Father Pitt

Tag: Houses

  • A Flemish Row in Shadyside

    A Flemish row in Shadyside

    This row of houses on Howe Street has a distinctly Dutch or Flemish look. The Flemish style is not unknown in Pittsburgh, but it is rare to see a row of five houses in that style at once. (For another example of multiple Flemish houses, see the Osterling row in Brighton Heights.)

    5524 Howe Street

    This house, like many in Shadyside, has had part of its basement turned into a garage, with a steep driveway dug out of the front yard.

    Porch

    It is delightful to see that the intricate woodwork on the front porch has been preserved.

    5524
    Gable with iron decorations

    The angles and curves that make the gable look so Antverpian are made of iron or steel, as we can tell by one rusted section:

    Rusted metalwork

    This makes us suspect that perhaps three of the other houses in the row might have had similar decorations, removed when they rusted too much to repair.

    5529 and 5526 Howe Street
    5530
    5532
    Fujifilm FinePix HS10; Samsung Galaxy A15 5G.

    This house, however, was clearly meant to show off its stones without additional adornment, except for the usual decorative utility-cable swags.

  • A Charming Cottage in West Park

    401 Russellwood Avenue

    Old Pa Pitt was on his way out of West Park and already late for an appointment, but when he passed this house on the McKees Rocks side of the neighborhood, he had to stop and take pictures. It is not quite like any other house he has ever seen, and the original trim is well preserved.

    Front of the house
    Porch brackets
    Dormer
    Canon PowerShot SX150 IS.

  • Two Shadyside Tudors

    5816 Walnut Street

    Two houses on Walnut Street in the Tudor Revival style, as we would say today, or the English style, as they were probably called when they were built. They share some notable similarities, which would make it not surprising if they were drawn by the same architect. The sunset light makes the already cozy Tudor style look even warmer and cozier.

    Addendum: A city architectural survey attributes the one above to the architect Thomas Scott; we are probably justified in attributing its neighbor to Scott as well.

    5814 Walnut Street
    Dormer
    Front of the house

  • Some Houses on Broad Street, Sewickley

    222 Broad Street

    Broad Street is one of the two main streets of central Sewickley. It is lined with public buildings (churches, post office, school) and a wide variety of houses. This dignified Queen Anne is a good introduction to the street.

    222 Broad Street
    Front of the house
    324 Broad Street

    This center-hall frame house has been remodeled to someone’s ideal of picture-postcard Victorian perfection. Until a few years ago, it was asymmetrical and had no front porch or Victorian Gothic peak in the front.

    333 Broad Street

    A center-hall Georgian house of the early twentieth century, probably built as the manse for the Methodist church next door.

    306 Broad Street

    An elegant Second Empire house whose porch wraps around to become a porte cochère.

    327 Broad Street

    A beautiful shingle-style mansion belonging to St. Stephen’s Anglican Church next door.

    330 Broad Street

    There are also some modest houses among the mansions, like this charming little I-house with real wood siding.

  • Two Houses on Pine Road, Sewickley

    529 Pine Road

    Pine Road is a short street in a very tony section of Sewickley. Here are two fine houses in very different styles. First we have an Italianate house, probably dating from the 1880s or so.

    With the grounds
    Perspectiove view
    529 Pine Road
    525 Pine Road

    Here is an elegant Dutch colonial with a fine growth of ivy on one of its chimneys.

    Perspective view from the right
    Perspective view from the left
    525 Pine Road
    Kodak EasyShare Z1285; Samsung Galaxy A15 5G.

  • Queen Anne Turrets in Shadyside

    628 and 626 Summerlea Street

    Three quite different interpretations of the Queen Anne turret on Shadyside houses. Above, a pair of faceted turrets on a double house.

    Turret of 733 South Negley Avenue

    An unusual rectangular turret preserves its original farmhouse-Gothic window and woodwork. The turret itself is set at a 45° angle to the rest of the house.

    733 South Negley Avenue
    Turret of 727 South Negley Avenue

    Finally, an octagonal domed turret on a house whose well-preserved details are worth pausing to admire. We note in passing that even the paint is, if not original, at least the dark green color typical of Pittsburgh houses of the turn of the twentieth century: you can scratch the trim of many a Pittsburgh house and find this color at the lowest level.

    727 South Negley Avenue

    An appropriate arrangement of birds on those cables could make a short musical composition.

    Front porch

    A shingly front porch that survived the epidemic of porch amputations in the 1960s and 1970s.

    Parlor window

    The parlor window has some good stained glass under the arch and, in the arch itself, a sunflower ornament for a keystone.

    Sunflower ornament
    Fujifilm FinePix HS10.

  • T. Ed. Cornelius House, Coraopolis

    T. Ed. Cornelius house, Coraopolis

    T. Ed. (for Thomas Edward) Cornelius was a successful second-string architect who was born in Coraopolis and lived there all his life. He had more of an eye for current trends than many of his kind: we have seen his “modern” Craftsman-style rowhouses in Brighton Heights (and duplicated in Shadyside, Bloomfield, and elsewhere around the city), his Craftsman-Gothic Beechview Christian Church, and his splendidly Art Deco Coraopolis VFW Post. This was Mr. Cornelius’ own house, where he was was living at the end of his life; he died in 1950, probably at an advanced age. We may guess that he designed the house for himself.

    611 Ferree Street
    Canon PowerShot SX150 IS.

    The front door is a version of the rayed arch that was popular in domestic architecture in the late 1920s and into the 1930s.

    The house is on Ferree Street, named for one of the founding families of Coraopolis. T. Ed.’s wife was Lily Ferree Cornelius. Good connections never hurt an architect.

  • The Queen Anne Style in Coraopolis

    1230 State Avenue

    The “Queen Anne” style is the one people think of most often when they think of Victorian houses. It had very little to do with any queen named Anne. Its defining characteristic is a concern for variety and picturesqueness: there is always a surprise lurking around the corner of a Queen Anne house. Turrets and Dutch gables and curiously shaped dormers and fits of Renaissance detailing are favorite devices of Queen Anne architects, but there is no single thing that defines the style.

    Coraopolis has an exceptionally fine collection of Queen Anne houses, and some of them preserve exquisite details usually lost to the ravages of time. Enlarge the picture above, for example, and admire the original windows.

    1310 State Avenue

    This one has had many revisions over the years, but the irregular shape of a Queen Anne house, and the dominant turret, are still there to mark the style.

    1324 Ridge Avenue

    Here is a house that has kept many elegant details, including its slate roof and wood trim. And note the windows in the turret:

    Turret

    The glass curves to match the curve of the wall.

    Dormer

    A curious dormer with remarkable tracery in the window.

    1324 Ridge Avenue
    1324 Ridge Avenue
    1302 State Avenue

    Another house with some alterations, but they do not disguise the turret and the big rounded bay in front.

    1303 Ridge Avenue
    Canon PowerShot SX150 IS.

    This house has also been through some alterations: the porch might have wrapped all the way around to include both doors, and the vertical siding on the second-floor oriel doubtless replaced wood shingles. The shingles are still there on the third-floor gables, however.

  • Kenmont Avenue, Mount Lebanon

    444 Kenmont Avenue

    The whole length of Kenmont Avenue is included in the Mount Lebanon Historic District. The southern half of the street has some charming cottages from the 1920s or so, and as a bonus one of the oldest houses in Mount Lebanon.

    446 and 444
    446 and 444
    444
    436
    432
    440
    431
    431
    424

    This is the old house: the Dr. Joseph McCormick house, built before the Civil War, as the hand-lettered plaque from the Mount Lebanon Historical Society tells us.

    Plaque: The Dr. Joseph McCormick House, Circa 1857

    Cameras: Fujifilm FinePix HS10; Samsung Galaxy A15 5G.

  • Some Houses on Beaver Street, Sewickley

    36 Beaver Street

    Sewickley is known for its grand houses, and some of the grandest are along Beaver Street, the main street of the village.

    36 Beaver Street
    26 Beaver Street
    26 Beaver Street
    56 Beaver Street
    56 Beaver Street
    56 Beaver Street
    66 Beaver Street
    66 Beaver Street
    59 Beaver Street

    Addendum: This one is the Edward O’Neil house, designed by Rutan & Russell.1

    59 Beaver Street

    Cameras: Kodak EasyShare Z1281; Fujifilm FinePix HS10; Samsung Galaxy A15 5G.

    1. It is pictured in the February, 1904, issue of The Builder, page 20. ↩︎