Tag: Mansions

  • Atherstone

    Gateway to Atherstone

    This is a strangely elaborate gateway for a postwar modernist apartment building. But anyone who knows the history of Fifth Avenue can guess that the gateway indicates where a grand mansion once stood on the Shadyside Millionaires’ Row. (Although city planning maps make Fifth Avenue the boundary between Shadyside and Squirrel Hill, traditionally both sides of the street were counted as “Shadyside.”)

    Inscription reading “Atherstone”

    Atherstone was the mansion, or “castle” as locals would have said, of hardware and steel magnate John Bindley.

    From the Bulletin Index, December 8, 1939.

    It was built in 1890, greatly expanded during the First World War (when these pillars were built), abandoned in 1929, and torn down in 1938.

    Pillar in the Gothic manner

    When the demolition began, the Bulletin Index, Pittsburgh’s high-toned society magazine, ran an article about the house that we reproduce below. The magazine had been infected by Timestyle with its horror of conjunctions and its quirky capitalization, but we trust our readers to interpret it without too much difficulty. The article gives us a picture of Depression-era Fifth Avenue at its lowest point, before the postwar housing boom filled many of the vacant estates with modern apartment buildings.

    Gateway to Atherstone

    Atherstone

    Forty years ago young Theodore Dreiser used to spend his evenings reading Balzac in the Allegheny Public Library, his Sunday afternoons walking out Fifth Avenue and back again. It was then one of the wealthiest, swankiest, most famous streets in the world. Dreiser gaped at the great mansions, marvelled years later in his autobiography that “even the lamp posts were better than in other parts of the city.” One of the most magnificent of the castles he gaped at was “Atherstone” (see cut).

    Atherstone was a work of art, a baronial symbol of the great-spending paleo-industrial age of which William Randolph Hearst is the sole remaining big figure. Pittsburgher John Bindley, having grown rich with his Grant Street hardware store, richer as co-founder of the Pittsburgh Steel Co., built his four-story gargoyled castle (in 1890) in the grand manner, with crenellated turrets and 80 windows with leaded panes, named it after his ancestral home place in England. A widower with only two of his six children living, he travelled through Europe every year with his niece Elmina, brought back paintings, furniture, hand-carved panelling, marble mantel-pieces in the fashion of one who feels it a class privilege and duty to patronize the arts. Fixtures he had made to order in Manhattan to match the furniture he bought, for the Chippendale dining room, the Japanese room that was his favorite. During the prosperous war years Steelman Bindley spent $200,000 to remodel, add a wing to his castle. In an enlarged residence of 24 rooms, six baths, he installed an electric elevator, new copper drains, plumbing and kitchen equipment, added cupboard space that virtually equalled the room volume of an ordinary house, put two carved stone pillars at the driveway entrance, two huge solid oak doors at the entrance of the hand-carved oak panelled hall.

    Four years later, at the age of 75, Steelman Bindley died. Atherstone and contents were left to Son Edward Houston Bindley, who died in 1929, to Daughter Adelaide Bindley Davidson, who closed up the castle, put most of the furniture (including the Japanese room) into one end of the Hoeveler warehouse, moved to California. Installed above the spacious six-room coachhouse in the rear was Niece Elmina McMillin, her four servants.

    Many a great mansion Theodore Dreiser looked upon forty years ago now stands boarded up and weed-choked, many another has been torn down to leave great toothless gaps in swank Fifth Avenue. Fortnight ago came word that John Bindley’s Atherstone, scene of many and lavish entertainments, was to be given into the hands of home-wrecking Austin Givens, Inc. (who eleven years ago tore down John Bindley’s hardware store to make way for the Gulf Building). Last week the curious and buying public poked and peered through the cold bare rooms of Atherstone, being auctioned bit by bit. This week Wrecker Givens began to tear down, cart away.

    The Bulletin Index, December 8, 1938, p. 33.

    Pillar
    Sony Alpha 3000; Nikon COOLPIX P100.

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  • Georgian Mansion in Ingram

    Georgian mansion in Ingram, Pennsylvania

    An exceptionally splendid instance of the turn-of-the-twentieth-century interpretation of Georgian architecture from the days when the Colonial Revival was beginning to gather steam.

    Georgian mansion in Ingram, Pennsylvania
    Georgian mansion in Ingram, Pennsylvania
    Georgian mansion in Ingram, Pennsylvania
    Olympus E-20N; Samsung Galaxy A15 5G.

  • Harry Darlington House, Allegheny West

    Harry Darlington house

    One room wide and a block deep, the Harry Darlington house stuffs its lot to capacity.

    Fourth-floor balcony
    Gable ornament

    Elaborate terra-cotta decorations enliven the face of the house.

    Ornament
    Terra cotta
    Letitia Holmes house and Harry Darlington house
    Kodak EasyShare Z981; Canon PowerShot SX150 IS.

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  • Letitia Holmes House, Allegheny West

    Letitia Holmes house

    Letitia Holmes, a widow who had inherited a fortune from her pork-packing husband, had this house built in the late 1860s and lived here till she died half a century later. The restrained but rich Italianate style suggests an architect with taste, and some day old Pa Pitt will find out who it was.

    Letitia Holmes house

    The late Carol Peterson wrote a thorough house history of 719 Brighton Road, so Father Pitt will send you there for more details.

    Porch and front door
    Front door
    Window
    Letitia Holmes house
    Front elevation on a rainy day
    Kodak EasyShare Z981; Canon PowerShot SX150 IS.

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  • Willock House, Allegheny West

    Willock house

    We’ve seen this house before, and all old Pa Pitt can say is here it is again, in more detail. Steel baron B. F. Jones, who had a big house next door, hired architect W. Ross Proctor to design this narrow chateau for his daughter and her husband (the house belonged to the daughter, according to plat maps). A few years later, B. F. replaced his big house with an immense mansion that dwarfed his daughter’s house.

    Porch and entrance
    Willock house
    Willock house

    In the rear you can see a carriage house, built a little later than the main house. The carriage house alone is bigger than most people’s houses, and it had ample living quarters for the coachman upstairs.

    Carriage house
    Alley side of the carriage house
    Carriage house
    Fujifilm FinePix HS10; Canon PowerShot SX150 IS; Kodak EasyShare Z981.

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  • Mystery Mansion on Perry Hilltop

    Second Empire tower through bare branches

    Walking down Perrysville Avenue one day not long ago, Father Pitt spotted a distinctive outline through the branches. It was the tower of a Second Empire mansion.

    Mansion through the trees

    Old Pa Pitt was very excited. Here was a Second Empire mansion he had not known about before. That was very interesting. He started investigating, and found that the discovery was actually much more interesting than that.

    Historians of Perry Hilltop are earnestly invited to help us out with the history of this house, which has caught old Pa Pitt’s imagination. The house is in deplorable shape—especially the side you can see through the overgrown shrubbery from Perrysville Avenue, where billows of garbage seem to be spilling out of the building.

    2421 Perrysville Avenue

    But what is fascinating is that, where old Pa Pitt expected a Second Empire mansion, he found something much older. The shallow pitch of the roof and the broad expanse of flat white board underneath the roofline say “Greek Revival” in a loud voice.

    This appears to be the side of the house, although Father Pitt has reason for believing that it was originally the front. The large modern Perrysville Plaza apartment building is next to it, but walking around to the back of that building reveals the front of the house—with its distinctive Second Empire tower.

    Front of the house
    Front elevation

    The tower is pure Second Empire, but the roof still says Greek Revival. The house must have been Second Empired, probably in the 1880s. The attic windows in the gable ends were added then: they match the ones in the tower.

    Gable with attic windows
    Tower with matching windows
    Tower

    The Second Empire remodeling was not the last big change. You may have noticed that there is something a little off about the brick walls. This appears to have been a frame house originally. Old plat maps show it as a frame house through 1910; later maps show it as brick. A brick veneer must have been added at some time around the First World War. The new brick walls swallowed all the window frames and other trim that would have given us more clues about the original date.

    There was a house here belonging to the “Boyle Heirs” in 1872, the earliest plat map we have found. An 1882 map shows a carriage drive leading to the plank road that became Perrysville Avenue, with a circle at the end of the house near the road—bolstering old Pa Pitt’s guess that the end was originally the front.

    There are few Second Empire mansions remaining in Pittsburgh, and even fewer Greek Revival ones. This house ought to be preserved, but it probably will not be. The neighborhood is neglected enough that it has not even been condemned yet, which means that it will continue to decay until either it becomes an intolerable nuisance or the land becomes valuable enough to build something else on. Father Pitt will label it Critically Endangered.

    All we can do, therefore, is document that it exists, and Father Pitt has done the best he can do without trespassing.

    Tower
    Front of the mansion
    Bay
    Gable
    Perspective View of the House
    Bay, balcony, and porch
    Tower
    Fujifilm FinePix HS10; Canon PowerShot SX150 IS.

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  • Byers-Lyons House, Allegheny West

    Byers-Lyons House
    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.

    Gate
    Arcade and entrance

    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.

    Byers-Lyons house
    Byers Hall
    Chimney
    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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  • Russell H. Boggs House and Trinity Lutheran Church, Mexican War Streets

    Russell H. Boggs house

    Designed by Longfellow, Alden & Harlow very early in their practice, this house was built in 1888. For a long time it served as the parsonage for Trinity Lutheran Church next door, which created the odd spectacle of a church whose parsonage was taller and grander than the sanctuary.

    Trinity Lutheran Church

    If you look for downspouts on this house, you won’t find them. Oral tradition says that Mr. Boggs, one of the founders of the Boggs & Buhl department store, hated gutters; at any rate, his architects devised a system of internal drainage that, when it works, carries runoff through channels in the walls. When it doesn’t work, the grand staircase is a waterfall on a rainy day. When the church sold the house, the buyers had to spend a million dollars refurbishing it, and making the drainage system work again was where a lot of the money went. The house is now a boutique hotel under the name Boggs Mansion.

    Front of the house
    Russell H. Boggs house
    Kodak EasyShare Z981; Sony Alpha 3000.

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  • A Late Holiday Feature: Negley-Gwinner-Harter House, Shadyside

    Negley-Gwinner-Harter House

    Old Pa Pitt had meant to publish these pictures a little before Christmas, but he lost track of them. And since he doesn’t want to wait till next year, here they are now. This is the Negley-Gwinner-Harter House in Shadyside, with a crew installing its Christmas ribbon. This was the house that sat derelict for years after a disastrous fire, so it is always a cheerful sight when Father Pitt walks past and sees it in fine shape like this. But it is even more cheerful all tied up in a Christmas bow.

    Negley-Gwinner-Harter House
    Negley-Gwinner-Harter House
    Kodak EasyShare Z981.

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  • Murdoch Farms in the Snow

    5421 Maynard Street

    Murdoch Farms, a dairy farm until the early twentieth century, is the most expensive section of Squirrel Hill. In the 1920s it filled up with mansions designed by our leading architects, and most of them are still in close to original shape, at least on the outside. Father Pitt took a stroll on a dim and snowy afternoon to get a few pictures.

    1411 Inverness Avenue
    1342 Inverness Avenue
    1342
    1342
    1342
    1331 Inverness Avenue
    1331
    1330 Inverness Avenue
    1330
    1324 Inverness Avenue
    1310 Inverness Avenue
    Sony Alpha 3000.

    We’ll see more of Murdoch Farms from this same expedition, including some individual houses whose architects old Pa Pitt can identify.


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