Farmhouse

It sits back off a country road in Moorestown, and to all outward appearances, it is a quintessentially charming colonial farmhouse. That impression continues in many areas of the home of Dr. David and Lyn Steinberg - but definitely not in all. To the Steinbergs, their home is truly a castle, a medieval European one. "I drove into the driveway and fell in love," says Lyn, who brought David to visit the 1831 farmhouse immediately after seeing...

It sits back off a country road in Moorestown, and to all outward appearances, it is a quintessentially charming colonial farmhouse. That impression continues in many areas of the home of Dr. David and Lyn Steinberg - but definitely not in all. To the Steinbergs, their home is truly a castle, a medieval European one. "I drove into the driveway and fell in love," says Lyn, who brought David to visit the 1831 farmhouse immediately after seeing...

On a warm spring night, Sara and Harry Robbins and their friends from the 80 Percent Old Time Spring Band sit on their gracious porch and play Appalachian mountain music. A melody fills the air, and neighbors, accustomed to these impromptu concerts, wander over to listen. Some bring harmonicas, guitars, fiddles, or mandolins and join in. Some just bring their children. It's a scene repeated on many a pleasant evening on this quiet street in West Mount Airy. "I've lived a lot of places," said Harry Robbins, "but this is the best neighborhood I have ever lived in. " For Harry and Sara Robbins, music and the outdoors have as much to do with their home life as the antiques that fill their rooms.

When Maria Hasenecz sees a mess, she doesn't see chaos; she sees possibilities. The daughter of a builder, she watched her mother move into house after house surrounded by dirt piles, and she tagged along with her father to job-site inspections. The turmoil of a house (or a garden) under construction never scared her. Quite the opposite. Eleven years ago, when Maria and her husband, George, outgrew their Center City house, they headed for Wyndmoor to find more space - especially room where she could throw herself into her gardening.

In the summer of 2000, when Marti and John Jameson told family and friends they were thinking of buying a 200-year-old farmhouse that needed a complete overhaul, almost to a person this was the reaction: The Jamesons had three kids who didn't want to move, and they had just spent 18 years renovating their current home, which was 150 years old and only seven minutes away. What were they thinking? And you should see it now. "It was a fun family project, a real adventure," Marti says earnestly.

Cheese of the Month After years of vacations in Vermont, I thought I knew good cheddar. But the emergence of traditional farmhouse versions from England (where cheddar, after all, was born) has changed my perception of the genre. The American and British renditions are so unalike, they're practically different cheeses. You'll know what I mean when you taste Mrs. Quicke's, a traditional-style Brit from Devon. Whereas most Americans become creamy and sharp as they age, the British versions become intensely earthy.

The woods and winding creeks of Valley Forge National Historical Park run alongside a dreamy curve of Route 252 in Tredyffrin. Cars rumble across the one-lane covered bridge making the ride up Yellow Springs Road. This neighborhood at the edge of the sprawling park has been home to KayC and Reg Pierce and their three children since 2001. But the Pierces are an industrious couple with an unrelenting passion for rebuilding. They just can?t help themselves. Since buying their first house in 1979, they have completed four renovations in two states.

The end of the move was signaled with the blast of a horn and a cheer from onlookers. "It's just terrific," said a beaming Richard Harris, as he surveyed his beloved 19th-century stone house Friday afternoon in its new majestic setting, 120 feet farther from the road than it had been 3 1/2 hours earlier. "Congratulations, sweetie! It seems like it was always here," said his wife, Suzanne, as she gave him a kiss. Also satisfied was the four-man crew from Wolfe House & Building Movers.

The decrepit farmhouse shares some history with the children it will eventually serve: years of abuse. The circa-1760s building on the grounds of Norristown Farm Park is poised for a dramatic makeover into a facility that will also change the way law enforcement deals with children who have been molested or neglected in Montgomery County. The Mission Kids center, which will be the first of its kind in the Philadelphia suburbs, is expected to serve more than 500 children a year when it opens, probably in mid-2009, said incoming District Attorney Risa Vetri Ferman.

Lynne Shivers delighted in her discovery much the way Walt Whitman had gladdened at the droning of bumblebees and the widening whistles of the russet-backed thrushes along Big Timber Creek more than a century earlier. "I was just relaxing and had a collected works of Whitman sitting next to me," said Shivers, whose Deptford house overlooks wetlands along the creek. She read: "And I walked along the Big Timber Creek . . . " "Wait a minute," Shivers exclaimed to herself. "That's the creek outside my window.