Father Pitt

Tag: Mellon Street

  • Scheibler Apartment Building in Highland Park Condemned

    936 Mellon Street

    After years of neglect and decay, this apartment building in the otherwise prosperous neighborhood of Highland Park is finally condemned.

    Condemnation sticker

    And it will be a tragedy to lose it, because it is an extraordinary work by an extraordinary architect.

    Frederick Scheibler is possibly the most-talked-about architect Pittsburgh ever produced, and this building—put up in 1906 for Mary M. Coleman—marks a turning point in Scheibler’s style, according to his biographer Martin Aurand. “The facade departs from precedent, however, in the sheer strength of its massing, and in its near total lack of common domestic imagery—even a cornice.… There is virtually no exterior ornament at all. The Coleman facade continues a process of abstraction begun at the Linwood [in North Point Breeze], but the leap forward in Scheibler’s developing style is sudden.”1

    Coleman apartments

    Considering the value of real estate in Highland Park right now, restoring this building should be not only public-spirited but also profitable. Is any ambitious developer willing to take it on? That blue sticker isn’t necessarily a death sentence: it will be removed if the dangerous conditions are remediated. To make it easier for you, Scheibler’s original drawings for this building are preserved in the Architecture Archive at Carnegie Mellon, so there need be no guesswork in the restoration.

    936 Mellon Street, balconies
    Balconies
    Balcony canopy
    Upper balcony
    Steps and entrance
    Entrance
    936 Mellon Street
    Canon PowerShot SX150 IS.

    1. Martin Aurand, The Progressive Architecture of Frederick G. Scheibler, Jr., p. 42 (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1994). ↩︎

  • Some Queen Anne Houses in Highland Park

    5655 Stanton Avenue

    The Highland Park Residential Historic District, which is coextensive with the neighborhood as defined by the city, preserves more good examples of Queen Anne houses than perhaps any other neighborhood, although Shadyside would come in a close second. Here is an especially splendid Queen Anne mansion on Stanton Avenue. (Addendum: This was the home of architect William Smith Fraser, which he designed and built for himself in 1891.1)

    Perspective view
    Through the trees
    From across the street
    807 Mellon Street

    This house gives us two common Queen Anne elements that were missing from the mansion above: a turret and curved surfaces in the gable.

    Perspective view
    Front of the house in sun
    831–841 North St. Clair Street

    Here is a whole row of Queen Anne houses bulging with stubby turrets. They lean toward the Rundbogenstil end of the spectrum, which Father Pitt mentions because he misses no chance to say the word “Rundbogenstil.”

    833 North St. Clair Street
    5657 Stanton Avenue

    This mansion on Stanton Avenue has been converted to apartments, but its basic outlines remain.

    Front elevation
    5811 Stanton Avenue

    This last one might be better classified as “Stick style,” a closely related style that preceded but overlapped the Queen Anne style. Stick-style houses have more of an emphasis on woodwork, especially boards overlaid on the siding for contrasting trim, as we see here, and less of an emphasis on curves and complexities of form.

    Front elevation
    Kodak EasyShare Z1285; Fujifilm FinePix HS10; Canon PowerShot SX150 IS.
    1. Franklin Toker, Pittsburgh: A New Portrait, p. 235. ↩︎

  • Three Queen Anne Houses on Mellon Street, Highland Park

    Turret of 813 Mellon Street

    Three identical houses with all the signature quirks of the Queen Anne style: turrets, odd angles, curved surfaces, oriels, shingles, and every other effect that can be applied to a city house to make it more picturesque.

    813–817 Mellon Street
    817 Mellon Street
    Oriel
    813–817 Mellon Street
    Canon PowerShot SX150 IS; Kodak EasyShare Z1285.