Former State Senator Vince Fumo’s storied 10,000-square-foot Philadelphia manor house — a property that played a role in the onetime political power broker’s downfall — could be yours.
The four-story 1880s Renaissance Revival brownstone, near 22nd and Green streets in the Spring Garden neighborhood, was listed this week for just under $4 million. The historically-designated home was constructed in 1885 for 19th century clothing magnate Samuel B. Fleisher, according to a registry for the surrounding historic district.
To say it’s roomy would be an understatement.
Along with six beds and 8.5 baths, the property boasts a wine cellar, elevator, roof deck, private shooting range, marble fireplaces, and a former ballroom converted into a “executive-sized” home office.
“It’s a big house. Nothing else really compares to it,” said broker Melanie Stecura, of Kurfiss Sotheby’s International Realty. “It’s obviously a one of the finest Philadelphia mansions that’s still historically intact.”
All that luxury, plus a tax bill totaling roughly $40,000 a year.
Taxes were what brought the home into the limelight more than a decade ago — along with a string of other allegations of questionable conduct involving the property.
The home had been converted into a convent and then apartments by the time Fumo brought the Victorian in 1994, during his ascent to power in the Pennsylvania State Senate. The senator was indicted on a battery of corruption charges in 2007, including claims from federal prosecutors that he’d used senate aides as housekeepers and to supervise extensive renovations on the building, at a cost to taxpayers.
Fumo would ultimately be convicted of defrauding the senate and sentenced to prison time, seeking to sell the house for $7 million to pay his legal bills. There was no sale. Although that list price was higher than today’s, news that the city’s tax board, known as the Board of Revision of Taxes, had assessed the property at just $250,000 triggered yet more headlines.
The assessment, which lowered the home’s tax bill to around $7,000 at the time, brought allegations of political favoritism, as a Fumo ally sat on the BRT. The ally was ejected from the board and, in 2009, then-Mayor former Mayor Michael Nutter sought to dismantle the board, with mixed success.
Thursday, Fumo was mum on the sale, referring all questions to Stecura. She said the 79-year-old was simply ready to scale down.
“For Mr. Fumo, it’s more house than he needs anymore at his age. He’s downsizing and looking for something smaller,” she said.
