Father Pitt

Category: Shadyside

  • A Normandy in Shadyside

    Normandy house by J. A. Cornelius

    James A. Cornelius was a developer and builder who designed his own houses. This is what Pittsburghers call a Normandy—a house in the fairy-tale style with a turret entrance. It was meant to be one of a whole block of houses built on the old Liggett estate in Shadyside.

    From the Pittsburgh Press, June 15, 1930.

    Note the photograph of this house, and the house circled on the perspective map. The houses were meant to have their main fronts facing inward, where a landscaped common would make them into a garden community.

    Only this house and the one next door were built, however. It appears that the project fell on hard times—1930 was not the best year to begin a development of luxury houses. The rest of the property, according to researcher David Schwing, was eventually sold to Herman Kamin, who developed apartments on it.

    Turret
    Canon PowerShot SX150IS; Samsung Galaxy A15 5G.

  • 900 South Negley Avenue, Shadyside

    900 South Negley Avenue

    Old Pa Pitt knows nothing about this apartment building, and it is probably not one of the masterpieces of modernism. But it was different enough from the ordinary brick boxes to be worth a couple of quick pictures with the phone camera. It was probably not worth the effort Father Pitt later put into adjusting the perspective of the picture above by slicing it down the corner and adjusting it on two planes, but the “violent perspective” (as photography critics used to call it) of the wide-angle lens on the phone offended him.

    Enlarge the picture and you can see that one of the corner apartments is infested with plastic coyotes.

    Negley Avenue side

    An abstract pattern of shaped glass blocks over the entrance creates interesting patterns of light inside.

  • A Flemish Row in Shadyside

    A Flemish row in Shadyside

    This row of houses on Howe Street has a distinctly Dutch or Flemish look. The Flemish style is not unknown in Pittsburgh, but it is rare to see a row of five houses in that style at once. (For another example of multiple Flemish houses, see the Osterling row in Brighton Heights.)

    5524 Howe Street

    This house, like many in Shadyside, has had part of its basement turned into a garage, with a steep driveway dug out of the front yard.

    Porch

    It is delightful to see that the intricate woodwork on the front porch has been preserved.

    5524
    Gable with iron decorations

    The angles and curves that make the gable look so Antverpian are made of iron or steel, as we can tell by one rusted section:

    Rusted metalwork

    This makes us suspect that perhaps three of the other houses in the row might have had similar decorations, removed when they rusted too much to repair.

    5529 and 5526 Howe Street
    5530
    5532
    Fujifilm FinePix HS10; Samsung Galaxy A15 5G.

    This house, however, was clearly meant to show off its stones without additional adornment, except for the usual decorative utility-cable swags.

  • Two Shadyside Tudors

    5816 Walnut Street

    Two houses on Walnut Street in the Tudor Revival style, as we would say today, or the English style, as they were probably called when they were built. They share some notable similarities, which would make it not surprising if they were drawn by the same architect. The sunset light makes the already cozy Tudor style look even warmer and cozier.

    Addendum: A city architectural survey attributes the one above to the architect Thomas Scott; we are probably justified in attributing its neighbor to Scott as well.

    5814 Walnut Street
    Dormer
    Front of the house

  • Steeple of Third Presbyterian Church, Shadyside

    Steeple of Third Presbyterian Church
    Canon PowerShot SX150 IS.

    Seen from Ewers Way.

  • Queen Anne Turrets in Shadyside

    628 and 626 Summerlea Street

    Three quite different interpretations of the Queen Anne turret on Shadyside houses. Above, a pair of faceted turrets on a double house.

    Turret of 733 South Negley Avenue

    An unusual rectangular turret preserves its original farmhouse-Gothic window and woodwork. The turret itself is set at a 45° angle to the rest of the house.

    733 South Negley Avenue
    Turret of 727 South Negley Avenue

    Finally, an octagonal domed turret on a house whose well-preserved details are worth pausing to admire. We note in passing that even the paint is, if not original, at least the dark green color typical of Pittsburgh houses of the turn of the twentieth century: you can scratch the trim of many a Pittsburgh house and find this color at the lowest level.

    727 South Negley Avenue

    An appropriate arrangement of birds on those cables could make a short musical composition.

    Front porch

    A shingly front porch that survived the epidemic of porch amputations in the 1960s and 1970s.

    Parlor window

    The parlor window has some good stained glass under the arch and, in the arch itself, a sunflower ornament for a keystone.

    Sunflower ornament
    Fujifilm FinePix HS10.

  • Kentley House, Shadyside

    Kentley House

    Built in 1970, this apartment building was designed by Tasso Katselas, and to old Pa Pitt’s eye it is one of his most pleasing designs. The landscaping has matured to make the setting picturesque, and the materials of the building blend well with its setting. On a block of Kentucky Avenue that includes every kind of architecture, this building fits with every kind of architecture.

    Kentley House
    Kentley House
    Fujifilm FinePix HS10.

  • Berwyn, Delwood, Elmont Apartments, Shadyside

    Three apartment buildings in Shadyside

    Three apartment buildings on Holden Street at the corner of Summerlea Street. The Delwood has lost its cornice, but otherwise they look much the way they were drawn by Perry & Thomas, the prolific Chicago architects who gave us many apartment buildings in Shadyside and Squirrel Hill.

  • The President Apartments, Shadyside

    The President Apartments at night

    This phone-camera picture is soupy with noise reduction if you enlarge it, but it gives us a good idea of how the Flash Gordon glass-block window in the stairwell looks at night.

  • The Negley, Shadyside

    The Negley

    The Negley was probably built in about 1909; the architects were the firm of Janssen & Abbott. Some of the original details have vanished over the years, but Benno Janssen’s spare version of Georgian style still leaves an impression of dignity and elegance.

    The Negley
    Entrance
    Lunette
    Doorway frame

    An unusual choice: the doorway frames are cast iron.

    The Negley
    Fujifilm FinePix HS10; Samsung Galaxy A15 5G.