Lonicera periclymenum is the honeysuckle Shakespeare knew and celebrated. A number of cultivars with flowers in different color combinations have been bred; this one is called “Peaches and Cream.” Unlike Japanese Honeysuckle (Lonicera japonica), it does not take over whole counties, so it is a responsible garden flower in our area.
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Three houses on one of the many pleasant residential streets in Sewickley. First, a late-Victorian fantasy of Georgian architecture.
This house has probably had some alterations over the years, but it preserves a unique dormer on the side.
Finally, an extravagant riot of gables and dormers.
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A very decorative fungus growing on a log deep in the woods in Bird Park, Mount Lebanon.
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In the 1880s, the old Lorenz Hufnagle property was sold off in lots and built over with little frame houses like this.
Later, when Island Avenue became a commercial district, the little frame houses were replaced by storefronts and apartment buildings—except this one, which survived almost unaltered. At some point it was sheathed in diamond asbestos-cement shingles, which are nearly perfectly preserved. It would probably cost a fortune to remove them because of the asbestos, but in this stable state they pose no danger.
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As some vast heart that high in health
Beats in its mighty breast,
So, to and fro, thy living wealth
Throbs through the boundless West.
Thy keels the broad Ohio plow,
Or seek the Atlantic main;
Thy fabrics find the Arctic snow,
Or reach Zahara’s plain!
Toil on, huge Cyclop as thou art,
Though grimed with dust and smoke,
And breathing with convulsive start—
There’s music in each stroke!
What if the stranger smirch and soil
Upon thy forehead sees?
Better the wealth of honest toil
Than of ignoble ease!
And yet thou’rt beautiful—a queen
Throned on her royal seat!
All glorious in emerald sheen,
Where thy fair waters meet.
And when the night comes softly down,
And the moon lights the stream,
In the mild ray appears the town,
The city of a dream!
——“Pittsburgh” by E. M. Sidney in Graham’s American Monthly Magazine of Literature and Art, Vol. XXX (1847), p. 249.
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The National Forum warns us that we have to keep an eye on this school. All the schools of its era in Mount Lebanon were designed by Ingham & Boyd, or by Ingham, Boyd & Pratt once Pratt became a partner. This one comes from the era when they were adapting Art Deco elements to their usual ruthlessly symmetrical classicism, and the result shows some similarity to the same firm’s Buhl Planetarium. It has not changed much since it was built, except that, when the name was changed from “Junior High School” to “Middle School,” the inscription was clumsily applied with no spacing between the letters. That bugs old Pa Pitt, but he is not going to get up on a ladder and fix it himself.
Father Pitt does not know the sculptor of these two medallions, but he has a pretty good guess. Compare them to the reliefs by Sidney Waugh on Buhl Planetarium: The Heavens and The Earth and Primitive Science and Modern Science. It seems likely that the same architects hired the same sculptor for these reliefs.
The marquee is festooned with unexpectedly colorful Art Deco swags.
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In spite of considerable alteration, much of what makes this building on McCoy Road distinctive has been preserved. Most noticeable, of course, is the patterned brickwork that reminds old Pa Pitt of some buildings known to have been designed by Charles Geisler, prolific architect of small and medium-sized apartment and commercial buildings. He was also fond of this style of roof, which would originally have been covered with tile. And Father Pitt thinks the slightly clashing juxtaposition of a round arch in the middle with extremely broad Jacobean arches is also very Geislerian.
The building was originally a store with two apartments above; the store has been filled in with Permastone (or the equivalent) and made into a third apartment.
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A complex grouping of windows and a variety of textures make this building more interesting than many. It has probably changed over time. The overhangs would originally have had tile rather than asphalt shingles. The sunrooms under them were probably balconies. The central stairwell windows probably had art glass in them.
Instead of one central entrance, the building has three entrances, and it appears to have been divided that way for a long time if not originally. It is possible that the ground floor was originally storefronts, which could have created a complex arrangement of entrances when the storefronts were adapted as apartments.
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In other cities, this lot would be unbuildable. In Pittsburgh, we just have to make some adaptations. The house (now divided into three units) has a garage around the back on the left side (where you can’t see it in this picture). Suppose you were on the ground floor, meaning the floor that is level with the street in front, and you decided to go down to your car in the garage. You would have to go down into the basement. Then you would have to go down into the other basement. Then you would have to go down into the other other basement, where the garage is. Then you would have to back your car down the steep slope from the garage to the street. Altogether, there are six levels to this house in back, though only three in front. Gaining three storeys from front to back is unusual for a house in most places; in Pittsburgh, it’s just the way we deal with the topography God gave us.
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The decorated cornice of the Horne’s building gleams in late-afternoon sun.
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