Val Gay, Philadelphia’s arts and culture leader, introduces Ravi Coltrane during a celebration of his father, John Coltrane, at The Yard, a public space behind the John Coltrane House on North 33rd Street. (Emma Lee/WHYY)
Tonnetta Graham, executive director of the Strawberry Mansion Community Development Corporation, welcomes visitors to The Yard on John Coltrane Street, a public space behind the John Coltrane House on North 33rd Street. (Emma Lee/WHYY)
Lovett Hines introduces some of his students in the Philadelphia Clef Club music education program, who performed during a celebration of John Coltrane. (Emma Lee/WHYY)
Students in the Lovett Hines Creative Arts Initiative Legacy Ensemble perform during a celebration of John Coltrane held in the backyard of the home where he lived in Philadelphia’s Strawberry Mansion neighborhood. (Emma Lee/WHYY)
Audience members applaud during a musical performance behind the John Coltrane House. (Emma Lee/WHYY)
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The house where jazz legend John Coltrane lived in Philadelphia’s Strawberry Mansion neighborhood is on its way to becoming a public cultural space. It has been the subject of tangled legal ownership for years and is in dire structural disrepair. But its future now seems more secure due to a recent legal settlement and the support of a national preservation fund.
“This is a house that I assumed would always be there,” said Ravi Coltrane, John’s son who used to visit the house as a child to see his father’s cousin, Mary Alexander. “My kids could come, my grandkids could come, and they could see this home,” he said. “But as we all know, without the proper care and the proper people supporting a historic home like that, these homes can vanish.”
The Strawberry Mansion Community Development Corporation has begun repairing the façade of the John Coltrane House and its immediate neighbors. Repair to the roof and rear wall of the home will begin soon with help from a National Trust for Historic Preservation grant.
“This definitely is a long time coming,” said Ravi.
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### The Home’s Ownership History
In March 2024, the deed to the house at 1511 N. 33rd St. was transferred to the descendants of John Coltrane from Norman Gadson, now deceased. Sons Ravi and Oran Coltrane won a settlement that claimed Gadson did not have legal ownership of the house.
Gadson bought the home in 2004 from Mary Alexander, also known as “Cousin Mary,” with the intention of turning it into a jazz museum. But the Coltrane family said Alexander did not have the right to sell the property, and that Gadson had actually bought an illegal deed from a third party.
With the title now secured, Ravi and Oran Coltrane formed a new nonprofit, Coltrane House Philadelphia. They are in the process of transferring ownership of the house to the organization.
With a nonprofit in place and title to the house on the way, money can finally be released from the National Trust for Historic Preservation toward stabilizing the building.
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### National Trust Grant and Preservation Efforts
In 2024, the trust’s program called the African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund launched a special focus on historic Black sites stewarded by direct descendants of prominent Black figures, known as the Descendants and Family Stewardship Initiative.
The first grant of that initiative was directed to the Coltrane house in Philadelphia, amounting to $200,000.
“It’s an important investment, but it’s a modest investment. What we really get from them is their expertise,” said Kathleen Hennessy, Ravi’s wife and vice president of Friends of the Coltrane House, a support organization for the John and Alice Coltrane Home in Deer Park, New York.
“They lend expertise around restoration at which they are pretty much the gold standard,” she said. “They lend support around capacity building, too, which can be a huge obstacle for groups when they’re trying to do this kind of work.”
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### Looking Ahead
Kathleen and Ravi recently attended a celebratory rally in an empty lot behind the Coltrane house that has been transformed into a small public park. Called The Yard, it was opened a year ago by the Strawberry Mansion CDC as part of an effort to support the preservation and programming of the Coltrane house.
“Hardly weeks go by when I don’t hear: What’s going on with the John Coltrane House?” said Tonnetta Graham, Strawberry Mansion CDC president. “In Strawberry Mansion, to have had so much taken away from us and so much disinvestment, to see this revitalization here — and not only to see it but to be part of it and have ownership in it — that’s what I celebrate.”
The 100th anniversary of John Coltrane’s birth is Sept. 23, 2026. Hennessy doubts that building renovations will be completed in time to invite the public in for Coltrane’s birthday, so she’s setting her sights on 2027.
The timeline does not cool enthusiasm for the prospects of a Coltrane historic site in Philadelphia.
Lovett Hines, former artistic director of the Philadelphia Clef Club of Jazz and Performing Arts who now leads the Lovett Hines Global Creative Arts Initiative, told the crowd at The Yard he has already assumed bragging rights.
“When I go to New York and I see the Louis Armstrong museum and his house, and somebody asks me, ‘What’s happening in Philadelphia? What about John Coltrane’s house?’” Hines said. “Now I can hold up real hip, wear my dark glasses and say, ‘We have it. Right now. Come to Philadelphia. The house is here. It’s inspiring. It’s functioning. It’s here.’”
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https://www.phillytrib.com/lifestyle/work-and-funding-underway-to-repair-and-program-john-coltrane-s-strawberry-mansion-house/article_c845878d-9a73-4d9f-9860-44ccf4671a26.html
