Father Pitt

Category: Homewood

Pittsburgh Meter Company, Homewood

The Pittsburgh Meter Company building was put up at some time between 1910 and 1923, right beside the Brushton railroad yard, with a siding to serve the factory. It has been beautifully restored as the Sarah B. Campbell Enterprise Center, and it is filled with artists’ studios. One of the wonders of the big city is that we can find many buildings this size filled with artists’ studios; it reminds us why the word “civilization” means life in cities.

In the days when this building went up, it was usual for companies like this to make their main factory buildings as attractive as possible. The building itself was one of the chief advertisements for the firm, and an engraving of the building—sometimes exaggerated if the building was not as impressive as the company would like—appeared in advertisements and brochures as a guarantee that this was a solid and respectable business. Thus the entrance and the corners of this building are decorated with up-to-the-minute Art Nouveau geometric patterns in terra cotta.

November 13, 2024
Meado’cots, Homewood

Designed by our remarkable early modernist Frederick Scheibler, “Meado’cots” is an unusual set of terrace houses built in 1914—another Scheibler answer to the question of how to make cheap rows of houses architecturally attractive. It sat abandoned and boarded up for quite a while, but now it is inhabited and stable. The metal roofs on the central section and the cheap standard doors are not to old Pa Pitt’s taste, but they were within the budget of the new owner, and they keep the buildings standing and in good shape, with the potential for restoration with original materials later.

This composite of the central section from above parked-car level is made possible by a kind neighbor from across the street. He saw us struggling to hold the camera up at arm’s length and called down from a third-floor window to offer the use of his stairs for a better angle. Thank you, Homewood neighbor, for confirming Father Pitt’s impression that Homewood is a place where the neighborly virtues are strong.

Note the corner windows. They would become a badge of modernism in the 1940s, but here they are in 1912!

November 10, 2024
Abandoned House in Homewood

Homewood is prospering now more than it has done in decades, but there are still many forgotten corners. This house, in the part of Homewood traditionally called Brushton, has been abandoned and forgotten for a very long time, though the other houses on the street are inhabited and well kept. Because it has been left alone for decades, it preserves details of crumbling shingle and woodwork that have been replaced on all its neighbors. It appears to have been built in the 1890s for J. M. Gruber, and it is a good example of how the Queen Anne style filtered down to the middle classes.

November 10, 2024
Row of Houses by Carpenter & Crocker, Homewood

This picture was taken a year and a half ago, but it seems it got lost in the press of events, and Father Pitt never published it here. He went looking for it because he had just found the architects: research by the grandson of William Carpenter indicates that these houses on Kelly Street at Collier Street were designed by Carpenter & Crocker in about 1901. They were originally part of a larger group of 24 dwellings, but two other rows—one on Collier Street, the cross street, and one on the alley behind, Fleury Way—have vanished. The building on the corner was probably part of the original row; at any rate, it was in place by 1910, when a fire-insurance map shows a three-storey building here at the end of a row of two-storey buildings. It looks to old Pa Pitt like a hotel in the Pittsburgh sense: that is, a bar with rooms above to make it eligible for a “hotel” liquor license.

Two years later, Carpenter & Crocker would design St. James Episcopal Church, now the Church of the Holy Cross, just across Collier Street from these houses. Was the developer a member of the St. James congregation?

January 9, 2024
Homewood United Presbyterian Church

Most recently the Homewood Church of God, this building seems to be vacant right now; and although Homewood is prospering more than it has done in decades, it is not likely that this church can be saved. It was built in 1905, and renovated enough in 1961 to merit a new cornerstone.

December 6, 2023
Double Duplexes by Charles Bier, Homewood
Charles W. Bier was a fairly successful Pittsburgh architect, especially busy with medium-sized churches, who flirted with Art Nouveau in the days before the First World War, but retreated into a more traditional style in the 1920s (see, for example, his 1923 Mount Lebanon Methodist Episcopal Church). Here we find him at his most radically modern in a line of three identical double duplexes, built in about 1915 or 1916.¹

These broad entrance arches with strong vertical lines show up on Mr. Bier’s churches of the period as well.

The geometrical brickwork ornaments remind us of the decorations in German art and architecture magazines of the period, and they may be where our architect got his ideas. (According to Martin Aurand, Frederick Scheibler took much inspiration from those German magazines, so they were available here.)

The building at the right end of the row seems to be stuck in the middle of a refurbishing project, with new windows installed and new wood framing inside. We hope the work can continue, because these three striking buildings really are unusual in Pittsburgh and ought to be preserved.
1. Source: The Construction Record, September 11, 1915: “Bids are in for the erection of three two-story brick veneered and hollow tile double duplex residences, on Murtland avenue and Idlewild street, for Mrs. W . J. Burkhard, Mrs. Josephine Friday and Mrs. Mary A. Saupp, Blackadore Avenue Extension. Cost $45,000. Plans by Architect Crarles [sic] Bier, Pittsburgh Life building.” ↩︎
December 3, 2023
Westinghouse High School, Homewood

Possibly more famous people, and especially musicians, have gone to Westinghouse than to any other high school in Pittsburgh. We might compare it to the famous Austin High in Chicago for the number of great jazz lights who came out of it—and arguably the ones from Westinghouse have been more influential. So far only Billy Strayhorn has a historical marker outside the school, but there’s room for a forest of markers, or—since this is an Ingham & Boyd school—an orderly orchard of markers.

Ingham & Boyd designed the building in their usual severely classical and ruthlessly symmetrical style. When you walk in these doors, you know you are entering something important, and even the Bulldog banners cannot diminish the formality of it.

The two mottoes inscribed on the front of the school fit perfectly with the architecture. Mottoes and style convey the same message: there is one standard of absolute truth, and you will enter into the truth here.

November 28, 2023
Homewood People’s Bank
Here is another small bank that gets the architectural message exactly right, as we said a few days ago about the Carnegie National Bank. How could your money not be safe in a bank that looks like this? Imagine, too, how bright and cheerful the banking hall must have been before those tall windows along the side were filled in.

Winged chimeras guard the cartouche at the top of the great front arch.

Addendum: The bank was built in about 1924; the architects were Simons, Britton & English.¹
1. Source: The American Contractor, October 20, 1923: “Bank Bldg.: $80,000. 1 sty. 618 Homewood av. Archt. Simons, Britton & English, Magee bldg. Owner The Homewood People [sic] Bank, W. B. McFall, 618 Homewood av. Brk. & stone. Finishing revised plans & specs.” ↩︎
October 14, 2022
Holy Rosary Convent, Homewood

Like the rectory behind it, this is a simple and dignified Renaissance palace that sets off the flamboyant Gothic of Holy Rosary Church.

July 28, 2022
Church of the Holy Cross, Homewood

In many neighborhoods this would be the most distinguished building, but of course Homewood has Holy Rosary Church. Nevertheless, this is an important building in its own right. It was built in 1904 as St. James Episcopal Church, but in 1953 it was bought by a Black Episcopalian congregation, which obviously showers love on this building. It was designed by Carpenter & Crocker, and the grandson of William James Carpenter gives us the story of the church on a site dedicated to his grandfather’s work. You can also read the story of the congregation from the church’s own site (the link goes to a page where you can download a PDF file).

July 21, 2022