Father Pitt

Tag: Domestic Architecture

Meado’cots, Homewood

Designed by our remarkable early modernist Frederick Scheibler, “Meado’cots” is an unusual set of terrace houses built in 1914—another Scheibler answer to the question of how to make cheap rows of houses architecturally attractive. It sat abandoned and boarded up for quite a while, but now it is inhabited and stable. The metal roofs on the central section and the cheap standard doors are not to old Pa Pitt’s taste, but they were within the budget of the new owner, and they keep the buildings standing and in good shape, with the potential for restoration with original materials later.

This composite of the central section from above parked-car level is made possible by a kind neighbor from across the street. He saw us struggling to hold the camera up at arm’s length and called down from a third-floor window to offer the use of his stairs for a better angle. Thank you, Homewood neighbor, for confirming Father Pitt’s impression that Homewood is a place where the neighborly virtues are strong.

Note the corner windows. They would become a badge of modernism in the 1940s, but here they are in 1912!

November 10, 2024
Abandoned House in Homewood

Homewood is prospering now more than it has done in decades, but there are still many forgotten corners. This house, in the part of Homewood traditionally called Brushton, has been abandoned and forgotten for a very long time, though the other houses on the street are inhabited and well kept. Because it has been left alone for decades, it preserves details of crumbling shingle and woodwork that have been replaced on all its neighbors. It appears to have been built in the 1890s for J. M. Gruber, and it is a good example of how the Queen Anne style filtered down to the middle classes.

November 10, 2024
Pair of Victorian Houses in Lawrenceville

Kodak EasyShare Z1285.

A pair of stylish Victorian houses opposite Arsenal Park on 40th Street. The one on the right is in the high Queen Anne style, with a turret and odd-shaped windows and a wraparound porch. The one on the left is smaller and more restrained, but only relatively.

These two houses have both had quite a bit of work put into them in the past few years. A quarter-century ago, before Lawrenceville began to be a trendy neighborhood, Father Pitt captured these same two houses with a plastic box camera.

Photographed in 1999 with an Imperial 620 camera.

Several things have changed, especially in the house on the left. The porch has been removed; it looks as though it was a later addition, and the removal may have restored the house to something more like its original appearance. The sawed-off Gothic peak on the third floor has been restored. The glass blocks by the front door are still there, but perhaps that is how we know this is a Pittsburgh house and not one in Baltimore or Boston. As for the house on the right, it has been cleaned and restored to picture-perfect condition.

November 5, 2024
An Afternoon Stroll in Seminole Hills, Mount Lebanon

Once again, old Pa Pitt took half an hour’s walk in the far end of Seminole Hills, but unlike last time he did it in broad daylight this time. Most of these pictures are on the sunny side of the street, but we hope you will forgive a few backlit pictures.

Even in the more modest part of Seminole Hills, the variety of styles is remarkable. A few postwar modern houses have grown up here, too, but the shady winding streets make harmony of what might otherwise be a dissonance of styles.

Because we have nearly fifty pictures to show, we’ll avoid weighing down the front page and boring the readers who have no interest in domestic architecture by putting the rest behind a “more” link.
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November 2, 2024
A Twilight Stroll in Seminole Hills, Mount Lebanon

The back end of Seminole Hills developed later than the section nearer Washington Road, with more modest houses, many of them built during the Depression. But even many of these modest middle-class homes are pleasing designs, doubtless by some of our more distinguished architects. These pictures were taken after sunset in dim light, so expect some grain if you enlarge them.

This house sits in a triangle where Iroquois Drive meets Allendale Place at an acute angle. It faces the street on three sides, and it was designed to be a good composition from any angle.

Fujifilm FinePix HS10.

October 29, 2024
Hillside House in Carrick

Canon PowerShot SX150 IS.

Dutch Colonial meets Normandy in an attractively eclectic house that you can see from a long way away, because it perches on the side of a steep hill.

October 26, 2024
Victorian Row in Lawrenceville

Separate ownership does funny things to rowhouses. This row of four would have matched originally; some owners have doubled down on the Victorian style, and some have done what they could with modern materials, leading to interesting effects along the property line.

Fujifilm FinePix HS10; Kodak EasyShare Z1285.

October 23, 2024
Textures of the South Side

A street of Georgian rowhouses, all in identical red brick, is a beautiful sight. But there is something jazzy and invigorating about the endless variety of textures in the back streets of the South Side, even if individually some of the artificial sidings people applied to their houses in the twentieth century were never very attractive. The textures are probably best appreciated in black and white, so old Pa Pitt stuck some monochromatic film in his Retinette and went for a walk around the block.

Kodak Retinette with Kentmere Pan 100 film.

October 21, 2024
Penn Main

“Penn Main” is the name Pittsburghers give to the district around the intersection of Penn Avenue and Main Street, which (this being Pittsburgh) is not the main street of anything. On city planning maps, Penn Avenue is the border between Lawrenceville and Bloomfield; and since the sun was shining on the Lawrenceville side when we visited, all these buildings are counted as being in Lawrenceville for planning purposes. We begin above with a nicely preserved example of a typical small Victorian store with apartment above.

Penn Avenue and Main Street do not meet at a right angle, so the buildings on the corner are forced into odd shapes. The one above deals with its acute angle by blunting the point of it. The one below (seen in a picture from two years ago) has a less offensive obtuse angle to deal with.

The Second Empire style in its Pittsburgh incarnation is common in this section of the city. Little incised designs often decorate the lintels.

This building would have matched its neighbor originally, but at some point the storefront was filled in to make an apartment. Now that Penn Main is becoming a desirable neighborhood, the alteration might be reversed.

Canon PowerShot SX150 IS.

Two quite different houses. The one on the left is a duplex, though it may have been built as a single-family house. The one on the right is a kind of lean-to parasite on its larger neighbor, uncharacteristically set back from the street so that it has a front yard and a porch, as if someone was trying to create a little country house in the city.

This picture only: Samsung Galaxy A15 5G.

This one is getting a going-over. Father Pitt would prefer to see more original-looking windows, but at least the size of the windows has not been altered, and any future owner who feels motivated will be able to replace them with proper double-hung two-over-two sash windows.

October 18, 2024
More of Robin Hill, Moon Township

The only excuse we need for publishing more pictures of Robin Hill is that we have more pictures of Robin Hill. It’s a beautiful Georgian house designed by Henry Gilchrist for Francis and Mary Nimick; it was left to the township by Mary to be a park for the residents. We’ll walk around the house counterclockwise.

Kodak EasyShare Z981; Kodak EasyShare Z1285.

More pictures of Robin Hill, and a composite of the garden face.

October 15, 2024