Father Pitt

Category: Shadyside

  • The Retreating Storm

    The spire of Third Presbyterian Church, Shadyside, silhouetted against retreating storm clouds at sunset.

  • Ask the Man Who Owns One

    Packard dealer

    We continue our look at the remarkable number of early automobile dealers preserved in Oakland and Shadyside. This old Packard dealer on Baum Boulevard is still in the luxury-automobile business. Only the marque has changed; the building has been sensitively updated for our century, but in outline it is much the same as it was when Packards gleamed in its generously large showroom.

    Front of the building

  • Tower of Calvary Episcopal Church at Sunset

    Tower of Calvary Episcopal Church

    The tower of Calvary Episcopal Church, one of three Ralph Adams Cram churches in Pittsburgh, bathed in sunset light, from pictures Father Pitt took in 1999.

    Tower

  • Gothic House in Shadyside

    House on Morewood Avenue

    Old Pa Pitt is not quite sure how to classify this house. It is a sort of Jacobean or Tudor Gothic, but with very Victorian woodwork on the gables. We shall call it “Jacobean with gingerbread.”

    Addendum: This is the Remsen V. Messler house; the architects were Peabody & Stearns, who designed several other Tudorish mansions around here, as well as the Liberty Market (now Motor Square Garden) and the Horne’s department store.

  • Queen Anne House in Shadyside

    Queen Anne House

    A particularly fine Queen Anne style house on Morewood Avenue. The big roof reminds old Pa Pitt of turn-of-the-twentieth-century German architecture.

  • Colonial Place

    Colonial Place

    Colonial Place, off Ellsworth Avenue, is one of those little one-street enclaves in Shadyside that shut out the world as much as they can to create a tiny insular community. The architect here was George S. Orth, who also designed a couple of prominent millionaires’ mansions in Allegheny West. The landscape design by E. H. Bachman was just as important, and the sycamore trees he specified have matured into elegant sculptures as attractive when the leaves are off as they are in full leaf.

    Colonial Place
    Colonial Place

  • First Unitarian Church, Shadyside

    First Unitarian Church

    A small but substantial Gothic church that could easily pass for a church from any other denomination.

  • Renaissance Palace in Shadyside

    Renaissance house

    A fine example of Pittsburgh’s interpretation of the Italian Renaissance. The extremely simple form is varied by a few well-chosen details. Enlarge the picture and note the Greek-key pattern along the gutter.

  • Church of the Ascension, Shadyside

    Church of the Ascension

    We looked at the Church of the Ascension a little while ago. Here is a view of the entire south side of it that took twelve individual photographs to capture. That is the kind of effort old Pa Pitt is willing to put into documenting his city’s architecture for you, his beloved readers. The whole picture is nearly 11 megabytes, so don’t click or tap on it if you’re on a metered connection.

  • Gargoyles on the Church of the Ascension

    Gargoyle
    Gargoyle