Category: Highland Park

  • Some Houses on Heberton Street, Highland Park

    1311 Heberton Street

    Some houses on Heberton Street in a variety of styles, from Shingle Style to Pennsylvania Farmhouse Revival.

    1311
    1303
    1303
    1303
    1217
    1212
    1212
    1205
    1200
    1200
    1132
    Olympus E-20N; Canon PowerShot SX150 IS.

    Comments
  • Rhododendron Shelter, Highland Park

    Rhododendron Shelter

    Large city parks often have picnic shelters, but it is not common for the shelters to be so elaborate. This one was built in 1902–1903, during the reign of Edward Manning Bigelow, the father of Pittsburgh’s system of boulevards and parks. The architect was young Harry Summers Estep, who would soon earn his place as a prominent architect with the McKeesport Masonic Temple.

    Looking into the shelter
    Arcade
    Olympus E-20N.

    Comments
  • Some Houses on Stanton Avenue, Highland Park

    5521 Stanton Avenue

    Four houses on Stanton Avenue, which is the line that separates Highland Park from East Liberty. First, two that obviously go together, though they differ in a few details.

    Upstairs window
    5521
    5523
    Upstairs Window
    5515 Stanton Avenue

    Here is a house we might describe as center-hall-Colonial-Baroque.

    Dormer

    The Baroque details of the central dormer need a bit of restoration. We hope they can be repaired rather than simply replaced with simpler wood (or aluminum or vinyl).

    5515 Stanton Avenue

    Finally, a house that is more than twenty years younger than its neighbors; the lot was still vacant in 1923, according to plat maps.

    5527
    Fujifilm FinePix HS10.

    Comments
  • Tudor Manse by Henry Gilchrist in Highland Park

    5916 Callowhill Street

    Henry Gilchrist designed many fashionable mansions for the rich and the upper middle classes. This 1904 Tudor house on Callowhill Street is typical of the “English style” of the time, but the details of the half-timbering are unusually rich. The house is very similar, but not identical, to one Gilchrist designed two years later in Schenley Farms. In this house, though, the small-paned Tudor windows have been preserved, and they add to the picturesque old-English effect.1

    5916 Callowhill Street
    HDR picture of 5916 Callowhill Street
    Fujifilm FinePix HS10; Canon PowerShot SX150 IS.

    This HDR picture of the house, made up of three different exposures, looks a bit artificial but brings out the details in the woodwork.

    1. Source for the attribution: Philadelphia Real Estate Record and Builders’ Guide, August 31, 1904, p. 563. “Mr. E. E. Arensburg will erect a dwelling on Callowhill street, from plans prepared by Architect H. D. Gilchrist, Frick Building.” Confirmed by a 1923 plat map, where the house belongs to “M. Arnesburg” (note spelling). ↩︎

    Comments
  • R. P. McAllister House, Highland Park

    R. P. McAllister House

    Paul Irwin designed this house for R. P. McAllister; it was built in about 1920. (Father Pitt knows this information because the owners of the house helpfully inscribed it on a bronze plaque around the corner at the delivery entrance.) Though it is eclectic in its influences, everything works in harmony, from the Georgian front door to the Japanese eyebrow in the roofline to the surprising outbreaks of half-timbering in the rear.

    1401 North Highland Avenue
    Perspective view
    From Down the Street
    Rear of the house
    Canon PowerShot SX150 IS; Fujifilm FinePix HS10.

    Comments
  • Terrace on King Avenue in Highland Park

    1147–1155 King Avenue

    The late Franklin Toker believed that these houses were probably designed by Frederick Scheibler. He was following the original scholars of Frederick Scheibler, Shear and Schmertz, who brought poor old Scheibler out of obscurity in his old age in time to see himself hailed as a prophet of modern architecture.

    Father Pitt hates to contradict Dr. Toker, whose encyclopedic knowledge of Pittsburgh architecture was probably unmatched; but Toker has been wrong before. Martin Aurand, whose biography of Scheibler will probably remain the definitive one for generations to come, lists these houses under the “misattributions.”

    Old Pa Pitt himself is of the Aurand opinion, and in fact Father Pitt has probable grounds for attributing these houses—without, however, claiming complete certainty—to Benno Janssen. His reason is that there is a very similar terrace in Oakland (368–376 McKee Place) that is almost certainly by Janssen & Abbott. Father Pitt hopes to have pictures of those houses soon; meanwhile, you can take his word for it—or look them up on Google Street View—that it would be odd if one of these terraces were by Janssen & Abbott and the other by Scheibler.

    1147–1155 King Avenue
    1153 and 1155 King Avenue
    1149 King Avenue

    These houses are yet another clever answer to the question of how to design a terrace of relatively inexpensive houses so that they are architecturally attractive and distinctive—so that, in other words, they make potential tenants think they’re getting something special. Compare them, for example, to the row just next door to the left, which was built on a lower budget to a much more ordinary design.

    1123–1145 King Avenue
    Terrace on King Avenue

    Which design makes you feel special?

    1147–1155 King Avenue
    Fujifilm FinePix HS10.

    Comments
  • The Robinson & Winkler Block in Highland Park

    Portland Street

    The 1100 block of Portland Street was built by a company that included the architects Robinson & Winkler, to whom we therefore attribute these unusually florid houses.1 In plan the houses are the usual Pittsburgh Foursquare, but varied with unusual details that make the changing scene a constant delight as we walk up the street.

    Portland Street houses
    1121 Portland Street
    1110 Portland Street

    Just the dormers could form an album for the instruction and amusement of other architects.

    Round dormer
    Baroque dormer
    1115 Portland Street
    1145 Portland Street
    Portland Street houses
    Fujifilm FinePix HS10.
    1. Source: Pittsburg Press, September 29, 1905. “The Highland Realty Co. has applied for a Pennsylvania charter. The company has been organized by Architects Charles M. Robinson and George Winkler, Contractors D. M. Fair and the East End Attorneys J. E. Wise and W. E. Minor. Its primary purpose is the building of high-class houses in the East End. Six such residences, to cost about $10,000 each, have already been started by Mr. Fair on the west side of Portland Avenue, near Hampton street, in the North Negley district.” All the houses on both sides of the 1100 block of Portland Street, north of Hampton, are of the same dimensions, with flamboyant details that mark them as probably all the work of the same designers. They appeared between the 1903–1906 layer and the 1910 layer at Pittsburgh Historic Maps. ↩︎

    Comments
  • Three Houses by U. J. L. Peoples on Negley Avenue

    907–917 North Negley Avenue

    Three similar houses in a row, Pittsburgh Foursquares with dignified classical detailing, and all three in beautiful shape. Father Pitt has was told by the owner of one of them, an architect and community activist, that they were designed by Ulysses J. L. Peoples.

    909 North Negley Avenue

    Although the houses clearly go together, window placements and other details vary.

    917 North Negley Avenue
    Ionic capitals

    “Modern Ionic” capitals—the kind where the volutes (the spiral things) stick out at the four corners, as opposed to classical Ionic capitals, which are meant to be seen from the front and have pairs of volutes rolled up like a scroll.

    917 North Negley Avenue
    Canon PowerShot SX150 IS.

    Comments
  • Homer Apartments, Highland Park

    Homer apartments

    A trio of bay-fronted apartment buildings on Jackson Street. The design is not out of the ordinary, but it is a neat and elegant implementation of the ordinary. The bays, as Father Pitt likes to point out, are not mere decoration: they really do suck in the light, which is valuable for people who like natural light.

    Homer No. 2
    Entrance
    Fujifilm FinePix HS10.

    Comments
  • House by Frederick Sauer in Highland Park

    5906 Callowhill Street

    Perhaps the best way to describe the architect Frederick Sauer is to say that he was a high-functioning mad genius. He produced some very respectable church designs—St. Stephen Proto-Martyr, St. Stanislaus Kostka, and St. Mary of the Mount, to name three. Meanwhile, he went home every evening and started pulling rocks out of his back woods and piling them up into whimsical buildings with his own hands.

    When he designed a private residence, Sauer sometimes pushed the limits of current styles. Here is a big stony house built from his design in 1893. It hits some of the fashionable Romanesque notes, but that immense crowstepped Flemish gable makes a big impression on the neighbors. (The high-pitched roof and big gables also give the house a roomy third floor.)

    5906 Callowhill Street
    5906 Callowhill Street, capital
    House by Frederick Sauer
    Fujifilm FinePix HS10.

    Comments