"He was a pioneer with incredible vision," she said.
Touraine is familiar ground for Liz Solms, 30, who once called it home. Her aim today is to take every unit as it becomes vacant and redo it using sustainable, environment-friendly materials "to create a look and feel that pays homage to the architectural integrity of the old buildings."
In recent years, Solms has spent much of her time in a rural area of Jamaica with her husband, Giuliano Pignataro, developing sustainable agriculture projects as he promotes green building. In a spot so off the beaten path by four-wheel-drive vehicle that "you go to sleep at 7:30 p.m. because there's nothing to do," she said, the couple have just completed a house with solar power and a rainwater-collection system.
Since her father's death in August at age 71, however, Solms and Pignataro have been "slowly transitioning back to Philadelphia," as she puts it, without pulling out of Jamaica completely.
"We are trying to stay fluid," she said of their plans.
That's because she and her mother now own Historic Landmarks for Living and its 13 buildings in Philadelphia, West Chester, Baltimore, Pittsburgh, and Chicago that weren't sold to Jeffrey Reinhold, of Reinhold Properties, five years ago.
Reinhold Properties manages the buildings. Touraine's monthly rents range from $1,400 to about $4,000.
Liz Solms lived at Touraine until she was 18, in an apartment her mother - Ellen B. Solms, executive director of the Avenue of the Arts from 1993 to 2000 - still occupies.
"She's just finished renovating it," Liz Solms said.
Stephen Solms, who used historic-property tax credits in the late 1970s and 1980s to transform Old City, bought the 180-unit building, built in 1917, in November 1983, then restored and renovated it.
