Some of the houses on the southeast side of Espy Avenue, which has perhaps Dormont’s best collection of domestic architecture, illuminated by the last golden rays of evening sun. We begin with the manse for the Dormont Presbyterian Church.
We have seen this double house before, which old Pa Pitt still thinks is a good example of how to fit higher-density housing into a pleasant residential neighborhood.
Four houses at the eastern end of Aspinwall demonstrate the wide variety and high standards of the domestic architecture in the borough.
Probably no single street in Pittsburgh can claim so many distinguished dwellings as Beechwood Boulevard—mostly because it is a very long street that winds through three prosperous neighborhoods. Picking a block almost at random, old Pa Pitt strolled down the street and photographed every house on the sunny side. The majority of these houses share design quirks that make us think they were probably drawn by the same hand.
A pair of postwar doubles that illustrate the demographic changes over the history of Squirrel Hill. This block of Beechwood Boulevard mostly filled in with grand houses for the upper middle class; after the war, these much more modest dwellings were the ones that made sense. Today, a new house built here would probably equal the older grand houses in square footage, if not in quality of construction.
Five houses on North Franklin Street epitomize the paradox of Manchester: three are gorgeously restored, and two are condemned. This one, one of the condemned, had a little corner store on the ground floor.
We’ll find these incised decorations on all but one the houses. They were very popular in the 1870s and 1880s.
This house and the one next to it are nearly identical, except for differences in decoration. They were probably put up at the same time.
This house has a plaque dating it to 1881.
This house is probably the most recent of the lot; from the style, we would date it to the 1890s.
This house has been up for sale for a couple of years now, so the owner is probably motivated to sell. A quarter-million dollars should be enough to get that blue sticker off the front.
A few houses that show the wide variety of late-Victorian styles on this one street in central Shadyside.
Many of the houses in Shadyside were victims of the epidemic of porch amputations in the 1960s and 1970s. The one above, having lost its porch in the rage against porches of the late twentieth century, grew a new porch just a few years ago.
Peabody & Stearns were a Boston firm that kept a branch office in Pittsburgh to handle the many jobs they picked up in this city. They were responsible for rebuilding the Horne’s department store, and they designed the Liberty Market, later Motor Square Garden. But they also had a thriving business in Tudor mansions for the well-to-do in Pittsburgh’s East End. This one was built in 1902.
This picture from The Brickbuilder shows the house newly built. We can see that, except for filling in the side porch, very little has been done to change the house. Even the original diamond-paned upper sashes, or identical replacements, are still in the windows, and the windows in the sunroom that was made from the porch were matched to the rest of the windows in the house.
The gables were treated in a dark color scheme; the pastel blue of the current paint, along with the lacy wood trim, gives them a more feminine look than they would have had originally.
Wallingford Street is only two blocks long, but its rich assortment of houses in various styles makes it worth a visit for anyone who enjoys admiring old houses. The street is especially rich in examples of the turn-of-the-twentieth-century Georgian revival. Without any more introduction, here are some of the houses on the north side of the street.
Addendum: According to a correspondent, the house above was built as his own home by the architect Stanley Pyzdrowski, best known for many Catholic churches in the Pittsburgh area.
A short evening stroll on two blocks’ worth of Boyle Street, one of those narrow rowhouse-lined streets on the North Side near Allegheny General Hospital. The street sign above is on a corner house; the sign probably dates from the late 1800s, and the house, though altered with new windows and other adaptations, may date from before the Civil War.
The basement door makes us think of Alice in Wonderland.
This Second Empire row was probably put up in the 1870s or 1880s, replacing earlier smaller houses. Thirty years ago this was a poor neighborhood, but now much restoration is being done, without wholesale displacement of the older residents.
You have a blank wall facing an alley? We can do something about that. The mural is by Jeremy Raymer, who has beautified many spots around the city, especially in Lawrenceville and on the North Side.
An Italianate house, again altered with new windows, but preserving a splendid doorframe and some original carved wooden brackets.
An unusually attractive small apartment building whose details are well preserved. Addendum: It was built in about 1910, and the architects were Allison & Allison.1
Linden Avenue in Point Breeze filled up fairly slowly from the 1880s on, and it has always been a desirable neighborhood, so it is a museum of good domestic architecture from many different eras. The wide variety of houses makes it a very pleasant street for an afternoon stroll. We have already seen the Frank Alden house and the Joseph Langfitt mansion; here are some more Linden Avenue houses from the 1880s to the 1930s.
We already saw the David Roney mansion; here are a few more houses on Judges’ Row, the line of mansions facing Riverview Park in Observatory Hill. Many of them can hardly be seen in the months when the leaves are on the trees, so we visited them in the late winter.
