Many people have enjoyable hobbies such as collecting baseball cards, gardening or playing video games, but Chestnut Hill resident Anne Reisenwitz, who will soon be graduating from Penn State University with an MBA, has a most aesthetically pleasing and unusual hobby. She paints beautiful houses in Chestnut Hill, not necessarily because the homeowners asked her to but because she finds it so rewarding.
“I spend a lot of time walking around Chestnut Hill,” she told the Local last week. “I have walked down every street many times. My favorite part of walking around, aside from all the cute dogs, is looking at all the beautiful homes and nature. I have been taking pictures of the houses since we moved here, but I decided to try my hand at recreating the homes through watercolors and drawings earlier this year.
“I love capturing the character of the homes in my art. I feel like this project allows me to show the world Chestnut Hill through my eyes. Every street, home and tree has its own unique character, and I love recreating that effect for others to experience.”
Sketch book in hand, Reisenwitz walks around the neighborhood hoping to bump into homeowners. Some have seen her work and commissioned the artist to create paintings to hang on the walls in their homes. But mainly, Reisenwitz paints the residences because she “loves the houses.”
Reisenwitz grew up in Glenmoore, in Chester County. She graduated from Owen J. Roberts High School in 2016. Dr. Richard Marchini, then the Owen J. Roberts principal who is now the upper school director at The Quaker School at Horsham, told the Reading Eagle at the time, “Anne is a true leader. She possesses the qualities of tenacity to get things done, dedication to a cause and sensitivity to the issues she works for. Because of her leadership, she has made this school a better place.”
Reisenwitz played soccer, ran track and was a member of the National Art Honor Society while in high school. She earned a bachelor’s degree in political science and Spanish from Temple University, living in Center City before moving to Chestnut Hill two years ago with her partner, Ethan.
“I instantly fell in love with Chestnut Hill after doing a day trip here,” she said. “I visited on a lovely spring day and was enamored by the community. I knew I had to live here and experience it for myself. A day trip wasn’t enough. Chestnut Hill feels like an oasis within the city of Philadelphia. It is a community unlike anything else, different from anywhere I have lived in the city or the suburbs.”
She calls the neighborhood the perfect blend of local community, nature, architecture and shopping/dining. “I love being so close to the Wissahickon but also having that ‘Main Street’ vibe on Germantown Avenue and easy access to Center City,” she said. “I also love the hyperlocal feel of this community. … From my first week living here, I felt welcome and part of something bigger than myself.”
In addition to painting houses in Chestnut Hill and working on an MBA, Reisenwitz has worked for a local utility company ever since graduating from Temple University. In the summer of 2023, she also did a stint at a bakery called Kohler’s in Avalon, N.J. She was a baker in the kitchen and managed the oven and all the cakes starting at 2:30 a.m. She also now has a small baking business called Reisen Whisk Baked Goods and does custom orders and pop-ups around the city.
When asked “If you could meet and spend time with anyone on earth, living or dead, who would it be and why?” Reisenwitz replied, “I think it would be very cool to meet an artist from another time period. I love speaking with other artists and learning about what inspires them and how they work. I would love to meet Mary Cassatt and talk about her works.
“She was a fellow Pennsylvania native and Impressionist, and her art was so important in capturing the character of domestic settings and traditionally female spaces,” Reisenwitz continued. “I love how she captured not only images from those spaces but the feeling of the room. I would also love to meet someone like Claude Monet. I just love his work.”
For more information, email anne.reisenwitz@gmail.com. Anne’s art Instagram is @my_witz_end. Len Lear can be reached at lenlear@chestnuthilllocal.com.
