Philadelphia is a city of rowhouses, nearly 400,000 of them citywide, and few housing types are as distinctly Philadelphian as the trinity house: a narrow, three-story home with just one room per floor, a kitchen tucked in the basement, and floors connected by a tight, winding staircase. Concentrated in neighborhoods like Society Hill, Queen Village and the River Wards, these homes date back to the 18th and 19th centuries and were never built with any thought toward moving between floors easily. Even Philadelphia’s more standard rowhouses, with a full basement below two or three stories above, share the same fundamental challenge on a larger scale.

That’s exactly the kind of home a PVE elevator was built for. Because the unit is self-supporting and needs no pit, shaft, or machine room, it can go into a Society Hill trinity or a standard Philadelphia rowhouse without a major structural rework, even on a home just 14 feet wide. Most installations are done in a matter of days, which matters in a rowhouse where space is already at a premium and a shared party wall limits how much structural change is realistic.

For homeowners planning to stay in their Philadelphia home long term, a PVE elevator keeps winding stairs from making a beloved historic rowhouse impractical. It connects a basement, main level, and upstairs bedroom without altering the home’s footprint, while its low power use fits naturally with energy-efficient upgrades.