Five houses on Parkman Avenue, and once again we take our attributions with gratitude from the anonymous Google Maps user who built a map of Architects of Schenley Farms Residences. The one above was designed by Louis Stevens and built in 1910.
Designed by D. Simpson & Co. and built in 1915.
Designed by Louis Stevens and built in 1915.
Designed by Maximilian Nirdlinger and built in 1911.
Designed by Maximilian Nirdlinger and built in 1911.
This row of seven houses presents a pleasingly varied streetscape, but the houses were clearly all part of the same development. Old Pa Pitt is fairly sure the architects were Rieger & Currier, and for the obsessive historians in the readership, here is his evidence. In the Philadelphia Real Estate Record & Builders’ Guide for February 27, 1901, p. 136, we find this item:
Rieger & Currier, Smith Building, have prepared plans for four brick dwellings to be erected on Ditheridge [sic] street for Mr. J. Friday.
A plat map from about 1903 shows that J. Friday owned land along Dithridge Street on which at least eleven houses, some possibly doubles, were built. Three were on the east side of the street where the Latter Day Saints church is now. The others were on the west side and still stand. Numbers 229–253, part of the Friday property, clearly form a group, and probably the only group in which four houses could have been built together at one time. If we assume that they were built in one group of three and one group of four, these are all Rieger & Currier houses.
The houses have been divided into apartments, and a couple of them have had porch amputations or reductions, but on the whole the look of the row is well preserved.
And now a bonus house, just past the Friday row, a fine center-hall house in the free turn-of-the-twentieth-century version of Georgian.
One of those visions of a fantasy past that resemble storybook illustrations more than they do any real historical architecture. This one is exceptionally fine, the fantastical elements carried out with good taste, and of course the snow added to the fairy-tale effect.
Henry Hornbostel had designed the campus of Carnegie Tech, and he taught architecture there, so he was the natural choice when the institution’s first president, Arthur A. Hamerschlag, decided to build a house nearby in Schenley Farms. The result, as you might expect from Hornbostel, was something unique—modern but not modernistic, picturesque but not gaudy, eclectic but harmonious. It sits on a ledge, following the terrain with its unusual obtuse angle, and therefore was known as Ledge House.
Built in 1913, this house is a minor landmark of early modernism in Pittsburgh. Kiehnel & Elliott were the architects, and Richard Kiehnel had a thoroughly German architectural education. He applied the latest Jugendstil ideas of decoration, with a little Prairie Style thrown in, to the forms that were popular in Pittsburgh—like the standard three-storey Renaissance palace that is the basis of this house. The combination was a winner: clients got something that looked bracingly up to date, but didn’t make their neighbors hate them.
The image above comes to us courtesy of the amazingly thorough Brookline Connection site. It shows Princess Avenue in Beechview at the intersection with Westfield Street, and the houses in the picture all still stand today. We’ll look at three of them (we’ve already seen the duplex at far right), beginning with the biggest and most elaborate.
Here is a center-hall house that must have been well above the usual budget for Beechview houses. We notice the diamond panes in the upper sashes of the upstairs windows—a style we noticed elsewhere in Beechview and had reason to think might be associated with the architect W. Ward Williams. The house is now divided into apartments, but retains many of its characteristic details.
This gambrel-roofed cottage has had its porch filled in to make a sunroom, which the photograph shows us had already happened by 1916. A photo of the house still under construction represented Beechwood, the original name of Beechview, in an ad for the plan in the Gazette for May 7, 1905.
By the way, do you notice how the advertisement dwells on the paved streets? Take a look at the 1916 photograph again.
The Brookline Connection site once again comes through with a better version of the same picture:
A gable-fronted foursquare house. Except for the replacement of its original porch rail with a more durable brick one, it has hardly changed at all.
More Schenley Farms houses in the snow (many with bonus icicles), beginning with this 1909 house, designed by Vrydaugh & Wolfe.
We have not yet found an architect for this lavish Tudor house, built in 1906.
Another one whose architect we don’t know yet, also built in 1906.
A free interpretation of Colonial by Alden & Harlow, built in 1921.
Designed by Louis Stevens and built in 1911.
Designed by Benno Janssen and built in 1912.
Designed by Simpson & Schmeltz and built in 1909.
Designed by Rutan & Russell and built in 1909.
Designed by C. E. Mueller and built in 1908.
Designed by Simpson & Isles and built in 1914.
G. P. Rhodes, who appears to have been a banker from the references we find to him in old newspapers, was the owner of this Tudor mansion on Wilkins Avenue. The roof has been replaced with asphalt shingles meant to look like tiles, but otherwise the details are very well preserved.
This garage was probably built as a stable, where Mr. Rhodes’ horses lived better than may of their human neighbors.
Snow and icicles make every house more picturesque, and Schenley Farms is a neighborhood full of picturesque houses in any weather. Old Pa Pitt is willing to trudge through the snowdrifts so you can enjoy the beauty while sitting in front of a warm screen. Because of the hard work of an anonymous Google Maps user who gave us a map of Architects of Schenley Farms Residences, we can tell you who designed most of these houses.
We begin with one of the first houses built in the Schenley Farms plan, designed for the developers by MacClure & Spahr to attract upscale buyers to the new development. (It is also sometimes attributed to Vrydaugh & Wolfe, but our source tells us that was an error.)
This one, built in 1907, was designed by Edward Stotz.
Mr. Stotz was comfortable in many styles, but seems to have loved the classical style most of all. In this house, he uses very traditional classical ornaments—Greek key around the window and egg-and-dart along the cornice—to create a surprisingly modernistic effect.
This is one of the few mysteries in Schenley Farms: it was built by developer John H. Elder for himself, but we have not yet found the name of an architect. It is possible that Mr. Elder designed the house himself. It is a fine house, but to Father Pitt’s eyes there is something unattractively artificial-looking about the stonework.
Built in 1912; the architects were D. Simpson & Co.
Here is another one, built in 1920, whose architect we have not yet found.
Paul W. Irwin designed this Georgian mansion, built in 1921.
The firm of Alden & Harlow designed this one, built in 1922. Alden was dead by that time, but his name remained at the head of the firm. Much of the design work in the 1920s was done by Howard K. Jones.
This house was designed for Dr. A. Aiello by Casimir Pellegrini, who would go on to be one of the more important local architects of the middle twentieth century.
Another MacClure & Spahr house designed for the Schenley Farms Company early in the development of the plan.
Designed by Alden & Harlow and built in 1913.
This interestingly eclectic design from 1913 was by Thorsten E. Billquist, whose best-known work is the Allegheny Observatory.
Three matching Victorian houses with generous turrets—the one on the corner house being considerably more generous than the other two.
