In the 1920s and 1930s, designers of houses often made them into fairy-tale cottages, in which every detail was carefully managed to evoke picturesque fantasies of old England or France. But this was also the time when built-in garages were becoming a requirement for suburban homes. If the garage door is on the front, it often spoils the fantasy. But this house in Mission Hills, Mount Lebanon, shows us that there is an alternative: make the garage part of the fantasy.
Not only is the garage entrance a big stone arch that suggests an immemorially ancient cellar under the house, but it is also decorated with the terra-cotta rays that were a fashionable adornment of the fairy-tale style.
Mission Hills is a neighborhood where every house is an individual work of art. It has a special charm in the snow. Here is a short stroll on Orchard Drive, taking in a wide variety of styles.
This house looks quite traditional on the outside, but inside it used the most up-to-date construction methods for 1928. Instead of the ordinary timber framing, it was built on a steel frame like a skyscraper. It was such an innovation that Carnegie Tech architecture students made a field trip to inspect the construction.
Pittsburgh Press, October 14, 1928.
When a technological institute of the standing of Carnegie Tech expresses interest in a construction project to the point of sending a class to inspect the work, then it may be regarded as a certainty that the project is basically sound and worthy.
Forty Tech students, part of whom are shown above, headed by Prof. T. D. Mylrea, assistant to the head of the building construction department of the Institute, last week made a tour of inspection of the new type, steel framed, fire proof home being built in Mission Hills, Mt. Lebanon, for W. H. Shaffer, Jr.
This home, designed by Lyon and Taylor, New York architects, is such a departure from past methods of construction that a number of builders’ and architects’ magazines have published exhaustive articles concerning it. It is primarily a product of Pittsburgh, the National Steel Fabric Co., Steel Frame House Co. and Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp. having collaborated with L. Brandt, Pittsburgh housing engineer, in working out the details of construction.
The front of this house in Mission Hills has changed very little since it was new. It was sold in 1930, probably when it was newly built, and the Sun-Telly printed its picture.
“Mission Hills Home,” Pittsburgh Sun-Telegraph, June 1, 1930, p. 48
Forgive the blurry microfilm reproduction of what was already a photograph reproduced in halftone on cheap newsprint; it is enough to show us that, except for the filled-in side porch, not much is different in front, although the tiny sapling in the newspaper picture is a major tree now. There appears to be an addition in the back, where it does not alter the impression the house makes from the street.
As Father Pitt has remarked more than once, the variety and quality of designs in the Mount Lebanon plans like Mission Hills are constantly delightful. Here is a short stroll down Parkway Drive in Mission Hills.
This one, unusually for the neighborhood, has had paste-on shutters applied to add sophistication to the home. Our friend Dr. Boli wrote an essay about those that generated some interesting responses from his correspondents.
Here is one that has real shutters, with hinges and everything.
Old Pa Pitt is always pleased when an architect understands that a house is a three-dimensional object, not just a façade with a box behind it, and gives it rewardingly different appearances from different angles.
And, finally, here is a bit of good news for the neighborhood and the metropolis:
This new house is replacing a house that vanished a few years ago (for reasons unknown to Father Pitt, who does not always keep up with the news, and perhaps a neighbor can inform us). It has reached the stage where we can judge the design, and it is a good one. Individually it may never be Father Pitt’s favorite house, but as a citizen of the neighborhood it gets everything right. It is of similar height and size to its neighbors, and it honors the historic styles around it—look at those three-over-one Craftsman-style windows—while still being distinctly its own 21st-century self, just as all the other houses in Mission Hills are distinct and original. This is a demonstration of how new buildings can be added to historic neighborhoods.
Lamont Button was a very successful architect of houses for the well-off. Here is an example of his work in the tony automobile suburb of Mission Hills in Mount Lebanon. It’s in very good shape: some additions have been made, but they have been done in sympathy with the original design and would hardly be detected as additions if we did not have a photograph from when the house was new.
This picture comes from the August, 1928, issue of the Charette, the magazine of the Pittsburgh Architectural Club. This comparison shows us with what remarkably good taste the few alterations have been made.
Mission Hills in Mount Lebanon, laid out in 1921, is a neighborhood where houses in all different styles coexist happily. Most of those styles are historical or romantic; this ultramodern house is a definite outlier, and an unexpected treasure in a neighborhood full of treasures. Father Pitt does not know the architect, but because of the striking similarities between this house and one in Swan Acres attributed to Joseph Hoover, we shall tentatively assign this one to Hoover as well. (And old Pa Pitt promises to get to Swan Acres soon and bring back some pictures of that remarkable neighborhood.)
Could the house number be more perfectly styled to match the house?
And is that a genuine Kool Vent awning over the side door?
Mission Hills in Mount Lebanon was laid out in 1921 as an ideally picturesque automobile suburb. The lots were sold off individually, so that each buyer hired his own architect and builder. The result is a delightful variety of styles that all fit comfortably together. We’ll take a look at a couple of those houses individually later, but right now here is a big album of Mission Hills houses in the snow.
To keep from weighing down the front page, we’ll put the rest of the pictures behind a “read more” link.
