Father Pitt

Author: Father Pitt

  • The St. Regis, Shadyside

    Face on the St. Regis

    Here is another of those apartment buildings that stare back at you when you stare at them.

    The St. Regis

    The St. Regis was built in 1908; the architects were the Chicago firm of Perry & Thomas, who designed several other apartment buildings in Shadyside and Squirrel Hill.

    Entrance
    Entrance
    Entrance in perspective

    Perry & Thomas seem to have absorbed an eclectic assortment of styles from Beaux Arts through Art Nouveau to Prairie Style. These entrances have the graceful and almost decadent curves we associate with Art Nouveau. They are very similar to the entrance to the Emerson, an apartment building put up two years earlier. That building is attributed to Samuel Crowen, another Chicagoan; but Crowen was associated with Perry & Thomas, and there is certainly a more-than-coincidental resemblance—not only in the entrances, but also in the balconies, which in both buildings are framed by supports ending in decorative faces. The ones on the Emerson are much more abstract, but the idea is the same.

    Face on the Emerson

    Face on the Emerson.

    Faces on the St. Regis

    Faces on the St. Regis.

    While taking these pictures, Father Pitt had a short conversation with the maintenance man, who tells us that the apartments were originally big and luxurious, but have been cut down to one and two bedrooms by the present owners. Expensive materials like marble abound inside the building.

    The St. Regis
    Fujifilm FinePix HS10.
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  • Relics on Walnut Street, Shadyside

    House at Walnut and Copeland

    The business strip along Walnut Street developed fairly late in the history of Shadyside; much of it was still residential a century ago. If we raise our eyes above ground-floor level, we can see that these little shops are built around a much older house, dating from the 1880s to judge by old maps.

    Rear of the house

    A few blocks eastward on Walnut Street we find a different kind of conversion.

    Walnut and Negley

    Here is a Second Empire mansion, built in the 1870s, converted to an apartment building, probably in the 1920s. The stucco addition on the front, with its cartoonish half-timbering that looks like a ten-year-old’s idea of Tudor architecture, fits better than it deserves to with the original house thanks to the simple expedient of painting everything white and matching the trim color.

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  • Mount Lebanon Baptist Church, Dormont

    Tower and spire

    Mount Lebanon Baptist Church has been without a congregation since 2013, but it is kept up, and we hope it has or finds a sympathetic owner. In spite of the name, the church is in Dormont, which was in the “Mount Lebanon district” until it became a separate borough.

    Mount Lebanon Baptist Church
    Cornerstone with dates 1911 and 1930

    The church was put up in 1930; the architects were Lawrence Wolfe (the middle term in a dynasty of Wolfes who were in the architecture business for more than a century) in association with Smith & Reif.

    Mount Lebanon Baptist Church
    Entrance and tower
    Entrance and window
    False pulpit

    This decoration seems to be meant to represent an outdoor pulpit of the sort that was popular in medieval times. It is not functional, or at least not easily used, but it does send the message that the minister could step out here and denounce the whole borough if it became necessary.

    Entrance
    Door pulls and locks

    For hardware connoisseurs, here are some very elegant door pulls and locks.

    Door pulls
    Lantern
    Shield
    Vine decoration

    Grape vines in Gothic style make up most of the carved decoration.

    Vine ornament
    Address and office plaque
    Office sign
    Gable with quatrefoil window
    Tower decorations
    Olympus E-20N; Fujifilm FinePix HS10.

    Some of the decorations verge on an Art Deco interpretation of Gothic.

    We have more pictures of Mount Lebanon Baptist Church in different lighting at a different season.

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  • St. Patrick’s Church and Cemetery, Noblestown

    West front of St. Patrick’s Church

    According to the parish history at the diocesan site, this church was built in 1900, after previous buildings had been destroyed by fire twice in the 1890s. In old Pa Pitt’s opinion, the black tinted window coverings do the church no favors, but no one asked him.

    St. Patrick’s Church
    St. Patrick’s Church
    St. Patrick’s Church
    St. Patrick’s Cemetery gate

    Behind the church is a cemetery remarkable for its precipitous slope, which makes it necessary for some plots to be terraced.

    Cemetery slope
    Cemetery with terraced plots
    Olympus E-20N; Fujifilm FinePix HS10.
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  • A Bungalow in Beechview by W. Ward Williams

    Ward Brown bungalow

    W. Ward Williams was the architect of this bungalow, which was built in about 1911 for Ward Brown1 and has been preserved in excellent condition. It was the subject of a photo feature in the Gazette Times for October 12, 1913.

    Bungalow and Stone Fireplace
    Ward Brown bungalow and garage

    A garage that looks like it wants to be just like Daddy when it grows up.

    Garage
    Ward Brown bungalow
    Ward Brown bungalow
    Sony Alpha 3000.
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  • Bellefonte Apartments, Shadyside

    Bellefonte Apartments

    Georgian details applied to a pair of mirror-image apartment buildings on Elmer Street. The huge sunny bays might be described as exceptionally tall oriels, since they do not reach the ground, but instead terminate in surprisingly folksy carved wooden brackets.

    Bracket
    Bellefonte Apartments
    Pillar
    “Bellefonte”
    “Apartments”
    Entrance
    Nikon COOLPIX P100.
    Comments

  • Brookline War Memorial

    Brookline War Memorial

    The Brookline war memorial sits in a little triangular park formed by the curve of Brookline Boulevard meeting Chelton Avenue and Queensboro Avenue. The cannon is placed in position to repel invaders from Dormont and Beechview.

    Brookline Honor Roll
    Nikon COOLPIX P100.
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  • Rafferty Rows, Squirrel Hill

    Rafferty row on Beeler Street

    We saw these houses last fall on a dim and rainy evening, and at that time we explained what little we knew about their history. Here are the ones on Beeler Street in bright sunshine.

    Rowhouses on Beeler Street
    Rowhouses
    Rafferty row on Beeler Street
    Olympus E-20N.
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  • Arts-and-Crafts Apartments in Shadyside

    728 Summerlea Street

    Update: Thanks to our correspondent David Schwing, we have more information on this building, which is a kind of split-level apartment house with three floors if we count a high basement, the entrance being between two levels. We had originally called it a duplex, but it seems to be a triplex. The architect was C. P. Hitchens, a developer-architect who designed his own buildings; he bought the lot in 1911.

    The arts-and-crafts style of the building, with a tinge of Spanish mission, is expressed in patterned brickwork and big carved wooden brackets. The windows have been replaced, but the tiles and brackets at least have been preserved.

    Perspective view
    Bracket
    Entrance overhang
    Fujifilm FinePix HS10.
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  • Rennerdale First United Presbyterian Church

    Rennerdale First United Presbyterian Church

    The little village of Rennerdale sits halfway between Carnegie and Oakdale on the Noblestown Road. This corner-tower frame church, with its Colonial-style details, reminds us of the Noblestown Methodist Episcopal Church designed by James Allison; and since we know that Allison designed other buildings in the area, it would not surprise us to find that he was responsible for this one. It has been swathed in artificial siding, as our few surviving frame churches usually are; but the siding men did an unusually good job of making sure that the windows and doors were properly framed. The church still belongs to its original congregation.

    Rennerdale U. P. Church
    Entrance
    Belfry

    There’s still a bell in that belfry.

    Rennerdale
    Olympus E-20N.
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