Pachystachys lutea blooming in Phipps Conservatory.
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Two Houses on Pine Road, Sewickley
Pine Road is a short street in a very tony section of Sewickley. Here are two fine houses in very different styles. First we have an Italianate house, probably dating from the 1880s or so.
Here is an elegant Dutch colonial with a fine growth of ivy on one of its chimneys.
Kodak EasyShare Z1285; Samsung Galaxy A15 5G. -
Queen Anne Turrets in Shadyside
Three quite different interpretations of the Queen Anne turret on Shadyside houses. Above, a pair of faceted turrets on a double house.
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.
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.
An appropriate arrangement of birds on those cables could make a short musical composition.
A shingly front porch that survived the epidemic of porch amputations in the 1960s and 1970s.
The parlor window has some good stained glass under the arch and, in the arch itself, a sunflower ornament for a keystone.
Fujifilm FinePix HS10. -
First Baptist Church of McKees Rocks, West Park
A small and beautiful Arts and Crafts interpretation of Gothic, with most of its original details intact, including the shingled gables, the wooden belfry, and the canopy over the tower entrance. The attached parsonage is later, but at least it nearly matches the brick.
In spite of the name, the church is on the Stowe Township side of the municipal border that runs diagonally through the neighborhood of West Park.
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Kentley House, Shadyside
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.
Fujifilm FinePix HS10. -
Firecracker Flower
Canon PowerShot SX150 IS. Crossandra infundibuliformis blooming in Phipps Conservatory.
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T. Ed. Cornelius House, Coraopolis
T. Ed. (for Thomas Edward) Cornelius was a successful second-string architect who was born in Coraopolis and lived there all his life. He had more of an eye for current trends than many of his kind: we have seen his “modern” Craftsman-style rowhouses in Brighton Heights (and duplicated in Shadyside, Bloomfield, and elsewhere around the city), his Craftsman-Gothic Beechview Christian Church, and his splendidly Art Deco Coraopolis VFW Post. This was Mr. Cornelius’ own house, where he was was living at the end of his life; he died in 1950, probably at an advanced age. We may guess that he designed the house for himself.
Canon PowerShot SX150 IS. The front door is a version of the rayed arch that was popular in domestic architecture in the late 1920s and into the 1930s.
The house is on Ferree Street, named for one of the founding families of Coraopolis. T. Ed.’s wife was Lily Ferree Cornelius. Good connections never hurt an architect.
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Berwyn, Delwood, Elmont Apartments, 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.
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Stowe Township World War I Memorial
We have seen this statue before, on the war memorial in Coraopolis. Here the doughboy is missing his bayonet, but otherwise the statue is identical, doubtless cast from the same mold. The three-sided base carries the township honor roll in bronze; and, following his usual practice, Father Pitt records all the names in high enough resolution to be easily legible.
