This Self-Guided Walking Tour is the work of Dotty Brown, author of Boathouse Row, Waves of Change in the Birthplace of American Rowing. Enjoy the walk. Please do not reproduce without permission.
Caution: Remain alert for bikers and joggers who share the path. Walk single file and stand on grass.
Boathouse Row dates from 1859, when Philadelphia ordered the rowing clubs to tear down their unsightly garage-like boathouses and rebuild in stone. One and a half houses survive from that era – the northern portion of #2-3 Boathouse Row (the Fairmount Rowing Association) and #14 Boathouse Row (Philadelphia Girls Rowing Club).
In 1869, another city edict required new construction to be architecturally “picturesque.” The potpourri of architectural styles on the Row today – ornamental Victorian Gothic, Eastlake, Colonial Revival, Mediterranean–all date from between 1861 and 1904. They sit on city land and are owned by private clubs which face enormous maintenance challenges. Some of the clubs fly banners of universities and high schools that lease space from them.
#1 Boathouse Row: Lloyd Hall
Photo by April Saul
Walk across the café patio, down the steps and look to your right. The long boat shed is home to Philadelphia City Rowing, a nonprofit that trains city youth to row. To your left is a small “island”–the result of more than a century of silt which has piled up since 1821. That’s when the dam was built as part of the Water Works which once pumped water into the city. The dam flattened the river, allowing rowing to begin.
#2 and #3: Fairmount Rowing Association
Photo by April Saul
Fairmount regards itself as a club of blue-collar men. Its 19th century records show members included a carpenter, blacksmith, brew master, bricklayer, weaver, electrician, and linotype operator. It admitted women in the 1990s.
Fairmount’s boathouse incorporates both the oldest and newest buildings on the Row. The right-hand side (#4), with a small peaked roof, dates from 1861. It is half of what was originally a “twin.” The Fairmount Rowing Association in 1881 bought the left-hand side of the twin from a defunct club. In 1904 it built the brick building (#3) that you see today. In the 1940s, Fairmount bought the remaining 1861 half from a defunct club and connected the two buildings.
#4: Pennsylvania Barge Club
Photo by April Saul
Within a decade of its founding in 1861, the Pennsylvania Barge Club was basking in the victories of rower Max Schmitt, famously painted by Schmitt’s Central High School classmate, Thomas Eakins, in The Champion Single Sculls, now hanging at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. Eakins lived six blocks from the river and was himself a rower. Some of Eakins’ rowing paintings are at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
Another Pennsylvania Barge champion was Ernest Bayer whose wife, Ernestine, brought women’s rowing to the Schuylkill in 1938 (See #14 Philadelphia Girls Rowing Club.)
The Barge Club building, with Victorian East Lake elements, was built in 1892. That renovation replaced the Barge Club’s half of the original 1871 building it shares with Crescent next door. The Barge Club building was home to the National Association of Amateur Oarsmen (now USRowing) and the Dad Vail (the nation’s largest small-college regatta). The Adaptive Rowing Association is also based here.
#5: Crescent Boat Club
Photo by Dotty Brown
The Crescent Boat Club resulted from the merger of the Iona and Pickwick barge clubs in 1867. It immediately built a twin stone boathouse with the Pennsylvania Barge Club. In the 1870s, Crescent innovatively used steel beams to expand from two bays to three. It also placed its entrance off center to be more picturesque than earlier boathouses. Twenty years later, architects added neo-Tudor post-and-beam details and raised the roof.
Like all of the rowing clubs,, Crescent has had costly repair issues. In the 1970s, the Philadelphia Inquirer wrote, “The sky is visible through sections of the rotting roof. Ceilings on the second and third floor are falling in,”
Photo by April Saul
The Bachelors Barge Club, formed in 1853, is the country’s oldest rowing club in continual existence, with rituals just as ancient. For instance, each initiate gets a single syllable nickname. (W. Atlee Burpee’s nickname was “Seed.”) Members still gather for dinners at the Button–their upriver social house at 4501 Kelly Drive.
Bachelors’ Mediterranean-style boathouse, a replacement built in 1869, broke ground architecturally by using brick instead of stone. Its wide Italianate balcony facing Kelly Drive is an example of the Row’s architectural one upmanship.
#7 and #8: University Barge Club
Photo by April Saul
UBC was formed by graduates of the University of Pennsylvania in 1854 but has never been Penn’s official rowing club. (That would be #11, the College Boat Club.)
This double boathouse, built in 1870, was once home to two clubs. During the Depression, its sister club failed, and University took over the entire building.
UBC members in 1968 created the Thomas Eakins Head of the Schuylkill Regatta (HOSR). Club volunteers manage this contest, with more than 8,000 competitors each October.
Note the green serpentine stone, quarried in West Chester, PA. Renovations in 1891 added elaborate woodwork, high chimneys and a high pitched roof. In 1990, it reconfigured its locker rooms to make space for women.
#9: Malta Boat Club
Photo by Dotty Brown
The Malta Boat Club was founded in 1860 by seven men belonging to the Sons of the Knights of Malta. The only remaining connection is the white Maltese cross on the blades of its blue oars.
In 1873, the Malta and Vesper boat clubs built two identical attached houses before diverging architecturally. In 1901, George and William Hewitt, disciples of Frank Furness, raised Malta up to three stories, the tallest on the Row. Also distinguishing Malta is its decision to remain the Row’s only all-male club.
#10: Vesper Boat Club
Photo by Dotty Brown
The Vesper Boat Club is the only private boat club in the nation to win gold in three Olympics with its eight-oared crew: 1900, 1904, and 1964. It is also the club of actress Grace Kelly’s family. Her father, John B. Kelly Sr., won Olympic gold medals in 1920 and 1924. (He is the rower in the sculpture at the upriver reviewing stands). Her brother, John B. Kelly Jr., won twice at Henley; Kelly Drive is named for him.
In the late 1960s, Vesper was among the first clubs to admit women, some of whom rowed in the eight that won a bronze medal in 1976, the first Olympics with women’s crew.
#11: College Boat House (Burk-Bergman Boathouse)
Photo by Dotty Brown
In 1872, students at the University of Pennsylvania organized a crew program and raised money for one of the most luxurious boathouses of its time, with a trend-setting upstairs lounge. The building’s central section, with three arched windows, is the original structure. Wings were added later on the left and right sides for more boat bays. Major renovations in 2022 modernized the interior but maintained its exterior design.
With dynamic coaches, including Ellis Ward, Rusty Callow, Joe Burk, Ted Nash, and Stan Bergman, Penn crew has been a strong national competitor.
#12: Pennsylvania Athletic Club Rowing Association
Photo by April Saul
The roots of “PennAC” go back to 1871, when men living in West Philadelphia started a club below the Fairmount Dam. It moved upriver with an 1878 building – the first with a balcony facing the river where members could watch the boating scene. In 1924, the club was taken over by the downtown Pennsylvania Athletic Club, which renamed it.
PennAC’s “Big Eight” won world acclaim with 31 straight victories from 1929 to 1931. Penn AC expanded in the 1960s with an unimaginative addition, seen on the right side. In the 1980s, a second floor was added to make room for women’s lockers.
#13: Undine Barge Club
Photo by April Saul
Designed by renowned Philadelphia architect Frank Furness in 1882, the Undine Barge Club, with its many balconies, turrets, and playful use of geometric forms, is the most dramatic on Boathouse Row. It was conceived as a masculine building to reflect its occupants. Note the building’s colors: Furness (who designed the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts) saw reds and greens as “the colors of nature.” The Latin inscription carved in stone means, “Work itself is a pleasure.”
Undine’s corner balcony was the first to face Kelly Drive, built as the clubs became social spaces, with elegant upstairs lounges. Here, the men could watch carriages and bicyclists on the drive as they enjoyed their whisky and cigars, while passersby could see the manly rowers upstairs.
#14: Philadelphia Girls Rowing Club
Photo by Dotty Brown
Completed in 1861, this Italianate stone building is the oldest intact structure on the Row. It was built for the Philadelphia Skating Club in a colder era when thousands would skate on the river. Thomas Eakins’ father was a founding member and Eakins considered himself an accomplished skater. In summer, the Skating Club rented to rowing clubs.
In 1938, a group of secretaries and clerks took over the building and launched America’s first competitive women’s rowing club. Members of the Philadelphia Girls Rowing Club (PGRC) campaigned to include women’s rowing in the Olympics. PGRC remains all-women and is open to women of “all sizes, shapes, and ages” who want to row.
#15: Sedgeley
Photo by April Saul
Sedgeley started in 1897 when women asked Fairmount Park for a place where, like the men, they could relax and have teas after exercising in the park. Their clubhouse was built in 1902, incorporating the existing lighthouse into its living room. It has never been a rowing club.
This club opens to the public every August on Lighthouse Day.
The Water Works: Retrace your steps to visit the Water Works and its museum.
For more stories about the clubs and culture of Boathouse Row, go to https://boathouserowthebook.com/
