There are very few houses from the 1700s left in the city of Pittsburgh (though there are quite a few more in the suburbs and countryside nearby), and this one just barely qualifies. Move it a hundred yards and it would be in Crafton, but it is on the Pittsburgh side of that line.

As far as anyone knows, the John Frew house is the only house from the 1700s in the city still in use as a house. The stone section on the right was built in about 1790; the bigger Greek Revival addition was built in about 1840.

Also built in 1790 was the spring house next to the house. In the 1950s, a garage was added to the spring house, and it was done with nearly perfect taste. The garage was designed on the model of the 1840 part of the house, so that the spring house and garage form a sort of reduced mirror image of the main house. Father Pitt does not know who supervised the addition, but our famous architect and preservationist Charles Stotz would have been capable of it.