Father Pitt

Tag: Domestic Architecture

  • More Houses on North Avenue in the Mexican War Streets

    North Avenue at Palo Alto Street

    A couple of blocks of North Avenue, where we can see some fine Italianate houses of the Civil War era, interspersed with some towering Queen Anne mansions. We start at the corner of Palo Alto Street, where a Queen Anne house makes the most of a tiny lot by going up to a fourth floor.

    400 West North Avenue
    404 and 402

    These two houses share splendid porches, probably added later, since the porches match even though the houses do not. The owners of the houses have coordinated their efforts, so that the porches match.

    410–406

    Three more modest houses, though their full third floors give them a generous allotment of bedrooms.

    418 and 412

    A pair of houses that were both the peak of elegance in different eras. The Italianate one on the right goes for a simpler dignity; the Queen Anne on the left pulls out all the stops to make the most picturesque composition possible. Note the relative heights, by the way: high ceilings were a feature of the Italianate style in better houses, so that the house at left adds one more floor in exactly the same vertical height.

    Seventeen years ago, Father Pitt published a picture of the front door of the house on the right. The picture was taken on 120 film with a folding Agfa Isolette.

    412
    418
    502 and 500

    Two simple and attractive Italianate houses, one of which has grown a partial fourth floor.

    508 and 506

    Here is an interesting document of how the neighborhood has changed. The house at left was originally an Italianate residence; the corner store may have been original or may have been added later. The projecting commercial building next to it, which probably dates from about 1920, was added when the house was taken over by the United States Casket Company, later the Melia Casket Company, which still inhabited the building until about twelve years ago. Both buildings have had a thorough renovation since the casket-makers moved out.

    508
    516–512
    512 and 514

    Two different interpretations of Italianate, one of which has sprouted an inartistic dormer to give it a fourth floor.

    514 and 512
    516

    Finally, a center-hall house in a kind of late Greek Revival style; it occupies a double lot.

    516
    Sony Alpha 3000; Kodak EasyShare Z981.
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  • Queen Anne Manse in Knoxville

    221 Knox Avenue
    Canon PowerShot SX150 IS.

    Much of the detail on this fine old house is well preserved, including the half-octagon dormer, the oval art-glass window, the wraparound porch (partly enclosed by an improvised screen), and one of the finest displays of aluminum awning old Pa Pitt has ever seen.

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  • Garage Done Right

    248 Orchard Drive

    In the 1920s and 1930s, designers of houses often made them into fairy-tale cottages, in which every detail was carefully managed to evoke picturesque fantasies of old England or France. But this was also the time when built-in garages were becoming a requirement for suburban homes. If the garage door is on the front, it often spoils the fantasy. But this house in Mission Hills, Mount Lebanon, shows us that there is an alternative: make the garage part of the fantasy.

    Front with garage

    Not only is the garage entrance a big stone arch that suggests an immemorially ancient cellar under the house, but it is also decorated with the terra-cotta rays that were a fashionable adornment of the fairy-tale style.

    Garage
    Decorative rays over the garage entrance
    Kodak EasyShare Z1281.
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  • More of Mission Hills in the Snow

    230 Orchard Drive

    Mission Hills is a neighborhood where every house is an individual work of art. It has a special charm in the snow. Here is a short stroll on Orchard Drive, taking in a wide variety of styles.

    230 Orchard Drive
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  • Some Houses on North Avenue on the North Side

    112 West North Avenue

    An assortment of styles from a block and a half of North Avenue facing the Commons in old Allegheny. These houses are now included in the Mexican War Streets Historic District. First, a tall and narrow Queen Anne house built in the 1880s.

    112
    112
    200

    This Queen Anne has a larger lot and thus more room to spread out and grow picturesque projections.

    200
    214–210

    These three houses probably go back to the Civil War era; they are typical of the larger sort of houses that grew all over Pittsburgh from the beginning until the middle 1800s, when more elaborate styles came into fashion.

    210
    216 and 218

    It is not easy to guess the age of these little houses. Old Pa Pitt’s best speculation, judging from old maps, is that they also go back to the Civil War era, but had their fronts modernized at some time around 1900. The one on the left may have had its front replaced more than once before it finally ended up with this Craftsman-style stucco treatment.

    220

    Finally, another house from the 1880s, this one with particularly elaborate woodwork.

    220
    220
    Kodak EasyShare Z1285; Fujifilm FinePix HS10.
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  • Carnegie Tech Takes a Field Trip to Mission Hills

    231 Orchard Drive

    This house looks quite traditional on the outside, but inside it used the most up-to-date construction methods for 1928. Instead of the ordinary timber framing, it was built on a steel frame like a skyscraper. It was such an innovation that Carnegie Tech architecture students made a field trip to inspect the construction.⁠

    “Carnegie Tech Students Inspect Mission Hills Home”
    Pittsburgh Press, October 14, 1928.

    When a technological institute of the standing of Carnegie Tech expresses interest in a construction project to the point of sending a class to inspect the work, then it may be regarded as a certainty that the project is basically sound and worthy.

    Forty Tech students, part of whom are shown above, headed by Prof. T. D. Mylrea, assistant to the head of the building construction department of the Institute, last week made a tour of inspection of the new type, steel framed, fire proof home being built in Mission Hills, Mt. Lebanon, for W. H. Shaffer, Jr.

    This home, designed by Lyon and Taylor, New York architects, is such a departure from past methods of construction that a number of builders’ and architects’ magazines have published exhaustive articles concerning it. It is primarily a product of Pittsburgh, the National Steel Fabric Co., Steel Frame House Co. and Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp. having collaborated with L. Brandt, Pittsburgh housing engineer, in working out the details of construction.

    231 Orchard Drive
    Fujifilm FinePix HS10.

  • Good as New in Mission Hills

    265 Orchard Drive

    The front of this house in Mission Hills has changed very little since it was new. It was sold in 1930, probably when it was newly built, and the Sun-Telly printed its picture.

    “Mission Hills Home,” Pittsburgh Sun-Telegraph, June 1, 1930, p. 48

    Forgive the blurry microfilm reproduction of what was already a photograph reproduced in halftone on cheap newsprint; it is enough to show us that, except for the filled-in side porch, not much is different in front, although the tiny sapling in the newspaper picture is a major tree now. There appears to be an addition in the back, where it does not alter the impression the house makes from the street.

    265 Orchard Drive
    Kodak EasyShare Z1285; Fujifilm FinePix HS10.
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  • Two Front Doors on Sidney Street, South Side

    Front doors of 1814 and 1812 Sidney Street

    With falling snow for added picturesque effect.

    1812
    1814
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  • Second Empire Row on North Avenue in Manchester

    1301–1315 West North Avenue, Manchester, Pittsburgh

    The Second Empire style is a good fit for high-class rowhouses, because it was created specifically to stuff the most usable volume into the least taxable building. Supposedly it came about because houses in France of Napoleon III’s time were taxed by the area of the rooms, but attics were not counted in the calculation. All the space above the roofline was dismissed as attic by the law; therefore, if the roof could bulge out to make an attic the same size as the other floors, you got an extra floor tax-free. Americans adopted the style because they liked the way it looked and the way it solved the practical problems of space.

    1311 West North Avenue
    1301 and 1303

    This row of seven houses drops a few feet after the first three. Manchester is a flat neighborhood, but only by Pittsburgh standards. Old maps show that the row was built between 1872 and 1882.

    1301 and 1303
    Transom of No. 1311
    1301 and 1303
    1311 and 1313
    Canon PowerShot SX150 IS; Nikon COOLPIX P100;

    A very clever detective might deduce that these pictures were taken on two different visits.

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  • Frame Rowhouses on North Avenue, Manchester

    1400 block of West North Avenue, Manchester, Pittsburgh
    Canon PowerShot SX150 IS.

    Manchester is known for its splendid brick Victorian houses, but there are blocks of more modest houses as well—often older than the big brick ones. Here is a row of neat little frame houses, some of which appear—from both old maps and the style of the houses—to date back to the Civil War era.

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