In the late 1800s, frame churches with acres of shingles, like this one, went up all over the Pittsburgh area. Few have survived; most of them were later replaced by larger and more substantial buildings. Even fewer have survived with their shingles and wood siding intact. Although the congregation dissolved in 2022, this building has been taken over by a catering company that has kept it in original shape.
Built in about 1933, the Haller Baking Company was designed in an up-to-the-minute Art Deco style by Paul Scheuneman. You can see a picture of the building as it originally appeared at the Avonworth Historical Society. “Oven to Home” was the company’s slogan: it delivered bread, cakes, and other baked goods straight to your house. In the 1950s the building was turned into a furniture store, with glassy additions in front that were later bricked in when it became an office.
Father Pitt does not know the origin of this stylish compass rose. It does not look new, but it is not in the photographs of the bakery or the furniture store that replaced it.
There’s not much to see in the rear of the building, but old Pa Pitt climbed the hill to document it anyway, just for the sake of completeness.
Colors of the December forest along Lowries Run as it cuts its way through rocks to get to the Ohio River.
