Father Pitt

Tag: Pellegrini (Casimir) Associates

  • Some Houses on Bigelow Boulevard, Schenley Farms

    4307 Bigelow Boulevard

    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.)

    4305

    This one, built in 1907, was designed by Edward Stotz.

    4305

    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.

    4301

    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.

    4154

    Built in 1912; the architects were D. Simpson & Co.

    4154
    4150

    Here is another one, built in 1920, whose architect we have not yet found.

    4150
    4147

    Paul W. Irwin designed this Georgian mansion, built in 1921.

    Entrance to 4147
    4142

    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.

    4142
    4135

    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.

    4131

    Another MacClure & Spahr house designed for the Schenley Farms Company early in the development of the plan.

    4131
    4116

    Designed by Alden & Harlow and built in 1913.

    4114
    Kodak EasyShare Max Z990; Canon PowerShot SX20 IS.

    This interestingly eclectic design from 1913 was by Thorsten E. Billquist, whose best-known work is the Allegheny Observatory.

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  • St. Pamphilus Church (Our Lady of Victory Church), Beechview

    St. Pamphilus Church

    Casimir Pellegrini Associates were the architects of this church, whose cornerstone was laid in 1963. It was a Franciscan parish until just a few years ago. Unlike some other abandoned Catholic churches, this one has a happy ending: it was bought by the thriving Lebanese Maronite Catholic congregation of Our Lady of Victory, which began in Brookline (or arguably earlier in the Lower Hill) and spent years banished to the wilds of Scott Township. In honor of Pittsburgh’s best Lebanese festival, which begins today and lasts all weekend, here are quite a few pictures of St. Pamphilus/Our Lady of Victory, which old Pa Pitt has done his best to make look like period-appropriate Kennedy-era Kodachrome slides.

    Statue and inscription—St. Pamphilus

    The Our Lady of Victory congregation has graciously allowed St. Pamphilus to stay in his home on the front wall of the church, where he distributes bread to begging hands.

    Statue of St. Pamphilus
    Face of St. Pamphilus
    St. Pamphilus Church

    Father Pitt will admit that he does not find the nave the most attractive of all our church buildings. It is dignified and spacious, and that is enough. But the tower, a mailbox on stilts, captures his imagination, and he would hate to see anything happen to it.

    Tower
    Tower
    Tower
    Tower
    St. Pamphilus Church
    St. Pamphilus Church
    Entrance

    The church was dedicated to St. Pamphilus, but it is St. Francis who greets you at the door with his usual motto “Pax et bonum.”

    Entrance and tower
    Our Lady of Victory shrine

    This shrine to Our Lady of Victory is now in its third location.

    Honor roll

    Father Pitt makes it a practice to try to record all the names on a war memorial, because sometimes things happen to inscriptions. If you enlarge this picture, every name should be clearly legible.

    Msgr. Elias P. Basil plaque

    A plaque remembers Msgr. Elias P. Basil, the founding pastor of Our Lady of Victory parish. He had been pastor of St. Anne’s, the Maronite church in the Lower Hill. The story is that he promised St. Mary that, if all his parishioners came home safe from the Second World War, he would build a church in her honor. They did, and he did.

    Cornerstone of St. Anne Church

    St. Anne Church was on Fulton, later Fullerton, Street, one of the Lower Hill streets that no longer exist because they were urban-renewaled to death. This cornerstone was preserved from the demolished church.

    Arabic inscription
    Cornerstone of St. Anne Church
    St. Pamphilus Church
    St. Pamphilus Church
    Sony Alpha 3000; Nikon COOLPIX P100.
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