They’d Already Renovated an Iconic Midcentury. What’s One More?

In December 2017, Paul Savidge and Dan Macey were staying at a hotel for a wedding in Reading, one and a half hours northwest of their home in Philadelphia. Once outside the nuptial festivities, they were met with a bleak winter weekend, and the couple got a flat tire on a dark and icy trip home. The dour weather seeped into their mood. Who would want to live here? they asked each other.

As it turned out, they would.

In February 2019, the pair got a call from a real estate agent and friend specializing in midcentury houses. There was a house in Wyomissing, a town next to Reading, that they had to see, she said.

"We drove up to the site, we looked at the house, and we looked at each other," says Paul. Before the sun set, they were ready to sell their second home in New Hope, a town on the New Jersey border, and buy this one.

Built in 1957, the flat-roofed, International Style house featured floor-to-ceiling steel windows interspersed with oatmeal-hued brick walls and was perched on a slightly elevated corner parcel of land surrounded by a short slate wall. It was also a single story—exactly what Paul and Dan wanted to settle into as retirement edged closer.