Once again old Pa Pitt turned himself loose with a camera in Seminole Hills—this time mostly in the older and more expensive end. The variety of styles makes the neighborhood a constant delight. For this session, let’s visit Ordale Boulevard.
This is a collection specifically for those readers who like scrolling through house designs of the 1920s and 1930s. The rest can just whiz right past the “more” link and go on to something else.
Once again, old Pa Pitt took half an hour’s walk in the far end of Seminole Hills, but unlike last time he did it in broad daylight this time. Most of these pictures are on the sunny side of the street, but we hope you will forgive a few backlit pictures.
Even in the more modest part of Seminole Hills, the variety of styles is remarkable. A few postwar modern houses have grown up here, too, but the shady winding streets make harmony of what might otherwise be a dissonance of styles.
Because we have nearly fifty pictures to show, we’ll avoid weighing down the front page and boring the readers who have no interest in domestic architecture by putting the rest behind a “more” link.
The back end of Seminole Hills developed later than the section nearer Washington Road, with more modest houses, many of them built during the Depression. But even many of these modest middle-class homes are pleasing designs, doubtless by some of our more distinguished architects. These pictures were taken after sunset in dim light, so expect some grain if you enlarge them.
This house sits in a triangle where Iroquois Drive meets Allendale Place at an acute angle. It faces the street on three sides, and it was designed to be a good composition from any angle.
We’ve seen some of the houses in Seminole Hills already, but we need no excuse to look at a few more. Like the other similar plans in Mount Lebanon, this one delights us with its wide variety of excellent designs.
A demonstration of the variety of scales found in Mission Hills. Above, a grand mansion with a whole village of outbuildings; below, just around the corner, a modest but richly stony Cape Cod.
This typical Colonial, probably from the 1930s, has a typical little round window above the front door. But what do you do if you don’t want a window there anymore?
Domestic architecture veered strongly toward the fantastic in the 1920s and 1930s, as we can see in some of the houses in Seminole Hills, one of several 1920s suburban plans inspired by the success of Mission Hills in Mt. Lebanon. The house above is a perfect example of what old Pa Pitt classifies as the fairy-tale style in architecture.
Once again, though, property owners hired their own architects, so a wonderful variety of styles is represented in the neighborhood.
