Masters International

Boathouse Row is a historic site located on the east bank of the Schuylkill River, just north of the Fairmount Water Works and the Philadelphia Museum of Art. It consists of a row of 15 boathouses housing social and rowing clubs and their racing shells. Each of the boathouses has its own history, and all have addresses on both Boathouse Row and Kelly Drive (named after famous Philadelphia oarsman John B Kelly, Jr).

Boathouses #2 through #14 are part of a group known as the Schuylkill Navy, which encompasses several other boathouses along the river. Boathouse #1 is Lloyd Hall and is the only public boathouse facility on the Row. Boathouse #15 houses the Sedgeley Club, which operates the Turtle Rock Lighthouse. The boathouses are all at least a century old, and some were built over 150 years ago.

"Twenty-first-century Philadelphians know Boathouse Row as the idiosyncratic collection of boathouses that dot the shoreline of the Schuylkill River. But the unique architectural character and definition of the row is no accident of history; rather, it is the result of one of the earliest attempts to exert municipal control over private structures, initiated in response to a confluence of cultural and historic trends sweeping through Philadelphia and parts of America in the late nineteenth century. The architecture of Boathouse Row developed in three distinct phases: first, under city ordinances influenced by prominent individuals who oversaw the founding and growth of Fairmount Park; then, as an aesthetic competition developed between the boat clubs within the constraints determined by the city; and finally as municipal control over the design of the boathouses declined as the Fairmount Park Commission shifted its attention elsewhere and as prominent architects took the stage and a rise of architectural eclecticism led to a profusion of new styles."