Father Pitt

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House by Frederick Sauer in Highland Park

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.)

Fujifilm FinePix HS10.

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April 19, 2025
Tulips

Konica Minolta DiMAGE Z6.

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April 19, 2025
New Granada Apartments, Hill District

The patchwork-quilt style of architecture has been popular in the last decade, but this is by far the most colorful implementation of it old Pa Pitt has seen. The whole block that includes the New Granada has been redeveloped, and these cheerful apartments, with ground-floor storefronts, make this section of the Hill seem lively and inviting again.

Nikon COOLPIX P100.

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April 19, 2025
Willock House, Allegheny West

We’ve seen this house before, and all old Pa Pitt can say is here it is again, in more detail. Steel baron B. F. Jones, who had a big house next door, hired architect W. Ross Proctor to design this narrow chateau for his daughter and her husband (the house belonged to the daughter, according to plat maps). A few years later, B. F. replaced his big house with an immense mansion that dwarfed his daughter’s house.

In the rear you can see a carriage house, built a little later than the main house. The carriage house alone is bigger than most people’s houses, and it had ample living quarters for the coachman upstairs.

Fujifilm FinePix HS10; Canon PowerShot SX150 IS; Kodak EasyShare Z981.

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April 18, 2025
Redbud

Cercis canadensis blooming in the arboretum in West Park on the North Side.

Canon PowerShot SX150 IS.

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April 18, 2025
The Howard, the Delaware, and the Norfolk, Highland Park
When we last saw this triple building, it was getting a fresh coat of paint. The new color scheme looks much better, and old Pa Pitt offers his congratulations to the people with taste at Mozart Management.

The three connected buildings were put up in 1901 as the Howard, the Delaware, and the Norfolk, and we can just barely make out the ghosts of the inscriptions above the entrances. The architect was William E. Snaman.¹ The Norfolk, above, preserves the original appearance. In the other two, the balconies have been filled in to make closets, and they looked forbiddingly blank with the old paint scheme; the more artistic new scheme at least emphasizes the surviving trim.
1. Source: Pittsburg Post, September 25, 1900. “It developed yesterday that ex-Mayor Bernard McKenna and a syndicate of local capitalists will be the owners of the three apartment houses now in course of erection in the Highland avenue residence district, particulars of which were announced in this column last week. They were designed by Architect William E. Snaman, and the contract for their erection has been let to L. E. Umstead, of Allegheny. Each will stand on a lot 40×100 feet each at Highland avenue and Bryant street, and will be of brick and stone, and three stories high. When completed and ready for occupancy the houses will represent an investment of over $100,000.” Thanks to David Schwing for finding the clipping. ↩︎
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April 18, 2025
May Building

Charles Bickel designed the May Building, and—as he often did—he made liberal use of terra cotta in the ornaments.

Nikon COOLPIX P100.

More pictures of the May Building.

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April 18, 2025
Ritz Apartments, Brookline

Perhaps not quite as ritzy as they would be in another neighborhood, but for prosperous working-class Brookline this is a fine building. The stone-fronted ground floor is topped by two floors of stone-colored white Kittanning brick, making a rich impression; and clever little decorations made from what look like terra-cotta remnants brighten what might otherwise be a monotonous façade.

Nikon COOLPIX P100

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April 18, 2025
International Harvester Building, North Side

International Harvester was a big maker of farm equipment, but also of trucks and sport utility vehicles before anyone knew that they were sport utility vehicles. This was the company’s facility in Pittsburgh, built right on the railroad near the North Side yards.

Fortunately the building was never abandoned—it later became the headquarters of the Harry Guckert Company—so that it was in good structural shape when it was converted to loft apartments about two years ago, as we read in this article at Next Pittsburgh. The building is now on the National Register of Historic Places. According to a draft of the nomination, the architect was August C. Wildmanns.

Kodak EasyShare Z981.

Map.

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April 17, 2025
Suspicious Squirrel

A grey squirrel in the arboretum in West Park on the North Side. What does the man with the lens intend? asks the squirrel. And can he possibly be up to any good if he carries no peanut?

Canon PowerShot SX150 IS.

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April 17, 2025