Father Pitt

Category: Allegheny West

  • Willock House, Allegheny West

    Willock house

    We’ve seen this house before, and all old Pa Pitt can say is here it is again, in more detail. Steel baron B. F. Jones, who had a big house next door, hired architect W. Ross Proctor to design this narrow chateau for his daughter and her husband (the house belonged to the daughter, according to plat maps). A few years later, B. F. replaced his big house with an immense mansion that dwarfed his daughter’s house.

    Porch and entrance
    Willock house
    Willock house

    In the rear you can see a carriage house, built a little later than the main house. The carriage house alone is bigger than most people’s houses, and it had ample living quarters for the coachman upstairs.

    Carriage house
    Alley side of the carriage house
    Carriage house
    Fujifilm FinePix HS10; Canon PowerShot SX150 IS; Kodak EasyShare Z981.
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  • Byers-Lyons House, Allegheny West

    Byers-Lyons House
    Father Pitt will admit to having removed an ugly utility pole from this picture. Perhaps some day he will do an article about the utility pole and remove the house.

    Longfellow, Alden & Harlow, Pittsburgh’s most prestigious firm, were the architects of this Flemish Renaissance mansion, which is now Byers Hall of the Community College of Allegheny County. Of the surviving millionaires’ mansions in Allegheny West, this is old Pa Pitt’s favorite. It is impressively huge, but the details are inviting rather than forbidding. Even the huge iron gate in front seems to be there more to invite you in than to keep you out.

    Gate
    Arcade and entrance

    The arcade on two sides of a garden court forms a pleasant cloister in front of the house, rather than behind it, suggesting that the residents do not turn their backs on their neighbors.

    Byers-Lyons house
    Byers Hall
    Chimney
    Canon PowerShot SX150 IS.

    Are these the most artistic chimneys in Pittsburgh? They are certainly in the running, at any rate.

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  • B. F. Jones Mansion, Allegheny West

    Magnolias at the entrance to the B. F. Jones house

    Rutan & Russell, both of whom had worked for H. H. Richardson, designed this immense Jacobean pile for steel baron Benjamin Franklin Jones, Jr., son of the Jones of Jones & Laughlin. It was finished in 1910. The terra-cotta company must have made its numbers for the entire year supplying the ornaments for this house, right down to the address over the entrance.

    808 in terra cotta
    B. F. Jones house

    The house now belongs to the Community College of Allegheny County, which keeps the exterior perfect.

    B. F. Jones house
    B. F. Jones house
    Dormer
    Window
    Terra-cotta panels
    Downspout

    Even the downspouts are works of art.

    Corner of the roof
    Magnolias

  • Front Door of the B. F. Jones House, Allegheny West

    Samsung Galaxy A15 5G.

    Steel baron B. F. Jones’ front doorway is a feast of elaborate terra cotta. This is a very large picture: enlarge it to appreciate the details of the terra cotta and ironwork.

  • Modern Cafe, Allegheny West

    Modern Cafe sign

    The Modern Cafe is a startling outbreak of almost cartoonish modernism in Allegheny West, as if the owners had decided on a name for the place first and then designed a building to go with the name. Its neon sign is one of our chief cultural treasures.

    Modern Cafe
    Canon PowerShot SX150 IS.

  • Kinder Building, Allegheny West

    Kinder building

    Thomas Scott, who lived around the corner and designed some of the neighborhood’s best houses, was the architect of this Beaux Arts gem in the heart of the Allegheny West business district.1

    Entrance to the Kinder Building

    Scott was also the architect of the Benedum-Trees Building, and we can see the same extravagant but tasteful elaboration of ornament here on a smaller scale.

    Inscription: “Kinder”
    Kinder building, perspective view
    Canon PowerShot SX 150 IS.
    1. Source: Philadelphia Real Estate Record and Builders’ Guide, January 27, 1904. “Mr. Joseph Kinder will erect a brick store and apartment house on Western avenue and Grant avenue, Allegheny, from plans prepared by Thomas H. Scott, Empire Building.” Grant Avenue is now Galveston Avenue. ↩︎

  • Grotesques on the Western Theological Seminary, Allegheny West

    Yawning head

    The Western Theological Seminary (now West Hall of the Community College of Allegheny County) was built in 1914. It was designed by Thomas Hannah, but so far old Pa Pitt has not found the name of the sculptor who decorated the entrance with these delightful grotesques.

    Tower of the Western Theological Seminary (now West Hall)
    Yawning head face-on
    Mr. It Figures
    Mr. It Figures from the side
    Salamander
    Monkish head
    Tortoise
    Grotesque staring face
    Foliage skull
    Canon PowerShot SX150 IS.

  • Stone Schwartz Building, Allegheny West

    Sony Alpha 3000.

    This Romanesque warehouse appears from old maps to have been built around the turn of the twentieth century for the Allegheny Transfer Company. It later belonged to Donaldson Transfer, as a ghost sign at the top of the building testifies (enlarge the picture to examine it closely). It has been a few things since then, and it was for sale when old Pa Pitt visited it. If you want a distinctive commercial or even residential space in one of our most pleasant neighborhoods, here is your opportunity.

    A few years ago, Father Pitt took a picture of this building in sunset light, but it looks as though he never published it. So here it is now.

    Composite of three pictures from a Canon PowerShot A540.

  • Two Rows on Galveston Avenue, Allegheny West

    1011–1021 Galveston Avenue

    Two rows of houses, both in the Italianate style, but at different scales.

    1009 and 1011 Galveston Avenue

    These more modest houses are, in form, the typical Pittsburgh city house of the nineteenth century. They are raised above the common herd by Italianate detailing, such as the cornice brackets and elaborate entrances.

    1105–1011 Galveston Avenue
    1011 Galveston Avenue
    1013–1021 Galveston Avenue

    These taller and grander houses share many of the same stylistic traits as their smaller neighbors, but they have full third floors, and everything is of a slightly higher grade, including the arched windows and transom over the front door.

    1021 Galveston Avenue
    Front door
    Sony Alpha 3000

  • Allegheny City Stables, North Side

    Allegheny City Stables

    About five years ago we looked at the Allegheny City Stables in the middle of its adaptation into loft apartments. Now the renovation is complete, and a new apartment building has gone up next door, making this block of North Avenue much more inviting. Technically it is across the street from Allegheny West, but it was the Allegheny West Civic Council that saved the building, and socially it forms part of today’s Allegheny West rather than the rest of the “Central Northside” neighborhood as designated on city planning maps.

    Entrance
    Perspective view
    Sony Alpha 3000.