By 1808Delaware
Delaware’s rapid growth can make it easy to focus on what is new. New neighborhoods. New businesses. New roads and development stretching outward from the city.
But within the older parts of Delaware, another story remains very much in evidence.
Here, houses that have already served generations continue to line streets laid out long before today’s growth arrived. They vary considerably in size and price, but together they represent something increasingly valuable in a fast-changing community: continuity.
For this edition of “Standing Since,” we found five distinctive older Delaware homes currently on the market as of October 23.
A Washington Street Presence
Three bedrooms | Two bathrooms | 2,191 square feet | $350,000
Just a few blocks from the center of downtown, this North Washington Street house offers more than 2,100 square feet and the kind of location that helps explain the continuing appeal of Delaware’s older neighborhoods.
Washington Street developed as part of the close-in residential fabric surrounding the commercial center. Houses here were connected to downtown not by a drive across town but by sidewalks and short distances. That relationship between house and city remains one of the strengths of older Delaware.
Space and Scale on North Franklin
Three bedrooms | Two bathrooms | 2,460 square feet | $474,900
At 2,460 square feet, this North Franklin Street home brings considerable interior space to another of Delaware’s established residential streets. Franklin runs parallel to Sandusky through the older heart of the city, and the surrounding blocks retain a pattern familiar throughout historic Delaware: substantial houses facing the street, relatively compact lots, sidewalks, mature trees, and downtown close at hand. The result is something difficult to duplicate in new construction. The house is not an isolated destination. It is part of a neighborhood that has been developing its identity for generations.
A Sandusky Street Survivor
Four bedrooms | Two bathrooms | 1,674 square feet | $269,500
Few addresses connect a house so directly with Delaware’s larger story as one on Sandusky Street. This four-bedroom property contains 1,674 square feet and sits along the northward extension of the street that has served as Delaware’s principal spine for generations.
Not every old house needs to be monumental to matter. Streets such as Sandusky derive much of their character from the accumulated effect of individual houses, porches, trees, sidewalks, churches, businesses, and public buildings. Each surviving piece helps preserve the whole.
Room to Stretch on West Central
Five bedrooms | Three bathrooms | 3,484 square feet | $549,000
This is the largest house among this week’s five selections, with five bedrooms, three bathrooms, and nearly 3,500 square feet.
West Central Avenue represents a different aspect of Delaware’s older residential landscape. As the city expanded beyond its earliest core, larger properties and residences appeared along routes leading outward. Today, the house occupies an interesting position between those two Delawares. It belongs to an established part of the city while sitting along a corridor that leads toward much newer development farther west.
The city has grown around it, but the house remains a substantial reminder of an earlier Delaware.
A Smaller Piece of the City’s Story
Two bedrooms | One bathroom | 1,137 square feet | $219,000
At 1,137 square feet, this West Harrison Street home is the smallest of this week’s selections. That makes it an important one to include.
The history of housing in Delaware is not simply a history of large residences on prominent streets. Smaller houses were equally essential to the development of the city, providing homes for the thousands of people whose daily work sustained Delaware’s businesses, institutions, schools, industries, and neighborhoods. Its compact scale is part of that story rather than an exception to it.
More Than Square Footage
These five houses range from a little over 1,100 square feet to nearly 3,500. Their current asking prices range from $219,000 to $549,000. What connects them is not size, price, or architectural style. It is their place within an established city.
Delaware is growing rapidly, and much of that growth is necessarily happening on land that only recently lay beyond the urban edge. New streets are appearing. New houses are rising. The map continues to change.
Meanwhile, these older neighborhoods remain. They demonstrate a different model of city building, one in which homes, sidewalks, streets, businesses, institutions, and public spaces accumulated over decades rather than arriving together as a single development. For buyers, an older house can bring maintenance, renovations, and surprises. It can also bring mature surroundings, established streets, distinctive construction, and a connection to the city that began long before the current owner arrived.
That is what “Standing Since” is about. Not simply houses that are old. Houses that have remained part of Delaware while Delaware changed around them.
