By Heather MacIntosh Huffnagle, HSR Board Member
Awarding the Best!
Every other year, the Historical Society of Riverton honors neighbors who bring their love of history and community to the task of maintaining and improving the historic character of our very historic town. On May 20th, with the kind assistance of Calvary Presbyterian Church, the Society hosted an event celebrating 2025’s Honor Award recipients.
Awardees this year illustrate historic preservation’s broad scope: a tool for community and business development, a guide for exceptional home improvement, and (as many of us think about it) meticulous restoration projects.
101 Lippincott Avenue: John and Danielle Casparro Restoration Project
John and Danielle Casparro received HSR’s highest recognition this year, the Daniel Campbell Preservation Award, for their tireless and ongoing work repairing and restoring 101 Lippincott Avenue. The 1896 house, built for Charles C. Miller and his wife Hetty Coale Lippincott Miller, had slowly fallen into disrepair over the last several years, and even before that, elements of the house’s beautifully symmetrical porch had been removed or simplified.
John Casparro restored his first house in Palmyra when he and his wife were starting their family. He and Danielle bought a house in Riverton at 204 Park Avenue and lived there for 18 months before taking on 101 Lippincott Avenue. Casparro had been eyeing 101 Lippincott for years. Even with it needing extensive repairs, he saw the house’s elegance and quality, unmatched in new homes.
He started peeling newer wallpaper the day he moved in. Soon after, he walked through the house with the late Nancy Hall, a granddaughter of Charles C. Miller, in a three-hour conversation about the house and its original family that was filmed for HSR’s archives by Roger Prichard.
Casparro prioritized fixing and restoring the most damaged parts of the house first. Some of this damage was visible from the street.
Part of the fascia and dentil band rotted out on the house’s front façade, and a family of raccoons had moved into the void. These were evicted and the enormous hole covered until replicas of the various decorative elements, made by Bossen Architectural Millwork, could be created. During this process, the family’s general contractor was injured, leading to delays.
But John and his family have been patient, dedicated stewards of this exceptional property. He continues to look ahead toward new projects that restore his house to its original design.
John frequently fixes some of the house’s issues on his own – opening up French doors in the dining room that had long been painted shut, fixing an issue leading to flooding in the basement, and constantly trouble shooting. He’s also an excellent neighbor of the author!
Joe Rainer: Preservation After Fire, and Continued Dedication
The fire above Revive Café on the corner of Broad and Main exactly three years ago could have diminished our town’s historic center forever. What might have been torn down and rebuilt, or more-affordably repaired, has not only been saved, but restored.
The Society recognizes Joe Rainer’s ongoing commitment to historic preservation with an honor award this year (he had received an award from us in 2022 for his substantial work up to that point). The restoration of the fire-damaged anchor building at the intersection of Broad and Main is the latest in a series of “great saves” by Rainer.
Board member John Laverty, long-time friend of Rainer’s, introduced the local painter and building owner with a story from a skiing trip they took together while the fire damaged property was being renovated. On every chairlift ride, Rainer was constantly on the phone with contractors demanding the best throughout the job.
The cornice’s in-kind replacement with metal that exactly replicates the building’s original metal cornice illustrates Rainer’s commitment, making the effort to find a fabricator who could bend the sheet metal to match the original.
Here are some of Joe’s other fine Riverton projects:
John and Gail Caruso: New Porch that Should Have Always Been There
Borough Historian Roger Prichard introduced sister-in-law Gail Caruso to speak about the new porch project she and her husband John completed at 600 Elm Terrace. The project involving both the porch and a new tile roof is an excellent example of alterations that appear contemporary with the house’s early 20th C. masonry construction. The house, surrounded by a garden designed by Gail with the help of plant artist Stephen Coan, is Mediterranean inspired, but was without a signature tile roof until the Caruso’s recent upgrade.
Prichard noted that the small, purely ornamental blind Juliet balcony over the main entrance (original to the house) provided zero rain coverage, no functional use and little decorative purpose. In contrast, the new porch integrates with the design of the house and the yard, and functions beautifully. Neil Johnson of Moorestown was the architect of this project.
The deep porch also satisfied one of Gail’s long-time dreams for the house.
She shared that she was “offended somehow that the place didn’t have a porch. The house I grew up in had a porch. I used to sleep on the porch in the summertime.” She continued that the porch was simply “manifesting itself. It was there all along.” It isn’t hard to see what she’s talking about when you compare the before and after photos of this project.
By the way, the tile used on the porch and main roof and the hipped roof of an outbuilding is a modern composite tile, not terra cotta but you wouldn’t know it from the ground.
Prichard noted that this porch is a great example of how the town can still evolve, but that the new can fit seamlessly with the old without diminishing its historic character.
Brewery 33, Tommy Cimino, Jr.: Business Development Through Adaptive Reuse
Though very different from other projects honored this year, the HSR board wanted to recognize Brewery 33 “for creation of a new business in the historic heart of Riverton that transformed a long-neglected storage lot into an attractive destination for residents and visitors alike, in a way that enhances our historic character.”
Riverton getting a brewery was a big deal. Although home to a few restaurants, and now a coffee shop, Riverton has not, in its history, had a watering hole. But when Tommy Cimino Jr., brew master and retired fireman scouted potential locations for his dream business, friend Ray Reis (a fireman who lives near Brewery 33) suggested he check out an old brick garage for sale in the middle of town.
Cimino was immediately hooked on Riverton. The site was perfect – perfectly decrepit!
But once he’d set his heart on the property, its owner found another buyer. Cimino looked at a lot of other properties after this, but the Riverton site was always his ideal. Luckily for him, the business that moved into the site didn’t succeed, and the property became available again. He bought it without delay.
Riverton-based JRP Architects helped Cimino execute his dream. The simple building with large lot was, indeed, perfect for Brewery 33, but the engineering requirements for the new use – plumbing for the brewery operations and drainage concerns in the parking lot – delayed the scheduled opening and presented financial challenges that Cimino is still working through. He is hoping to begin working with a canning service, which will augment on-site revenue and keep the business moving forward.
In addition to more outdoor seating with ambient lighting, he would like to see art on the exterior walls. He never “planned for the building to be gray forever.”
Thank you, Tommy, for your vision and energy!
Pat McDermott: Community Leadership
Regardless the season, Riverton’s historic downtown always looks good! Ever wonder how this happens?
The plantings in our public spaces significantly contribute to the high quality of life here. This is due to Pat McDermott, one of the Riverton Improvement Association’s founding members.
She is great at organizing volunteers to plant flowers and then weed and water them all summer long. Pat also orders plants for the town’s public spaces including the Veterans’ Memorial at the intersection of Broad and Main, the town park, the center plaza between Broad and East Broad and the roadside plantings.
She is also an active member of the Porch Club’s Environmental and Garden Department and has won several awards at the Philadelphia Flower Show with fellow Porch Club members. This has helped raise Riverton’s profile within gardening communities in Philadelphia and surrounding area. She also participated in the Porch Club’s Garden Tours twice, showcasing the lovely garden at her own home on Main Street which she designed and maintains.
Pat was part of the effort to renovate the eagle that now stands in front of CVS. Before being repainted by a local artist, it was faded and hidden in shrubbery behind the train station.
HSR presented Pat with an honor award this year due to her longtime dedication to this cause. It reads “for her extraordinary volunteer work in beautifying Riverton in a way that enhances our historic character, as a founding member of the Riverton Improvement Association and as head of the Porch Club’s Environmental and Garden Committee.”
Historical Society of Riverton offers its sincerest thanks to all the awardees for their contribution to the quality of Riverton AND to Calvary Presbyterian Church for generously providing their fine, historic space for the event!
By Heather MacIntosh Huffnagle, HSR Board Member
