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"&amp;quot;When you look at this place, you see our travels,&amp;quot; Glen Senk says of the 1912 Philadelphia house he shares with Keith Johnson. &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s a wonderful privilege to have objects we&amp;#039;ve found around the world.&amp;quot; Visitors to the center-hall Dutch Colonial, located in tony Chestnut Hill, see something else as well: an unusual, even idiosyncratic, juxtaposition of treasures and trinkets that is no doubt unlike anything else in the genteel neighborhood. After all, not everyone would think of installing a kitchen chandelier made out of antique baking molds.  &amp;quot;We love when something was made for one purpose but can now be used for another,&amp;quot; says Johnson. Indeed, discovering new ways to look at old things is what the pair does both for fun and for a living. Senk is the CEO of Urban Outfitters, and Johnson is Anthropologie&amp;#039;s antiques buyer, traveling six months a year to Europe and Asia on shopping trips.   Together for nearly three decades\u2014they have known each other since childhood, in Brookville, New York, on Long Island&amp;#039;s North Shore\u2014the pair have lived in dozens of houses and apartments in cities from London to San Francisco. But it was a wrong turn five years ago that led them to their newest home. On the way to a friend&amp;#039;s place one afternoon, they drove down a cul-de-sac\u2014only to stop at the enormous stone house at the end. It was surrounded on three sides by Fairmount Park, with the Schuykill River coursing through what is America&amp;#039;s largest urban park. The setting &amp;quot;just melted me,&amp;quot; Senk recalls. &amp;quot;We were only minutes from town, yet it felt like the middle of nowhere.&amp;quot;  At the time, Johnson and Senk weren&amp;#039;t in the market for a new place. They owned an 18th-century townhouse in the center of Philadelphia, in an area that was lively, sometimes too much so. A year later, looking for a more bucolic setting, they called a Chestnut Hill real-estate agent. The second property shown was the one they&amp;#039;d stumbled upon. &amp;quot;I believe houses have energies,&amp;quot; Senk says. &amp;quot;We walked into the foyer and knew this was it.&amp;quot;  Instead of finding a dark rabbit warren of small rooms typical of many older houses, the couple was happy to learn that the structure had been built as a summer cottage, with grandly proportioned spaces designed for entertaining. &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s also unusually light-filled,&amp;quot; he says. &amp;quot;There are a huge number of windows in the place, something obscene like 90 or 100. I remember from the painter&amp;#039;s bill.&amp;quot;  To let in even more sun, they called on designer Margie Ruddick to tame the overgrown gardens and landscape the two-acre property, opening up a view of the park woods that gently slope down to Wissahickon Creek. And on an outdoor dining terrace complete with fireplace, wisteria vines were pruned and boxwood trees removed for a plein-air feel.   Inside, other than painting the walls (they are fond of colors by Donald Kaufman and the British company Farrow &amp;amp;amp; Ball) and staining the floors ebony throughout, Senk and Johnson changed little. &amp;quot;You really have to think before doing anything to an old house,&amp;quot; Johnson says, &amp;quot;because you can never get it back to the way it was.&amp;quot;  There were two notable exceptions. Inspired by trips to Cliveden\u2014the country house\u2013hotel in Berkshire, England, that was once the home of the Astor family\u2014they expanded the master bathroom by combining it with a dressing area and installed oak paneling, an antique double sink and claw-foot tub, and an oversize shower lined in marble. And they gutted the kitchen and an adjacent laundry room to create a Lucullan laboratory modeled after the kitchen at La Mirande hotel in Avignon. The counters are honed Carrara marble, and the floor is paved in terra-cotta roof tiles from Provence. A huge mahogany-fronted refrigerator, found in an old French butcher shop, was reengineered so that the compressor now hums in the basement. &amp;quot;It can hold enough food and wine for a party of 100,&amp;quot; exults Senk, who often cooks for large groups of friends. &amp;quot;No matter how much space you have, people always want to be in the kitchen,&amp;quot; adds Johnson. &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s where the show is.&amp;quot;  Equally entertaining for guests is to pause before some of the house&amp;#039;s more curious oddments and play the parlor game &amp;quot;What is it?&amp;quot; The answers don&amp;#039;t come easy, unless of course one is familiar, as is Johnson, with Irish manor-house roof finials, patterns painted for weavers of Aubusson rugs, and tire covers from a 1930s Citro\u00EBn automobile, all items on proud display here.  &amp;quot;If Keith were left to his own devices, every square inch of the house would have something on it,&amp;quot; Senk says with a grin. Johnson sighs. &amp;quot;I see things all the time that I like,&amp;quot; he admits, &amp;quot;and sometimes I err on the kooky side. Then again, something can be perfectly priceless, but if you don&amp;#039;t like living with it, what&amp;#039;s the point?&amp;quot; \u2014This article originally appeared in the August/September 2003 issue. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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