Father Pitt

Tag: Queen Anne Architecture

The Late Shady Avenue Cumberland Presbyterian Church

Exactly two years ago today, Father Pitt paid a visit to this unique church, one of the most imaginative works of architect Thomas Cox McKee. At the time, he had no idea the church would be demolished a few months later, or he would have documented it more carefully. Looking back on the pictures he published then, old Pa Pitt decided they were lousy, not to mince words. As a memorial to the vanished building, he decided to go back to the original images and see if he could make better pictures out of them. Two years from now, Father Pitt will look back at these pictures and think they were lousy and he could do better, but the delight of a life of constant learning is seeing incremental improvement.

To put the pictures in context, we reprint the text of the article we published two years ago:

Now known as Shady Avenue Christian Assembly, after having spent many years as Shady Avenue Presbyterian Church (without the “Cumberland”).

Just down the street from the huge and spectacular Calvary Episcopal and Sacred Heart Catholic churches, each the size of many a cathedral, this 1889 church is likely to pass unnoticed. Once you do notice it, though, you will not stop noticing it. It is a bravura performance in a sort of Queen Anne Romanesque style by a Victorian architect who was about 22 years old at the time, and who was not afraid to pull out all the stops and stomp on the pedals for all he was worth. An entire issue of the East Ender, the East End Historical Society’s newsletter, was devoted to the architect, T. C. McKee (PDF), and we take all our information from Justin P. Greenawalt with profound gratitude for his research.

Thomas Cox McKee (usually known as T. C. McKee) was apprenticed to architect James W. Drum. But in 1886, when young McKee was still only 20, his master was run over by a freight train. Instead of looking for another apprentice position, McKee went out on his own and seems to have been successful right away. He later built a comfortable practice designing homes for the wealthy and small to medium-sized commercial buildings, along with at least one prominent school (the Belmar School in Homewood, still standing). Then, in 1910, he threw it all away and went to Cleveland, where he took odd jobs until he settled down as a designer of soda fountains. No one seems to know what happened, although Mr. Greenawalt’s article hints that it might have had something to do with McKee’s constitutional extravagance.

That extravagance comes through in every detail of this building. In the age of modernism, this sort of thing was dismissed as a bunch of Victorian noise, but the masses are balanced to form interesting compositions from every angle.

The much more conventional 1911 addition (although even it is a little bit fantastical) was designed by Rodgers & Minnis. Below we see it across the pile of dirt that used to be Shady Hill Center until the property became too valuable to host a suburban-style strip mall.

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March 23, 2025
More Houses on North Avenue in the Mexican War Streets

A couple of blocks of North Avenue, where we can see some fine Italianate houses of the Civil War era, interspersed with some towering Queen Anne mansions. We start at the corner of Palo Alto Street, where a Queen Anne house makes the most of a tiny lot by going up to a fourth floor.

These two houses share splendid porches, probably added later, since the porches match even though the houses do not. The owners of the houses have coordinated their efforts, so that the porches match.

Three more modest houses, though their full third floors give them a generous allotment of bedrooms.

A pair of houses that were both the peak of elegance in different eras. The Italianate one on the right goes for a simpler dignity; the Queen Anne on the left pulls out all the stops to make the most picturesque composition possible. Note the relative heights, by the way: high ceilings were a feature of the Italianate style in better houses, so that the house at left adds one more floor in exactly the same vertical height.

Seventeen years ago, Father Pitt published a picture of the front door of the house on the right. The picture was taken on 120 film with a folding Agfa Isolette.

Two simple and attractive Italianate houses, one of which has grown a partial fourth floor.

Here is an interesting document of how the neighborhood has changed. The house at left was originally an Italianate residence; the corner store may have been original or may have been added later. The projecting commercial building next to it, which probably dates from about 1920, was added when the house was taken over by the United States Casket Company, later the Melia Casket Company, which still inhabited the building until about twelve years ago. Both buildings have had a thorough renovation since the casket-makers moved out.

Two different interpretations of Italianate, one of which has sprouted an inartistic dormer to give it a fourth floor.

Finally, a center-hall house in a kind of late Greek Revival style; it occupies a double lot.

Sony Alpha 3000; Kodak EasyShare Z981.

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February 8, 2025
Queen Anne Manse in Knoxville

Canon PowerShot SX150 IS.

Much of the detail on this fine old house is well preserved, including the half-octagon dormer, the oval art-glass window, the wraparound porch (partly enclosed by an improvised screen), and one of the finest displays of aluminum awning old Pa Pitt has ever seen.

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February 7, 2025
Some Houses on North Avenue on the North Side

An assortment of styles from a block and a half of North Avenue facing the Commons in old Allegheny. These houses are now included in the Mexican War Streets Historic District. First, a tall and narrow Queen Anne house built in the 1880s.

This Queen Anne has a larger lot and thus more room to spread out and grow picturesque projections.

These three houses probably go back to the Civil War era; they are typical of the larger sort of houses that grew all over Pittsburgh from the beginning until the middle 1800s, when more elaborate styles came into fashion.

It is not easy to guess the age of these little houses. Old Pa Pitt’s best speculation, judging from old maps, is that they also go back to the Civil War era, but had their fronts modernized at some time around 1900. The one on the left may have had its front replaced more than once before it finally ended up with this Craftsman-style stucco treatment.

Finally, another house from the 1880s, this one with particularly elaborate woodwork.

Kodak EasyShare Z1285; Fujifilm FinePix HS10.

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January 27, 2025
Queen Anne Mansion in Manchester

Isaac Wertheimer, who made his money in the distilling business, had this house built in 1892. The late Carol Peterson wrote a detailed history of the house (PDF), though she did not find the name of the architect. Whoever it was created a romantic composition in the up-to-date Queen Anne style, with the peculiarity that the house appears from the front to be a good bit smaller than it actually is. A view of the side reveals three and a half floors of picturesque angles and projections.

Canon PowerShot SX150 IS.

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January 23, 2025
Queen Anne Meets Second Empire in Manchester

Queen Anne is an expansive style, with turrets and bays and oriels and all kinds of picturesque projections this way and that. When Queen Anne is compressed to the dimensions of a rowhouse, it takes on some of the vocabulary of the Second Empire style, in particular the full third floor under a mansard roof, but adds the irregularity we expect from Queen Anne, with its asymmetry and, of course, its turrets. These two houses on North Avenue are splendidly preserved examples of the collision of the two styles.

Canon PowerShot SX150IS; Nikon COOPLPIX P100; Kodak EasyShare Z1285.

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January 13, 2025
Some Queen Anne Houses in Highland Park
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)

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

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.”

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

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.

Kodak EasyShare Z1285; Fujifilm FinePix HS10; Canon PowerShot SX150 IS.
1. Franklin Toker, Pittsburgh: A New Portrait, p. 235. ↩︎
November 25, 2024
Three Queen Anne Houses on Mellon Street, Highland Park

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.

Canon PowerShot SX150 IS; Kodak EasyShare Z1285.

November 18, 2024
Castle Stanton, East Liberty

Even though it has lost some decorative details over the years, Castle Stanton still drops jaws of passers-by who find themselves in unfamiliar territory here on the border of East Liberty and Highland Park. It looks like a 1920s Hollywood set: we expect Douglas Fairbanks dressed as Robin Hood to leap from an upstairs window and land on his feet after a series of spectacular acrobatics.

This advertisement from the Pittsburgh Press, September 21, 1930, shows us some of the pointy bits that have since been removed.

This Hollywood front hides an unexpected secret, which will be revealed if we walk around to the side of the building.

Now we see the outlines of an older Queen Anne mansion, converted to an apartment house by the addition of a Hollywood-fantasy front facing Stanton Avenue.

Kodak EasyShare Z1285; Canon PowerShot SX150 IS; Fujifilm FinePix HS10.

November 18, 2024
Abandoned House in Homewood

Homewood is prospering now more than it has done in decades, but there are still many forgotten corners. This house, in the part of Homewood traditionally called Brushton, has been abandoned and forgotten for a very long time, though the other houses on the street are inhabited and well kept. Because it has been left alone for decades, it preserves details of crumbling shingle and woodwork that have been replaced on all its neighbors. It appears to have been built in the 1890s for J. M. Gruber, and it is a good example of how the Queen Anne style filtered down to the middle classes.

November 10, 2024