Bay Window

A bay window protruding from a house in Nether Providence Township has created a small problem for a township man who wants to subdivide his property and sell half of it. Steven Maxwell wants to split his property of less than one acre on 207 Willow Rd. into two lots of nearly equal size. One house sits on the site. The subdivided lot with the house falls one foot short of the township's aggregate side-yard requirement of 16 feet - a shortfall created by the protruding window.

Scott Moss wants to build a Victorian house with a bay window and four-foot porches on his property at 531 Oak Rd. in Merion, but his plans have been put on hold. Prompted by opposition from neighbors concerned with everything from neighborhood aesthetics to sewer drainage, the Lower Merion Zoning Hearing Board on Thursday voted to continue Moss' application. "What we want to know, in layman's terms, is, 'Is there a water problem there or not a water problem?' " board member Morris C. Kellett said.

Keeping America beautiful might be a good deal easier if architects, builders and their clients put a little more effort into choosing a variety of harmonious materials for home exteriors. The key word here is variety, and in many newer subdivisions there is precious little of it. Whether beige, gray, russet or sage, the result is the same - a community of relentless monotony, and houses that look monolithic and often too big for the lots they are on. Exterior materials - siding, masonry and roofing - can bring a house into harmony with its environment and its neighbors.

Inclement weather can be tough on man and beast, including birds of prey. Cold weather sends rabbits, mice and other vermin into hibernation, leaving the raptors hungry. To get by, especially when the ground is covered with snow, they will chase down other birds and feed on roadkill. As a consequence, they sometimes crash into buildings. Sometimes they become roadkill themselves. Wildlife experts say dozens of hawks and owls have died on area roads since the cold weather hit. Without their normal food source, the cunning and clever birds, usually admired from afar as they circle well above the tree line, feed on carcasses of animals killed by cars.

Between Oct. 28 and last Sunday, Mischief Night, at least 37 homeowners and car owners incurred thefts from their cars, BB pellets shot through car or bedroom windows, spray-painted cars and a number of miscellaneous incidents. "It's very, very excessive," said Township Police Sgt. James McCallister. "Usually, if we have two or three (mischief reports) in a 24-hour period, it's a lot. " The damage was in numerous areas of the township. Unlocked cars in the Briar Hills Farms section were ransacked; only a few items, such as a Swiss army knife and binoculars, were stolen.

Phyllis D. Intenzo, 85, who with friends and family watched one of Philadelphia's great traditions pass by her bay window, died Sunday of complications associated with Alzheimer's disease at the home of a son in Haverford. Mrs. Intenzo lived in a brownstone at Broad and Moore Streets in South Philadelphia for 49 years, and every New Year's Day she would host a party so guests could watch the Mummers Parade. "It was a perfect view," said her granddaughter Joan Giresi. "We all used to sit in the window.

HEATON'S MILL Middletown Township, Bucks County 752-5426 Heaton's Mill, an upscale development in lower Bucks County, is said to be near the site where Robert Heat built the first grist mill in Middletown Township in the late 1600s. The grist mill has inspired the naming of Heaton's Mill and other developments in the area. Although the mill is gone now, at least one reminder of the area's rich history remains intact: a fieldstone farmhouse built in the early 1800s.

Sturbridge Estates, Voorhees, Camden County Luxury homes on wooded lots - just what the doctor ordered! Dr. Albert Belli, that is. Belli, a pulmonary specialist, and his wife, Joanne, were Sturbridge Estates' first buyers. "And two years down the road, we're very satisfied," Joanne Belli said. "We got what we wanted, absolutely!" What they wanted was more room (they were expecting their fourth child); an area away from highways; and neighbors with children. The secluded Voorhees Township site of Sturbridge Estates offered a beautifully treed community with courts boasting landscaped center islands.

Kent Derry gazed up at his neighbor's burned-out window and winced. "I had the best chance of anyone," he said. "But I had no chance at all. " Early yesterday morning, he had clutched the arm of Bryant Laws, 4, with both hands for what seemed like five minutes as the fire closed in on the boy. But between the unconscious child and survival stood a wrought-iron grill. And Derry, 27, could not slip the boy through the bars on the second-floor window. "I kicked, I pulled, but I couldn't get the bars off," said the Germantown man. "There was nothing I could do. It started getting hot. Then the flames just came.

One in an occasional series. Carolyn McClary stands on her porch, near her bay window of lacy white curtains and silk flowers, and stares at the block's nemesis. Three doors down, at 1446 N. Conestoga St., strips of wood hang from the porch roof like streamers. The roof sags over broken windows. Raccoons take refuge. On the metal sheet of a door a notice warns: "Danger. Keep out. " No one has lived in the crumbling rowhouse on this narrow street in West Philadelphia's Carroll Park for 10 years, guesses McClary, the longtime block captain.

Keeping America beautiful might be a good deal easier if architects, builders and their clients put a little more effort into choosing a variety of harmonious materials for home exteriors. The key word here is variety, and in many newer subdivisions there is precious little of it. Whether beige, gray, russet or sage, the result is the same - a community of relentless monotony, and houses that look monolithic and often too big for the lots they are on. Exterior materials - siding, masonry and roofing - can bring a house into harmony with its environment and its neighbors.

The Christmas express When I was about 8, I went into the cellar of our home in Jenkintown a few weeks before Christmas. Lying on my dad's cluttered workbench was a piece of paper with a rough, penciled diagram that included a figure eight. Trains. I shared my discovery with no one, not even my two younger brothers. Exciting? Yes, but I was too young to realize the volcano of financial stress bubbling through the heads of my parents and millions of others as they fought their way through the Great Depression.

Phyllis D. Intenzo, 85, who with friends and family watched one of Philadelphia's great traditions pass by her bay window, died Sunday of complications associated with Alzheimer's disease at the home of a son in Haverford. Mrs. Intenzo lived in a brownstone at Broad and Moore Streets in South Philadelphia for 49 years, and every New Year's Day she would host a party so guests could watch the Mummers Parade. "It was a perfect view," said her granddaughter Joan Giresi. "We all used to sit in the window.

Inclement weather can be tough on man and beast, including birds of prey. Cold weather sends rabbits, mice and other vermin into hibernation, leaving the raptors hungry. To get by, especially when the ground is covered with snow, they will chase down other birds and feed on roadkill. As a consequence, they sometimes crash into buildings. Sometimes they become roadkill themselves. Wildlife experts say dozens of hawks and owls have died on area roads since the cold weather hit. Without their normal food source, the cunning and clever birds, usually admired from afar as they circle well above the tree line, feed on carcasses of animals killed by cars.

John Page Williams stopped wading in the Severn River and pulled up his net slowly, intently inspecting his catch. He was still for a moment and then he yelped in triumph. "We got a pike . . . oh, we got a pike!" Among the pumpkinseed sunfish, grass shrimp and Atlantic silverside minnows lay an eight-inch brown torpedo of a fish, a chain pickerel. Williams, senior naturalist for the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, gingerly cradled the pickerel - frequently called a pike - in his palm.

Sturbridge Estates, Voorhees, Camden County Luxury homes on wooded lots - just what the doctor ordered! Dr. Albert Belli, that is. Belli, a pulmonary specialist, and his wife, Joanne, were Sturbridge Estates' first buyers. "And two years down the road, we're very satisfied," Joanne Belli said. "We got what we wanted, absolutely!" What they wanted was more room (they were expecting their fourth child); an area away from highways; and neighbors with children. The secluded Voorhees Township site of Sturbridge Estates offered a beautifully treed community with courts boasting landscaped center islands.

Between Oct. 28 and last Sunday, Mischief Night, at least 37 homeowners and car owners incurred thefts from their cars, BB pellets shot through car or bedroom windows, spray-painted cars and a number of miscellaneous incidents. "It's very, very excessive," said Township Police Sgt. James McCallister. "Usually, if we have two or three (mischief reports) in a 24-hour period, it's a lot. " The damage was in numerous areas of the township. Unlocked cars in the Briar Hills Farms section were ransacked; only a few items, such as a Swiss army knife and binoculars, were stolen.

When Tom Canova first walked into the two-story, stone-faced house on the quiet street in Springfield Township, Delaware County, he had great hopes for the traditional Colonial-style home of his dreams. Then his eyes fixed on the jarring relics of another time - the '50s: thick, olive-green carpeting in the front entrance, a mirrored wall in the living room, avocado-green linoleum in the kitchen. His heart sank. "We first saw it during an open house on a Sunday. They had these heavy drapes that were closed, and the whole place was very dark and depressing.

A bay window protruding from a house in Nether Providence Township has created a small problem for a township man who wants to subdivide his property and sell half of it. Steven Maxwell wants to split his property of less than one acre on 207 Willow Rd. into two lots of nearly equal size. One house sits on the site. The subdivided lot with the house falls one foot short of the township's aggregate side-yard requirement of 16 feet - a shortfall created by the protruding window.