Father Pitt

Tag: Flemish Renaissance Architecture

Four Mansions on Wilkins Avenue, Squirrel Hill

Perhaps it is stretching a point to call this first one a mansion, but it is a big house built with the best materials.

A Georgian mansion that would look at home in Annapolis or Williamsburg.

A different and less pedantically correct take on Colonial Revival. Note the shutters that actually shut.

The garage has a comfortable apartment for your chauffeur.

The Smith mansion is built of very dark brick in a subdued Flemish Renaissance style. Appropriately, the bricks are laid in Flemish bond.

Canon PowerShot SX20 IS.

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February 19, 2026
Western Pennsylvania School for Blind Children, Oakland

George S. Orth was the architect of this school, one of the first large institutional buildings in the Oakland district. It was built in 1894, and it still serves its original institution.

The style is a sort of Flemish Renaissance filtered through Americanized Rundbogenstil. The horizontal stripes in the brickwork are such an instantly distinctive feature that they have been imitated in the school’s modern additions.

Kodak EasyShare Max Z990; Canon PowerShot SX20 IS.

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February 10, 2026
Wendover Street Apartments, Squirrel Hill

The distinctive Flemish gables of these apartments catch our attention as we come down Beacon Street. They were probably designed by Perry & Thomas, a Chicago firm responsible for a number of apartment buildings in Shadyside and Squirrel Hill. Although some ill-advised changes have been made, for the most part the unusual details—Flemish Renaissance filtered through an Art Nouveau lens—have been preserved.

Sony Alpha 3000; Canon PowerShot SX150 IS.

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April 17, 2025
Byers-Lyons House, Allegheny West

Father Pitt will admit to having removed an ugly utility pole from this picture. Perhaps some day he will do an article about the utility pole and remove the house.

Longfellow, Alden & Harlow, Pittsburgh’s most prestigious firm, were the architects of this Flemish Renaissance mansion, which is now Byers Hall of the Community College of Allegheny County. Of the surviving millionaires’ mansions in Allegheny West, this is old Pa Pitt’s favorite. It is impressively huge, but the details are inviting rather than forbidding. Even the huge iron gate in front seems to be there more to invite you in than to keep you out.

The arcade on two sides of a garden court forms a pleasant cloister in front of the house, rather than behind it, suggesting that the residents do not turn their backs on their neighbors.

Canon PowerShot SX150 IS.

Are these the most artistic chimneys in Pittsburgh? They are certainly in the running, at any rate.

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March 31, 2025
Byers-Lyons House, Allegheny West

Sony Alpha 3000.

The Byers-Lyons house was built in 1898. It was designed by Alden & Harlow, Andrew Carnegie’s favorite architects, and it has fortunately been preserved by being turned to academic uses—it is now Byers Hall of the Community College of Allegheny County. It looked warm and inviting last night at sunset, so Father Pitt took quite a few pictures.

April 9, 2024