Paul Robeson House

The story

Written by AI from this property's National Register nomination and the record above; every sentence is checked against its sources before it appears here. Corrections: privacy@treealive.com

The Paul Robeson House is a three-story brick twin house at 4951 Walnut St. in Philadelphia, built in 1911 in the Late 19th and 20th Century Revivals style by architect E. Allen Wilson. It was listed in the National Register in 2000.

Why it's listed

It was listed under Criterion B and consideration G, with national-level significance in Black ethnic heritage. Paul Robeson lived in the house from 1965, the year the nomination gives as significant when he took up residence, until his death in 1976.

Physical character

The house has walls of buff-colored Roman brick on a sandstone foundation, with a gambrel roof, a projecting wood bay, and a hip-roofed porch with turned balustrades and cast iron rails. A detached garage has common brick walls on a rubble stone foundation, with a flat roof and a nine-over-nine metal bay.

Historical context

Marion R. Forsythe bought the house in 1959 and converted the third floor into an apartment with a kitchen, adding an east door. Robeson was living full-time in Philadelphia by 1966, and recorded a message in 1973 for his seventy-fifth birthday celebration. He entered Presbyterian Hospital in 1975 and died in 1976; Marion Forsythe died in 1977, and the property passed to Paulina Forsythe.