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:
Street names in Beechview have changed, in many cases more than once: Grove Street was the original name of this part of Princess Avenue.
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.
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.
Three fine houses in three different styles. We begin with a house in the fairy-tale style of the 1920s and 1930s, whose steeply pitched roof, open arch on the side of the house, and Jacobean entrance combine to give it a storybook picturesqueness.
A dignified version of Queen Anne style; some alterations have changed the original character a bit, but the house still leaves a strong impression of comfortable prosperity.
It is a little hard to tell what this house was originally; it may have begun as a Queen Anne house similar to the previous one, but it seems to have been accumulating expensive renovations over the years, so that today it is an eclectic but tasteful mixture.
Brookline is a museum of early-twentieth-century middle-class housing. You can stop almost anywhere in the neighborhood and find an eclectic mixture of houses in interesting styles—many of them altered over the years, but usually a few in nearly original condition. Here are five quite different houses from half a block of Berkshire Avenue, beginning with a solid-looking brick bungalow.
This stone Tudor is the most recent house in our collection; it probably dates from the late 1930s.
A typical Pittsburgh Foursquare in form, but with the somewhat unusual variation of a shingled second floor.
A Craftsman cottage that would have looked even more Craftsman with its original three-over-one windows.
A more unusual form of Craftsman cottage whose carved wooden brackets are well preserved. If the porch rail is not original, it is a well-chosen replacement that fits with the spirit of the house. Painting the aluminum awnings to match the trim makes them almost attractive.
A good example of how an old building can be updated on a limited budget without too much damage to its appearance. Front porches are gone, and vinyl siding and new windows lost some of the Victorian detail. But the windows are framed appropriately if simply, and distinctive woodwork on the third floor has been preserved and restored. Now five apartments, the double house is still an attractive building; and if old Pa Pitt would prefer to have seen it restored to its original Victorian appearance, he nevertheless recognizes and applauds a tasteful effort to balance restoration with profitability.
In the shadows of the ever-encroaching university and hospital buildings, these tiny rowhouses still survive in a little alley in the back streets of Oakland.
