Front House

The Front house on Carpenters’ Court was probably built in the first part of the 1700s if not earlier as a residence for either the Breitnall or Emlen families. A B.R. Evans sketch from 1809 shows the Front House interspersed with a few other similar structures. Unlike the brick, gable-end chimney Georgian row homes emblematic of colonial Philadelphia, these structures are of frame construction covered in clapboard siding and chimneys located centrally along the roof ridge. The two large buildings next to the Front House have an elongated rear roof similar to saltbox structures. The Front House and its neighbors resemble the domestic architecture commonly seen in 17th and early 18th New England structures. 

After the Carpenters’ Company bought the property containing the Front house in 1768 they began to improve the front house and use it as a rental property as well as an occasional meeting place prior to the construction of Carpenters’ Hall.After its renovations, the Carpenters Company In 1769, the Company paid James Potter for putting in 9 double hung sash windows. These windows could have replaced hinged casement windows with leaded glass. Casements windows, popular in the 17th and early 18th century, became unpopular following the introduction of vertically sliding sash windows in the first half of the 18th century. Other extensive carpentry work was done to the Front House between 1768 and 1771 producing a house that was rented for 54 pounds in the later 1770s. Even with its renovations, the outdated Front House with its wooden construction rendered the building obsolete and a potential fire hazard for the Carpenters’ Company. The widespread use of fire insurance companies increased in the late 18th century and properties with wooden buildings were much harder to insure. About thirty years later in 1810, the Front House was torn down to make room for the Company’s four story Front Store.  In all likelihood, Philadelphia had many frame buildings dating from the late 17th century and early 18th century that resembled the Front House but they have been lost to the tides of history and those that remained in the 19th century were not deemed significant by early photographers.