Father Pitt

Category: Mount Lebanon

Stone House in Virginia Manor

In the 1930s there was a new interest in the architectural past of America. In Pittsburgh, in particular, two related projects made local architects consider the vernacular architecture of the past in a new light. The Buhl Foundation sponsored the Western Pennsylvania Architectural Survey, which gave some of our better architects, thrown out of work by the Depression, the job of surveying and preparing architectural drawings of significant old buildings. A little later on, the federal Historic American Buildings Survey took on similar work, with many of the same architects. This work not only documented our old buildings: it also thoroughly familiarized some of our prominent architects with the old houses of southwestern Pennsylvania. “Their quiet lines and excellent mass are wholly satisfying,” wrote architect Charles Stotz in The Early Architecture of Western Pennsylvania, a sumptuous folio volume that resulted from the Buhl Foundation’s project. “It seems that in the essential qualities of architectural design their builders, curiously enough, were capable of doing no wrong.”

Their rediscovery of local vernacular architecture inspired some of these architects to imitation. This gorgeous house in Virginia Manor, a tony plan in Mt. Lebanon laid out in the 1920s, is one of the best growths from that fertilization. The architect (old Pa Pitt has not found a name yet) very successfully imitated the materials and proportions of a typical southwestern-Pennsylvania stone house, adapting it with seemingly effortless grace to the modern 1930s life of an automobile suburb.

February 23, 2024
Hoodridge Drive in Mount Lebanon

Hoodridge Drive in Mount Lebanon is another one of those streets where every house is a distinguished work of architecture. The variety of styles is not quite as broad as in Mission Hills or Beverly Heights, but the houses at the western end are on a magnificent scale that qualifies them for the term “mansion.”

The eastern half of Hoodridge Drive is more modest, but there are some interesting and distinctive designs among those smaller houses as well. We’ll be returning to this extraordinary street soon.

February 19, 2024
Some Houses in Seminole Hills, Mount Lebanon

Domestic architecture veered strongly toward the fantastic in the 1920s and 1930s, as we can see in some of the houses in Seminole Hills, one of several 1920s suburban plans inspired by the success of Mission Hills in Mt. Lebanon. The house above is a perfect example of what old Pa Pitt classifies as the fairy-tale style in architecture.

Once again, though, property owners hired their own architects, so a wonderful variety of styles is represented in the neighborhood.

February 13, 2024
Beverly Heights, Mount Lebanon

Beverly Heights is one of several housing plans from the 1920s that make up the Mt. Lebanon Historic District, one of the best-preserved examples of the 1920s automobile suburb in the country. Mission Hills set the pattern: picturesquely curving streets with plenty of open spaces, and matching setbacks for the houses, but otherwise homeowners hired their own architects and exercised their own taste. The result is a pleasing diversity of styles that makes every street an adventure.

Old Pa Pitt is going to be returning to Mount Lebanon a few more times to document the Historic District, so expect more in the coming weeks.

February 8, 2024
Lebanon Hills in the Rain

Last week we saw Mission Hills in the snow. The next plan down the way, Lebanon Hills, was laid out shortly after Mission Hills, and we see it here in the weather nature granted us when we happened to be there. The parts closer to Washington Road have, like Mission Hills, an extraordinarily broad assortment of housing styles; the parts farther east are mostly postwar construction. Here is a large album of some of the more interesting houses.

In order to avoid weighing down the front page, we’ll put the rest of these pictures below the fold, to use a metaphor derived from “newspapers,” an extinct form of communication some of Father Pitt’s older readers may remember.
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January 28, 2024
Moderne in Mission Hills

Mission Hills in Mount Lebanon, laid out in 1921, is a neighborhood where houses in all different styles coexist happily. Most of those styles are historical or romantic; this ultramodern house is a definite outlier, and an unexpected treasure in a neighborhood full of treasures. Father Pitt does not know the architect, but because of the striking similarities between this house and one in Swan Acres attributed to Joseph Hoover, we shall tentatively assign this one to Hoover as well. (And old Pa Pitt promises to get to Swan Acres soon and bring back some pictures of that remarkable neighborhood.)

Could the house number be more perfectly styled to match the house?

And is that a genuine Kool Vent awning over the side door?

January 28, 2024
Mission Hills in the Snow

Mission Hills in Mount Lebanon was laid out in 1921 as an ideally picturesque automobile suburb. The lots were sold off individually, so that each buyer hired his own architect and builder. The result is a delightful variety of styles that all fit comfortably together. We’ll take a look at a couple of those houses individually later, but right now here is a big album of Mission Hills houses in the snow.

To keep from weighing down the front page, we’ll put the rest of the pictures behind a “read more” link.
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January 22, 2024
Baptist Home, Mount Lebanon

In the early twentieth century, orphans—of whom there were too many—were sent to live in orphanages. We don’t do that anymore, and most of the large orphanages in our area have long since been demolished. This is an exception: it was also an old folks’ home, and that function remains.

Addendum: Here is a rendering of the building the way the architect designed it, from The Builder, June, 1914:

That whole issue is devoted to works of architect Thomas Hannah, whom we had already identified as the architect from the Construction Record, as you see below.

The original section was built in 1914, and the architect was Thomas Hannah, as we learn from the invaluable Construction Record:

November 22, 1913: “Architect Thomas Hannah, Keenan building, has plans under way for an orphanage and home for the aged to be constructed in Mt. Lebanon for the Baptist Orphanage & Home Society of Western Pennsylvania, Union Bank building. The building will contain administration offices and accommodations for about 50 persons.”

May 16, 1914: “The new building for the Baptist Orphanage, to be built in Mt. Lebanon, Pittsburgh, plans for which were made by Architect Thomas Hannah, Keenan building, Pittsburgh will be a three-story and basement brick structure, 36×105 feet. It is expected that the contract for erecting same will be awarded shortly. Material specifications will include structural steel, concrete foundations, cut stone work, face brick, composition roofing, sheet metal work, concrete porch floors, interior finish of yellow pine, low pressure steam heating system, plumbing, lighting fixtures, etc.”

This simple but elegantly proportioned outbuilding could also be Hannah’s work. Addendum: This was the Children’s Cottage at the Home.

October 21, 2023
Whimsical Brickwork in Mount Lebanon

Here is another example of the odd whimsies that sometimes pop up as small apartment buildings. This is the storybook-cottage style that was popular for single-family houses in the 1920s and 1930s built up into a storybook castle. But the most remarkable thing about it is the deliberately random decorative brickwork. It reminds old Pa Pitt of something Frank Gehry would do.

This extreme randomness would probably not hold up the whole wall, so it is used only in the sort-of-half-timbered section above the entrance. But the rest of the brickwork was made as cartoonishly irregular as possible.

Some bricklayer had a lot of fun—or a lot of under-his-breath cursing—with this assignment. We note, however, that the balcony railings have been repaired. Perhaps they were originally wood, or perhaps the irregular brickwork proved less than sound.

April 12, 2022
Apartment Buildings on Academy Avenue, Mount Lebanon

Academy Avenue in Mount Lebanon, just off the Uptown business district, is a street of small to medium-sized apartment buildings, giving way to single-family houses as the street gets farther from Washington Road.

March 14, 2022