This dignified Renaissance mansion was built earlier than the rest of the houses on its street, probably in about 1900, when it would have been just about the finest house in the up-and-coming borough of Sheraden. It has been turned into apartments, but the exterior details are well maintained.
The architect had fun drawing this front entrance, and we praise the current owners for keeping it in good shape.
A typical Pittsburgh corner building—typical especially in that the corner is not a right angle. Some of the details are well preserved, including the elaborate decorative brickwork in the cornice and the signboard above the storefront, ready for some local artist to inscribe the next tenant’s name in paint.
One of many similar houses in Shadyside. The light was right this afternoon for this particular one, so here it is.
This pretty and whimsical house would be right at home in Mission Hills or Beverly Heights, but here it is on a pleasant back street in Sheraden. The original windows add much to its appeal—God, as Mr. Mies said, is in the details. The porch is a classic of the Fairy-Tale Style.
Bartberger, Cooley & Bartberger were the architects of this dignified little school, built in 1911. The Bartbergers were Charles M. Bartberger and his brother Edward, and Cooley was C. D. Cooley, who would later establish his home nearby in Brookline. The school has been converted to apartments under the name Gualtieri Manor.
William J. Shaw was the architect of the most prominent commercial block in Sheraden, built in 1904 or 1905 for Sheraden’s own self-made developer, contractor, and civic luminary John Murphy.1 The details are mostly Renaissance; but the heavily eyebrowed arches and weighty and elaborate cornice make the term “Rundbogenstil” appropriate, giving us another chance to say the word “Rundbogenstil.”
This is a classic Pittsburgh “flatiron” building, with the classic Pittsburgh problem of three dimensions of irregularity in the lot. To the right the ground slopes precipitously down to the Sheraden station—a railroad station when it was built, a busway station now that the West Busway has duplicated the old Panhandle commuter route to the western suburbs.
We considered taking those utility cables out. After a couple of experiments, we realized it would require more hand-painting than we were willing to do.
A pilaster base on the sharp corner with oversized egg-and-dart ornamentation.
A Renaissance false balcony with egg-and-dart, dentils, and balusterasters in relief. Old Pa Pitt had to invent the term “balusteraster” to describe these false balusters, and now that he has invented it he will use it wherever appropriate. We can see that this building keeps a sharp eye on the complicated and confusing every-which-way intersection outside; possibly the most amusing videos are posted to some YouTube channel.
Inscription on the Hillsboro Street side.
Even the tiniest houses could be romanticized in the age of what Father Pitt calls the Fairy-Tale Style of domestic architecture. The little bungalow above and the mirror-image cottages below probably date from the 1930s. A coating of snow helps the fairy-tale atmosphere.
Except for the replaced and filled-in porch, this house is in remarkably good shape, with most of its characteristic details intact. By chance the Pittsburgh City Photographer happened to capture it on May 27, 1910, while it was still under construction, so we can compare its current state to what it looked like when it was new.
Pittsburgh Railways, the streetcar conglomerate, had a big facility here in Glenwood (the southern end of what city planning maps mark as Hazelwood) with a car barn and this station and offices. The complex was adjacent to the Glenwood station on the B&O, where there was a large railroad yard with a roundhouse.
The building is now the Hazelwood Healthy Active Living Community Center, so it has been restored and is kept in exceptionally neat condition.
