Father Pitt

Tag: Perry & Thomas

  • The St. Regis, Shadyside

    Face on the St. Regis

    Here is another of those apartment buildings that stare back at you when you stare at them.

    The St. Regis

    The St. Regis was built in 1908; the architects were the Chicago firm of Perry & Thomas, who designed several other apartment buildings in Shadyside and Squirrel Hill.

    Entrance
    Entrance
    Entrance in perspective

    Perry & Thomas seem to have absorbed an eclectic assortment of styles from Beaux Arts through Art Nouveau to Prairie Style. These entrances have the graceful and almost decadent curves we associate with Art Nouveau. They are very similar to the entrance to the Emerson, an apartment building put up two years earlier. That building is attributed to Samuel Crowen, another Chicagoan; but Crowen was associated with Perry & Thomas, and there is certainly a more-than-coincidental resemblance—not only in the entrances, but also in the balconies, which in both buildings are framed by supports ending in decorative faces. The ones on the Emerson are much more abstract, but the idea is the same.

    Face on the Emerson

    Face on the Emerson.

    Faces on the St. Regis

    Faces on the St. Regis.

    While taking these pictures, Father Pitt had a short conversation with the maintenance man, who tells us that the apartments were originally big and luxurious, but have been cut down to one and two bedrooms by the present owners. Expensive materials like marble abound inside the building.

    The St. Regis
    Fujifilm FinePix HS10.
    Comments

  • Wendover Street Apartments, Squirrel Hill

    Gable end

    The distinctive Flemish gables of these apartments catch our attention as we come down Beacon Street. They were probably designed by Perry & Thomas, a Chicago firm responsible for a number of apartment buildings in Shadyside and Squirrel Hill. Although some ill-advised changes have been made, for the most part the unusual details—Flemish Renaissance filtered through an Art Nouveau lens—have been preserved.

    Wendover Street apartments
    2010–2000 Wendover Street
    2010 Wendover Street
    2010 Wendover Street
    2006 Wendover Street
    Entrance to 2006
    Entrance to 2010
    Wendover Street apartments
    Windows
    Wendover Street apartments
    Sony Alpha 3000; Canon PowerShot SX150 IS.
    Comments

  • Berwyn, Delwood, Elmont Apartments, Shadyside

    Three apartment buildings in Shadyside

    Three apartment buildings on Holden Street at the corner of Summerlea Street. The Delwood has lost its cornice, but otherwise they look much the way they were drawn by Perry & Thomas, the prolific Chicago architects who gave us many apartment buildings in Shadyside and Squirrel Hill.

  • The Lionhead, Shadyside

    Lion’s head

    Originally the Kent and the Howe, this pair of attached buildings was renamed for its most prominent decorative feature—the lion’s heads that preside over each entrance. The architects were the Chicago firm of Perry & Thomas, who were responsible for a number of apartment buildings in Shadyside and Oakland; they were especial favorites of the developer John McSorley.

    The Lionhead
    Entrance
    Balconies
    Nikon COOLPIX P100.

  • The Belvedere

    The Belvedere

    Originally called the Alpine, this Renaissance-bordering-on-modern apartment building was put up in 1909 by developer John McSorley. Research by a local expert in all things McSorley shows that the architects were Perry & Thomas from Chicago, who designed many apartment buildings in Shadyside and Squirrel Hill. The rounded corner seems to have been a favorite device of theirs for a while: two other Perry & Thomas buildings on Ellsworth Avenue also have prominent rounded corners.

  • Rounded Corners in Shadyside

    Updated update: Our correspondent David Schwing has been studying the career of the developer John McSorley. See his comment below, where he identifies these as two of McSorley’s buildings. The one for which old Pa Pitt could not find a name is called the Ontario. The architects were the Chicago firm of Perry & Thomas.

    The intersection of Maryland and Ellsworth Avenues in Shadyside is flanked by apartment buildings with distinctive rounded corners. Above, the Panama. Below, a building that must have looked very modern when it was put up (in the original version of this article, we said “probably around 1920,” but it turns out to have been 1911, which makes it even more strikingly modern); it seems to have no name but its addresses. (Addendum: It was originally called the Ontario.)