Inside the estate sale of ‘a very South Philly Italian grandma’

The living room at 1637 West Ritner St. looks almost exactly as it did 50 years ago, including the pink velvet couch (perfectly preserved under custom-made clear vinyl), the burgundy wall-to-wall carpet, and the tension rod lamp with its metal winged mermaids holding light bulbs aloft.

It’s a regular South Philly rowhouse, packed with well-loved, well-maintained fixtures from the 1960s. But in an era of homes filled with mass-produced fast furniture and gray cabinets and countertops, that’s also what makes it special.

Most of its trappings are available to buy this weekend at an estate sale curated by Lisa Krieger, a vintage seller with a penchant for South Philly kitsch who runs SuperHappyNice Dry Goods & Emporium.

“It’s a very South Philly Italian grandma kind of vibe,” Krieger said. It’s a style that originated at the tail end of mid-century modern, but “more bold, a little flashier, more ornate.”

Nancy and William Bucca bought the house in 1969 and the couple lived there until their deaths — William in 2023 and Nancy in March. Their daughter, Angela Vaughan, is now in the process of selling it.

William worked as a Philadelphia police officer, and Nancy was a homemaker, Vaughan said. She was charged, among other things, with raising Angela and her brother, and decorating the family home. Most of the furnishing are pieces she bought at her favorite, now-closed furniture store on Passyunk Avenue.

“That’s all my mom’s taste. There’s nothing that would reflect my father’s taste,” Vaughan said of the decor. “She loved flowers and angels.”

During her childhood, the plastic covers on the sofas and chairs never came off.

“The older Italian folks did that. I don’t know where they learned it from,” Vaughan said.

Nancy Bucca loved colors and “did every room a different color,” Vaughan said. That included the master bedroom, with its gold curtains, gold lamps, and gold comforter, and the pink upstairs bathroom, with its pink tiles, pink toilet, pink curtains, and its portrait of a pink-collared clown, painted by Vaughan’s grandfather.

But the basement, with its cherry-red shag carpet and red-flowered couch, was “the hot spot” when she was a kid, Vaughan said. The new buyers love it so much they’re keeping most of it intact.

Krieger first learned of the house from Sue Liedke, a South Philly real estate agent behind the Instagram account South Philly Time Capsules. The account celebrates the lime green carpets, wood-paneled rumpus rooms, and vintage rococo mirrors that define the kitschy home decor genre.

“How many mermaids is the right number of mermaids for a tension lamp?” Leidke asked on Instagram about an ornate lamp that stands by the Ritner house staircase.

Krieger was still determining price tags for all the items.

“There can be a lot of negotiation,” she said. “I want to get the best price for the homeowner, but I have two days. My other goal is to get everything out of the house.”

The estate sale will take place on Saturday, June 7, from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., and on Sunday, June 8, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at 1637 W. Ritner St, Philadelphia, Pa. 19145. More details can be found here.