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Frederick C. Sauer

Frederick C. Sauer, from Notable Men of Pittsburgh and Vicinity, 1901.

Frederick Sauer is best remembered today for some landmark churches and for his bizarre architectural fantasies in his own back yard, but his long and wide-ranging career included everything from middle-class houses to large office buildings. Father Pitt has always described him as a high-functioning mad genius. He could turn out an attractive and practical building of just about any sort you could name, and he got the job done and kept clients coming back. But if his imagination was turned loose, he could produce extraordinary fantasies that were like nothing else in Pittsburgh, or anywhere else. The most astonishing thing about him was his hobby: he had a house with a big tract of woods overlooking Aspinwall, and after a hard day of drawing plans and managing contractors, he would come home, go into his woods, and start pulling out stones with his own hands and piling them up into buildings. Those buildings are still there and still inhabited, and they now form the Sauer Buildings Historic District on the National Register of Historic Places.

The Heidelberg, an apartment building constructed by Frederick Sauer in his back yard.

Among the famous churches designed by Sauer, we may mention St. Stanislaus Koska in the Strip, St. Mary of the Mount on Mount Washington, and St. Stephen Martyr in Hazelwood.

St. Mary of the Mount, Mount Washington.

Sauer had a particular love of buff Kittanning brick, which forms the face of many of his buildings.

A. M. E. Brown Chapel, North Side.

The Sauer Building. Sauer designed this building and kept his office here.

House in Highland Park.

McBride Building.

Sauer lived to be eighty-two years old, and even in his seventies he seemed a remarkably vigorous man. Maurice Trimble saw him in 1936, “to all appearances unchanged by the passing years.”

Here is an abridged list of some of Sauer’s buildings. Check the Great Big List for Father Pitt’s most up-to-date research.

Building	Neighborhood	Address number	Street	Date
St. John’s German Evangelical Lutheran Church	Bloomfield	459	40th Street	1896
St. Joseph’s School	Bloomfield	321	Pearl Street	1897
Immaculate Conception Church	Connellsville	148	East Crawford Avenue	1896
Building at 925 Penn Avenue	Downtown	925	Penn Avenue	1894
Sauer Building	Downtown	804	Penn Avenue	c. 1910
May-Stern Company	Downtown		Penn Avenue
McBride Building	Downtown	304	Ross Street	1901
Church of the Holy Name	Duquesne	32	South 1st Street	1910 or before
Latimer School	Dutchtown		Tripoli Street	1898
Werner Building	East Liberty		South Highland Avenue	1908
St. Stephen’s Roman Catholic Church	Hazelwood	5115	Second Avenue	1902
House at 5906 Callowhill Street	Highland Park	5906	Callowhill Street	1893
Oswald Werner House	Highland Park	830	North Highland Avenue	1891
St. Mary Magdalene Church	Homestead		Amity Street	1895
St. Joseph’s Church	Manchester		Liverpool Street	1897
St. Nicholas Croatian Church	Millvale	24	Maryland Avenue	1900
Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Church	Mount Pleasant	740	Walnut Street	1899
St. Mary of the Mount Roman Catholic Church	Mount Washington	403	Grandview Avenue	1896
Store and apartments	Oakland	3601	Dawson Street	1905 or after
Hilda and Herbert apartments	Oakland	3811–3815	Dawson Street
Rowhouses at 3833–3845 Dawson Street	Oakland	3833–3945	Dawson Street
Harry, George, Matilda, and Laura apartments	Oakland	403–409	Oakland Avenue
Commercial building at 1831 East Carson Street	South Side	1831	East Carson Street	1910 or after
St. Michael’s rectory	South Side Slopes		Pius Street	1890
Spring Hill Elementary School	Spring Hill	1351	Damas Street	1908
A. J. Wise house	Squirrel Hill	5841	Northumberland Street	1911
St. Stanislaus Kostka Church	Strip		21st Street	1892
West End Savings Bank and Trust Company	West End	500	South Main Street	1898
Elks’ Temple	Uptown		Jumonville Street	1913