In 2022, Diane Lilli was living in a condo in Nutley, N.J., when she fell to the ground in a heap. “My stomach basically perforated. It felt like an explosion,” Ms. Lilli, 67, said. She was rushed into surgery, then spent months in recovery. The experience left her with a new sense of urgency about making a change in her life.
Ms. Lilli had moved to Nutley, the Essex County town about 15 miles west of Manhattan, in 2019 to be closer to her daughter’s high school. But despite it being “a great town for the arts,” she knew it wouldn’t be her forever home.
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“I bounced back and forth between New Jersey and New York City for many years,” she said. Before her near-death experience, she’d been searching for a new apartment in the city, where her two older children were living, but couldn’t find anything she liked with her $350,000 budget.
After she recovered, she “broke up with New York” and refocused her search. “I wasn’t afraid to move to a place I didn’t know by myself,” she said. “A lot of older women seemed to get stuck in place, and we shouldn’t.”
Her initial rebound was Paris, where she toyed with the idea of buying a small place. She stayed in the Marais for six weeks in 2023, but realized she couldn’t remain that far from her children, who were now all living in New York City. “I needed to be within two hours of the city by train, so Paris was out,” she said.
Perhaps the Hudson Valley would fit the bill? Ms. Lilli visited listings in Beacon and Hudson, but with countless New Yorkers also scouring the area for pandemic deals, she ran into the same budget issues. “I was really at a loss at where I was going to go,” she said. “And then people started telling me to check out Philadelphia.”
She knew her budget could go a lot further there, and it was a short Amtrak ride from her children.
“Our mother is a creative, independent force,” said Danny Greenberg, Ms. Lilli’s son. “She didn’t need much help in the process. We told her to do this move for herself. She moved to New Jersey for us, and it felt like her staying in Nutley was like leaving a bright light in a small closet.”
A year ago, Ms. Lilli took the train down to Philadelphia and immediately fell in love with Old City, the waterfront neighborhood known for its 18th-century rowhouses and Colonial-era attractions.
“It’s built like a small, gorgeous, historic town,” said Ms. Lilli, a writer and journalist. “There were these little alleys everywhere covered in cobblestone and they were covered in twinkling lights. And I thought, it might not be Paris, but it’ll do just fine.”
Her specifications were fairly simple: a one-bedroom or two-bedroom home with some character, close to the historical sites the city had to offer. “I’m one of those people that loves Benjamin Franklin, loves Constitutional history,” she said.
Among her options:
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