Father Pitt

Now the Homewood Church of Christ, a congregation that keeps the building in beautiful shape. Old Pa Pitt was out walking in Homewood a while ago when he spotted this church two blocks away. He immediately thought, “That looks like a Lutheran church designed by O. M. Topp.”

And so it was.¹ The cornerstone, as we see, was laid in 1916, at a time when O. M. Topp was the favorite architect of Lutherans in Pittsburgh and the surrounding area. Lutheran churches from before the Second World War have a characteristic traditional church shape, like Catholic and Episcopalian churches but unlike the majority of Presbyterian, Methodist, and Baptist churches in our area. O. M. Topp’s designs for medium-sized churches like this one have a straightforward Gothic simplicity that marks them as his work.

Note the rectangular windows where most Gothic architects would place Gothic arches.

1. Source: Pittsburg Press, April 23, 1916, p. 20 “O. M. Topp has been selected to prepare plans for the rebuilding of a $40,000 church at Hamilton and Brushton aves., for the St. Stephens’ Evangelical Lutheran congregation.” ↩︎

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