In American terminology, the Queen Anne style is a hodgepodge of every style of architecture except, perhaps, anything that was popular during the reign of Queen Anne. With its oversized front-facing gable and multiple textures, this house perhaps fits in the “Shingle Style,” often regarded as a division of the Queen Anne style.
This lovingly preserved one-room schoolhouse from 1874, known as the Sample Schoolhouse, lives in the front yard of the township administration building. Father Pitt took its picture when it was tastefully decorated for Christmas.
The old adage that “a man’s home is his castle” is given a literalist interpretation in this Richardsonian Romanesque mansion from 1893. It stands out on a street of standout houses.
Although it’s technically in Shadyside, Rodef Shalom stands at the east end of the Oakland monumental district, the long row of dazzling architecture along Fifth Avenue. Much of the dazzle was contributed by Henry Hornbostel, and few of his buildings are more dazzling than this. It was built in 1907, and it is far and away the finest synagogue building in Pittsburgh.
The Mount Washington branch of the Carnegie Library, built in 1900, was designed by Alden & Harlow, Andrew Carnegie’s favorite architectural firm. It occupies a valuable site on Grandview Avenue across from one of the most spectacular views in North America, but as a historic landmark it has some protection from greedy developers.
This church dates from the late 1920s, but it looks timeless—it has a sort of Hollywood medieval look that would be at home in a Hollywood medieval movie. The congregation, after dwindling in the 1980s, is now vigorous, with an offshoot congregation in Edgeworth.
Father Pitt is especially fond of Old St. Luke’s, partly for its history (its congregation was at the center of the Whiskey Rebellion), but mostly for its situation in a picturesque country churchyard.
Under layers of later accretions is a Revolution-era house that belonged to the Neville family. When General Neville, an old Washington crony, was appointed collector of the Washington administration’s very unpopular whiskey tax in 1794, the Whiskey Rebellion broke out: rioters burned Bower Hill, General Neville’s home, and he fled for his life to this house, which belonged to his son.
This was a southern gentleman’s house: the Nevilles were from Virginia, and settled here in Yohogania County when Virginia claimed this part of the world. They kept slaves in the 1700s; Pennsylvania abolished slavery in stages.
The house has been lovingly restored and is now a museum open Sunday afternoons. Inside, among many treasures, is an original 1815 Clementi pianoforte, bought for the house in 2006.
