper level, which is
vania, the couple had purchased a lot just half a mile what Kahn's architecture
from their existing, late-Victorian residence. They is about."
wanted a Modern house, and another architect had Kahn designed more
mentioned Kahn. So they found him in the phone than 30 houses, just nine
book, called him up, and asked him to design them a of which were built. (All
relatively modest Modern home. nine are still standing.)
By this point in the Philadelphia-based architect's The Fishers never under
storied career, he was designing high-profile, far- estimated their respon
flung buildings, including the revered Salk Institute sibility as the owners of
for Biological Studies in La Jolla, California. He still one. They kept the build
loved to create houses for the right clients, though, ing in immaculate shape
and he must have sensed kindred souls in the music- while raising Nina and her
loving Fishers. He spent four years designing their older sister, Claudia, as
house, going through four different schemes before well as a series of dogs,
settling on one that would both accommodate his mostly Irish terriers. "Par
clients' budget and satisfy his exacting eye. The final ticularly after he retired,
plan was beautifully simple: two connecting cubes- my dad poured his time
one for sleeping and the other for living-- set at a into taking care of that
45-degree angle from one another. house," Nina recalls. "He
Clad in cypress and set on a foundation of local delighted in showing peo
Montgomeryville stone, the painstakingly designed, ple around."
1,800-square-foot house took three years to build-- an Doris carefully main
unusually long time for a structure of this size. But tained the grounds and
the care and time taken by builder E. Arol Fesmire eventually worked as a
paid off. Nearly half a century after completion, every landscape designer. The
handcrafted kitchen drawer slides out of its oak casing couple once gave a party
like silk. As for Kahn's deliberate pace with the design with live music played by a trio who performed on ABOVE
process, the Fishers' daughter Nina doesn't recall her a platform above the kitchen, just under the 15-and-a-
An 8-by-10-foot fixed
window and shutters
parents complaining. "I think they recognized they half-foot ceilings of the living cube. Nina and Claudia that open directly to
were working with someone who didn't operate the kept their sports equipment in a secret wall compart the outdoors usher
sunlight and fresh air
way other people did," she says. ment at the covered cypress entry, one of many hid
into the house.
den storage spaces Kahn devised for
the house.
By 1996, the Fishers' daughters had
"THE HOUSE WOULD grown up and moved out of the area,
and the couple started to think about
GRIP YOU. IT WAS ABOUT how to protect the house for the future.

CONNECTING AT A DEEPER
With Nina and Claudia's support, they
worked out an arrangement with the

LEVEL, WHICH IS WHAT

National Trust for Historic Preserva
tion. Doris and Norman would remain

KAHN'S ARCHITECTURE in the house as long as they wanted,

and when they were ready, they would
IS ABOUT." pass it to the National Trust. A pro
tective easement would ensure the
-WILLIAM WHITAKER property's long-term preservation.
Norman died in 2007. The follow
ing year Doris moved to Annapolis,
Maryland, where she still lives, to be
For almost 40 years, the Fishers happily inhabited closer to Nina. In 2011, the family decided it was time to
the results of Kahn's (and Fesmire's) labors. Their let go of the house. "In a way, it was a relief to be able to
friends didn't always like the look of the house at turn it over to a responsible party," Nina says.
first-- it sits, discreetly, on a street of more conven The National Trust, which had spent more than a
tional Capes and bungalows-- but according to Univer decade assessing the house, decided that the best way
sity of Pennsylvania Architectural Archives curator to take care of it in the long term would be to sell it to a
William Whitaker, it grew on them. "Doris said she private owner. The buyer would be bound by the ease
could see a change in people over time," he says. "The ment's remarkably comprehensive terms.

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 "It provides a level of curatorial protection that "IKIND OF RESPECT WHEN
is unusual," says Shantia Anderheggen, director of
easements at the National Trust. No changes are per THERE ARE SIGNS LIKE THIS.
mitted to the building's- exterior, .which is typical--
but few are allowed throughout the interiors, either, THE HOUSE CHOSE US."
which is out of the ordinary.
After working closely with the Fisher family to fur --CHARLES FIRMIN-DIDOT
ther refine the easement, the National Trust placed
the house on the market early in the summer of 2012.
Interested buyers were asked to submit sealed bid of
fers by the end of August. The day before the deadline,
Anderheggen received a scratchy-sounding overseas
phone call from a Charles Firmin-Didot. "He sounded
like he was calling from the Titanic," Anderheggen
says. "He knew who Louis Kahn was." Better yet, he
didn't want to change the house at all. Firmin-Didot
had also started restoring his family's 16th-century
farmhouse in Normandy, France, and had owned and
maintained other old houses. He was exactly the type
of buyer the National Trust and the Fishers had been
waiting for.

CLIP FROM THE Oscar-nominated

2003 documentary My Architect x

made by Louis Kahn's son Nathaniel,

shows Kahn talking about serendip
ity. "How accidental our existences
are, really, and how full of influence
circumstance," he says.

A
by
The series of events that led
Firmin-Didot and Sforni to the house
underlines Kahn's point. Sforni is a
fine-arts photographer with a stu
dio in New York, and Firmin-Didot
worked in London as a scout for
entrepreneurial talent. The couple happened to be vis
iting a friend in Philadelphia while Fisher-Kahn was
on the market. Their host took them to a weekend CLOCKWISE
FROM ABOVE
open house there, just out of curiosity and general A stone chimney and
interest. "Our friend said it was an incredible op fireplace abut a cozy
to see a Kahn," Firmin-Didot says. "Then window seat; the
portunity built-in kitchen table
the house was so beautiful it stayed in my mind." He underscores a pastoral
loved it, and so did Sforni. But they didn't seriously view; Kahn knew
consider buying it. "I didn't have the money available to exactly how to angle
the building to achieve
buy this house at the time, and I had work in Europe, dramatic effects of
so it didn't make sense," he says. light and shadow; oak
cabinets, stainless
But fate intervened. Late that summer, Firmin- steel counters, and
Didot concluded his employment in Europe, accept handmade tile floors
give the kitchen
ing a package that happened to match the house's
a

timeless quality; the

asking price almost exactly. In another cosmic co house's owners, Bianca
incidence, the couple realized that a specialized photo Sforni and Charles
Firmin-Didot
lab Sforni had worked with for years, the only one
she'd ever found that printed her images just the way
she wanted, was located about 20 minutes away from
Hatboro. (Alas, it has gone out of business.) "I kind of
respect when there are signs like this," Firmin-Didot
says. "The house chose us." He quickly made the call
to Anderheggen and sent the paperwork detailing

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Copyright © 2019 ProQuest LLC. All rights reserved.
 ABOVE his and Sforni'sdesire to preserve the building in never be painted or otherwise altered-- to do so would
The lime plaster
accordance with the easement. The Fisher-Kahn remove a fundamental piece of the Fisher-Kahn
interior walls artfully
hold and transform House had found its next owners. House's character. The hand-worked, slightly rough
natural light. surface gives the house an ancient feeling, like an old
RIGHT TODAY, AFTER MY WOODLAND WALK with Firmin- French farmhouse or even a Greek temple. It catches
Louis Kahn also
Didot and Sforni, we sit down to a delicious lunch of and transforms natural light in an almost uncanny
designed a bridge
over the creek behind roasted chicken, hard-boiled eggs, potatoes a la dau- fashion. Before lunch, the walls looked off-white in
the house in 1969; some places, gray or light brown in others. Now they've
Charles Firmin-Didot
phinoise, and a simple green salad. Whitaker joins us
and Bianca Sforni have on his way back from a visit to another Kahn-designed turned a gentle yellow and green, reflecting the leaves
chosen clean-lined residence, the Korman House in nearby Whitemarsh outside. In some places, they're washed with pink from
wood furnishings the reddish hue of the cypress window frames.
that complement the Township, where he's advising the owners on some
architecture preservation work. The lime plaster walls capture not only still light, but
Firmin-Didot and Sforni have prepared our meal in movement and shadows, as well. Firmin-Didot shows me
their vintage 1967 kitchen. "It's a perfect-size kitchen a video he took of the early morning light in the mas

for someone who likes to cook," Firmin-Didot says. The
stainless steel counters were designed an inch or two
lower than usual to accommodate Doris Fisher's height
of 5 feet, 2 inches. Kahn specified handmade, dark red
floor tiles, which remind Sforni of her native Italy.
We eat at a 1964 George Nakashima-designed wal
nut Trestle Table, chosen for its eastern Pennsylvania
provenance and its kinship with the house's architec
ture. After they bought it, Firmin-Didot and Sforni
learned that the Fishers had had the same one. The
smooth wood table sets off the textured walls, which
are covered in a mixture of lime and plaster painstak
ingly concocted by Kahn.
According to the easement, the lime plaster can
ter bedroom: On the ceiling, an eerily beautiful river of
moving shadows reflects the flow of Pennypack Creek.
And in the dining space, Firmin-Didot and Sforni often
move the Nakashima table aside and project movies
onto the wall.
Sforni, a philosophical sort like her husband, tells
me she sometimes enjoys just sitting inside and watch
ing the day change around her. "It's such a pleasure to
be here all day," she says, noting that the house helps
her to recharge and gain perspective. "You don't want
to leave."
I can identify with that.
After lunch we gather around the massive fireplace,
with its half-round Montgomeryville stone chimney.

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 "FOR US IT'S SO NATURAL
TO RESPECT MATERIALS,
SO IT DOESN'T FEEL LIKE
A WEIGHT."
CHARLES FIRMIN-DIDOT

Kahn had the masons rake out the mortar joints to give approach preserving the cypress siding while also
to ABOVE
it a dry-laid appearance, like a Scottish cairn. Sitting at Kahn's original vision. Owners Charles
deferring to
Firmin-Didot and
a built-in window bench, Firmin-Didot and Sforni tell
Finding furnishings and artwork that suit the house Bianca Sforni put
the story of their first visit to the house as owners. has been a pet project of Firmin-Didot's. Simple wood as much effort into

Hurricane Sandy hit New York, where the cou
ple was staying at the time, on October 29, 2012,
essentially shutting down much of the city. As soon as
the tunnels out of Manhattan opened up, they drove
down the New Jersey Turnpike to Hatboro, wonder-
items not necessarily from the Midcentury Modern maintaining the
landscape as they
period-- an Amish daybed, a coffee table bought on a do the building.
roadside in Sicily, an African stool-- mix with pieces by
Kahn's contemporaries such as Nakashima. A cloth-
and-papier-mache sculpture of a faceless man by artist

inguneasily how much damage their newly purchased
house had sustained. When they arrived they found
that trees had fallen all over the neighborhood, but
despite its wooded setting, the Fisher-Kahn House re
mained untouched. Power lines were down in the area,
but their electricity worked perfectly. They lit a fire in
the fireplace and turned the thermostat to 69 degrees,
and the house was warm in 15 minutes. Firmin-Didot
and Sforni took their incredible luck as another sign
that destiny had aligned them with Fisher-Kahn. "The
house has treated us very well," Firmin-Didot says.
And vice versa. The only major item the couple
had to fix upon moving in was leaky pipe. Since
.a
then, much like the Fishers, they revel in their role
as maintainers and stewards of the house. "For us it's
so natural to respect materials, so it doesn't feel like
a weight," Firmin-Didot tells me. "You have respon
sibility, for sure, but it feels natural." Later, he falls
deep into conversation with Whitaker about the best
Mark Jenkins resides in an upstairs closet, surprising
Whitaker and me as Firmin-Didot opens the closet
door. "His name is Bryan," Firmin-Didot says mischie
vously. The juxtapositions seem fitting given Kahn's
eclectic influences, which included vernacular and
classical traditions.
A glass sculpture of an old-fashioned loudspeaker
by artist Philippe Parreno occupies a high shelf above
the main living space. "It is the voice of Kahn and
Fisher," Firmin-Didot says, joking.
But it's true, in a sense. The house somehow has
its own personality, shaped by the man who designed
it and the family who lived there for so long. Playful,
empathetic, calm-- these are adjectives more commonly
applied to people than buildings, but all of them have
come up in our free-flowing conversations about the
house today. Whether by accident, destiny, or architectural
karma, the voices of Firmin-Didot and Sforni are
now
part of the Fisher-Kahn House, too.

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