Recharging in the park

by Dianna Marder, Inquirer Staff Writer

Two run-down Fairmount Park houses are renovated and serving superior refreshment to hikers, bikers, and others enjoying the out-of-doors.

Ricki Gever Eisenstein lived on Northwestern Avenue, just steps from a dilapidated Fairmount Park house for six years, knowing nothing of its history, until one day, at a relative's birthday party, she met Lucy Strackhouse.

Strackhouse runs the Fairmount Park Historic Preservation Trust, which owns the building known as Cedars House. She told Eisenstein that the house was available for rent as a business.

Eisenstein embraced the challenge of renovating the simple frame and stucco house in the charming woodsy setting, deciding to run it as a fitness cafe.

A certified personal trainer whose doctoral studies at the University of Pennsylvania focused on the urban university and community relations, Eisenstein thought it made sense to offer fresh, healthy fare, along with yoga and Pilates classes and even Swedish massage in this building passed by so many runners, bikers, and hikers in the park.

Located on Northwestern Avenue at the entrance to the park in Chestnut Hill, the Cedars is one of the newest Fairmount Park Trust properties to be repurposed as an eatery.

It joins the new Trolley Car Cafe at the Bathey, just off Kelly Drive at the ramp to Roosevelt Boulevard in East Falls, which also opened in June, the Centennial Cafe in the park's Ohio House, and the Valley Green Inn on Forbidden Drive.

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