June 10-16, 2004

cityspace

Home Sweet Farnese

by Liz Harris

Last week, one of the East Coast's original subsidized senior citizen housing facilities was rededicated in honor of its founder. The facility is still in operation, and since has become a national model for assisted housing.

Originally called Casa Enrico Fermi, after the Nobel Prize-winning Italian physicist, the facility opened in 1966 and cost $3.8 million to build. On June 3, the home was renamed Casa Farnese in honor of the man responsible for its existence and the maintenance of its facilities and atmosphere, Philadelphia-born Andrew Farnese.

Casa Farnese, designed by architect Oscar Stonorov, is located at 1300 Lombard St. and contains 288 apartments. Half are efficiencies; the other half are one-bedroom apartments. It also contains underground parking and some community space for the residents.

After World War II, the structure of the American family life began to shift, narrowing the span of generations in one house from three or four to only two. While many nuclear families moved to their Levittowns, older generations were left out in the cold.

"Since this [residence] was something that Mr. Farnese conceived of brought to fruition and then oversaw until his death in 2003, [the board] thought it would be an appropriate tribute to rename it Casa Farnese," says Jim McGrath, president of PRD Management, which specializes in managing subsidized housing.

The renaming proposal elicited no opposition from board members, residents or the involved government agencies. According to Bob Capone, president of the Casa Farnese board, the only questions that emerged surrounding the rededication was why it hadn't happened sooner.

To help nonprofit organizations develop housing for senior citizens, Congress established in 1959 a program that gave money toward housing and support services for low-income older persons. Capone says Farnese was extremely distraught by the idea that members of the older generations were being displaced from the family structure and home. He became one of the first people in America to apply for this brand of government assistance to build homes for people 62 years of age and older.

Farnese pursued the HUD grant for this project and oversaw its maintenance and activities until his death last year.

Capon recalls that Farnese ran Casa Fermi well. "It was a very happy place when he was there. He ran it like a little home. He and everyone there were on a first-name basis," he says. "He was a man of class, a man of respect, a real gentleman. I think [renaming it Casa Farnese] is a proper and right thing to do."