The Stones of Pittsburgh
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An Architectural Tour of Pittsburgh
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### By James D. Van Trump
*This little brochure, with its small print and tight margins, contained a large amount of information on Pittsburgh’s architecture. It was published by the Pittsburgh History and Landmarks Foundation in the 1960s without a copyright notice, so that it entered the public domain and can be freely reproduced or quoted. James D. Van Trump has strong opinions, and they are always worth hearing. Some of the buildings it describes have disappeared, but—surprisingly—the great majority have not. Mr. Van Trump himself is probably more responsible than anyone else for the success Pittsburgh has had in preserving its past.*
## Downtown
IN PITTSBURGH, everything begins at the Point, where the Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers meet to form the Ohio and from this strategic and historic place, the city flows outward into the surrounding hills.
In a short two hundred years, this large metropolitan area has evolved from a small fort at the apex of the Triangle (now Pittsburgh’s business district). Here in the legal, mercantile and financial center, local architecture may be seen in most of its characteristic phases. In both style and material our local building is, for the most part, sober, forthright, utilitarian and masculine and an appropriate reflection of a large industrial metropolis. We shall begin our tour with the Triangle and by working toward the outlying districts follow the development of the local urban pattern.
At the Point much redevelopment has taken place since 1945; part of the area has become a park and the rest has been given over to tall buildings. Here in dramatic juxtaposition may be seen the first and the latest, the Alpha and Omega of Pittsburgh architecture.
THE BLOCK HOUSE (1764), Point State Park, is the last surviving 18th century building in the city proper, exclusive of two log cabins. Brick and timber structure built by Colonel Bouquet as a redoubt of Fort Pitt. Five-sided like the Fort itself, with slits to facilitate rifle fire.
Next the Park at the lower edge of the business district are a series of office buildings erected since 1945:
GATEWAY CENTER I, II, AND III. Architect: Irwin Klavins \[*sic;* the correct name is Irwin Clavan], 1950. Three buildings in form reminiscent of “set-back” skyscraper construction but sheathed in stainless steel.
PENNSYLVANIA STATE OFFICE BUILDING, 300 Liberty Avenue. Architects: Altenhof and Bown, 1955. New cage-slab skyscraper partly enclosed in panels of blue anodized aluminum.
HILTON HOTEL, Gateway Center. Architect: William Tabler, 1958-59. Cage type high-rise partly sheathed in panels of gold anodized aluminum, very appropriate to a luxury hotel.
GATEWAY TOWERS. Architects: Emory Roth & Sons, 1962-64. Concrete and steel slab-type apartment house of 27 stories, coated with granite.
BELL TELEPHONE COMPANY BUILDING, 201 Stanwix Street. Architects: Press C. and William Dowler, 1959.
GATEWAY CENTER IV. Architects: Harrison and Abramovitz, 1958-59. Cage-slab similar in feeling to the same firm’s U. S. Steel Building, but more open.
THE I. B. M. BUILDING, Blvd. of the Allies and Stanwix Streets. Architects: Curtis and Davis Associates, 1963-64. Like a great diamond-paned lantern this tower may be considered a lamp to light the architectural future; it is unusual in that the superstructure is supported on an exterior diagonal steel grid.
Just beyond the redeveloped area may be found one of the few surviving Pittsburgh buildings of the early 19th century:
BURKE’S BUILDING, 211 Fourth Avenue. Architect: John Chislett, 1836. A restrained but very agreeable example of the Greek Revival designed by Pittsburgh’s foremost early architect. Must be preserved.
Just as austerely classical, but quite contemporary, is the nearby Y.W.C.A. BUILDING, 4th and Wood Streets. Architects: Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, 1962-63. One of the most handsome modern structures in Pittsburgh, this building is oriented inward, with a blank wall on each street facade above the ground floor windows.
OLD POST OFFICE BUILDING, Smithfield and Fourth. Architects: Supervising architects of the U. S. Treasury Department, J. G. Hill and E. M. Bell, 1880-1890. A very pleasant version of the French Renaissance-inspired Victorian public building. Should be preserved.
ALLEGHENY COUNTY COURT HOUSE AND JAIL, Fifth, and Ross Streets. Architect: Henry Hobson Richardson, 1884-87. The architectural lions of Pittsburgh and buildings of national importance. Carried out in the familiar Richardson “Romanesque” style, they transcend any stylistic boundaries, and they remain magnificent examples of the architect’s creative genius at its best. The Jail is now outmoded and may become an industrial museum, but it must be preserved as one of the monuments of American architecture.
CITY-COUNTY BUILDING, Grant and Forbes. Architects: Palmer, Hornbostel and Jones; Edward B. Lee, 1915-17. Interesting combination of severe Neo-Classical mass with Beaux-Arts detailing. Handsome interior hall with gilded metal columns.
GRANT BUILDING, Grant and Third. Architects: Henry Hornbostel and Eric Fisher Wood, 1927-29. One of the tallest skyscrapers in Pittsburgh with a curtain wall ornamented in the “Modern” manner of the late '20’s.
FRICK BUILDING, Grant and Fifth. Architects: D. H. Burnham & Company, 1901-02. Early example (severely Neo-Classical) of slab skyscraper by a firm who did considerable work in Pittsburgh at the turn of the century.
UNION TRUST BUILDING, Fifth and Grant. Architect: Frederick J. Osterling. 1916. A combination arcade, bank and office building handsomely clothed in late 15th century Gothic costume. Interesting treatment of interior space.
PENN-SHERATON HOTEL (formerly William Penn), William Penn Place. Architects: Janssen and Abbott, 1914-16. Rather lightly treated Italianate brick and terra cotta envelope over steel frame, characteristic of teens of this century. Addition in same style 1927-29.
MELLON SQUARE PARK. Architects: Mitchell and Ritchey, 1955. Simonds and Simonds, landscape architects. Parking garage cum public square—the latter comprising the top layer. Arresting and satisfying modern use of standard “park” features rearranged in a formal pattern to create an outdoor living space of considerable distinction.
MELLON-U. S. STEEL BUILDING, 525 William Penn Place. Architects: Harrison and Abramowitz, 1949-52. Large cage-slab with stainless steel sheathing. Envelope characterized by a kind of elegant monotony.
ALCOA BUILDING, MELLON SQUARE. Architects: Harrison and Abramowitz, 1950-53. Moulded aluminum panels and porthole windows give rather a heavier effect to cage envelope. Elegant entrance pavilion notable for involved Romantic interpenetration of interior and exterior space.
HENRY W. OLIVER BUILDING, 535 Smithfield Street. Architects: D. H. Burnham & Company, 1908-10. “Monolithic” slab again treated as an order with base, shaft and entablature.
MELLON NATIONAL BANK & TRUST COMPANY (Principal Office), Fifth and Smithfield. Architects: Trowbridge and Livingston, 1923. Last Pittsburgh example of bank building as Classical temple. Colossal Ionic order used in banking hall.
PARK BUILDING, Fifth and Smithfield. Architect: George B. Post, 1896. Early skyscraper with elaborately ornamented curtain wall. Notable for freize of telamones upholding cornice.
PITTSBURGH NATIONAL BANK HEADQUARTERS (former First National Bank Building), Fifth and Wood. Architects: D. H. Burnham and Company, 1909-12. Bank building as an Italian Renaissance palace with a skyscraper tower superimposed.
FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, Sixth Avenue. Architect: T. P. Chandler, 1903-05. Lush-textured curvilinear Edwardian Gothic, rather lavishly executed.
TRINITY EPISCOPAL CATHEDRAL, Sixth Avenue. Architect: Gordon Lloyd, 1870-72. Typical, but rather sophisticated version of the High Victorian “Decorated” Gothic church, with handsome stone tower and spire. Historic graveyard dating back to the late 18th century.
SMITHFIELD CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH, 620 Smithfield. Architect: Henry Hornbostel, 1926. Original and interesting late Gothic Revival church. Openwork metal spire one of first architectural uses of aluminum.
SMITHFIELD METHODIST CHURCH, 408 Seventh Avenue, 1848. Simple Greek Revival meetinghouse with some later remodeling. Auditorium above high basement.
CHAMBER OF COMMERCE BUILDING, Smithfield and Seventh. Architects: Edward B. Lee and James P. Piper, 1916. Bold cage-type skyscraper with freely treated Beaux-Arts brick and terra cotta curtain wall.
OLD BELL TELEPHONE COMPANY BUILDING, Seventh Avenue. Architects: F. J. Osterling, 1892. Additions by Alden & Harlow, 1904-05. Pre-steel frame commercial building with heavy brick and stone arcades inspired by late Richardsonian work.
FIRST LUTHERAN CHURCH, 615 Grant. Architect: Andrew Peebles, 1886. Asymmetrical late mutation of the mid-century Gothic Revival church.
KOPPERS BUILDING, 430 Seventh Avenue. Architects: Graham, Anderson, Probst and White, 1929. With Gulf Building, late example of skyscraper as tower, this one with a peaked chateau roof. Lobby a good example of the “Moderne” decoration of the 1920’s.
GULF BUILDING, 435 Seventh Avenue. Architects: Trowbridge and Livingston, 1931-32. Tower as Mausoleum of Halicarnassus very simply treated and modernized.
NEW POST OFFICE AND FEDERAL COURTS BUILDING, Grant and Seventh. Architects: Trowbridge and Livingston, and J. A. Wetmore. 1932. Late Classical version of the palace-image as applied to an American public building. Severely Neo-Classical in style.
FEDERAL OFFICE BUILDING, Grant and Liberty. Architects: Altenhof and Bown, 1962-64. Modern high rise on a dramatic site. Sheathed in stone, glass and aluminum.
FORT PITT HOTEL, Penn and Tenth. Architects: Alden and Harlow, 1905, and Janssen and Abbott, 1909. Palace and tower types combined in this hotel, with simple but elegantly textured brick curtain wall. Norse Room (1909) a tour de force in Rookwood tiles which should be preserved.
UNION STATION AND ROTUNDA, Liberty Avenue and 12th Street. Architects: D. H. Burnham & Company, 1900-02. The railroad station as office building with Beaux-Arts envelope. The fanciful vehicular rotunda, one of the most interesting structures of its kind, is a charming example of Beaux-Arts high-spirits, notable for the lightness and grace of its construction. Should be preserved at all costs.
## The Hill
In the early 19th century, the new city developed residentially up the long sloping planes of the Hill district. In this century, the area degenerated into a slum and recently 36 acres were cleared for redevelopment as part of Pittsburgh’s “Renaissance”.
The chief feature of the new quarter is the CIVIC AUDITORIUM or ARENA. Architects: Mitchell & Ritchey, 1958-61. The circular arena-type auditorium is covered by a retractable stainless-steel dome 415 feet in diameter and at center 135 feet high.
WASHINGTON PLAZA APARTMENTS, Centre Avenue, Crawford and Colwell Streets. Architects: I. M. Pei & Associates and Deeter & Ritchey, 1962-64. The skycraper is 23 story slab-type concrete and glass luxury apartment-house. An elegant, classical image of the modern flat-house.
## Oakland
The Oakland district, once a suburb of Pittsburgh in the 1840’s, developed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries into the civic and cultural center of the city. Fifth Avenue and Forbes Avenue, two of the city’s arterial streets, connect it with the downtown area. In this area are clubs, churches and cultural institutions of several kinds including two schools of higher-learning—Carnegie Institute of Technology and the University of Pittsburgh. Here the characteristic forms and the multitude of styles of the High Eclectic period may be seen to good advantage.
ST. PETER’S EPISCOPAL CHURCH, Forbes and Craft. Architect: John Notman, 1851. A “transplant” from the Triangle, it was moved stone by stone to Oakland in 1900. A good example of the mid-19th century Archaeological Gothic Revival Church.
COLTART HOUSE, 3441 Forbes Avenue, 1843. A pleasant Greek Revival house—one of the last surviving vestiges of suburban Oakland—now much changed.
SOLDIERS AND SAILORS MEMORIAL HALL, 4115 Fifth Avenue. Architects: Palmer and Hornbostel, 1907-08. A Beaux-Arts esquisse translated into stone, it is an adaptation of the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus with projecting wings.
P. A. A. CLUB HOUSE, 4215 Fifth Avenue. Architects: Janssen and Abbott, 1909-11. Possibly the most sophisticated classical building in the city, it is an elegant and boldly designed Venetian High Renaissance composition.
MASONIC TEMPLE, 4227 Fifth Avenue. Architects: Janssen and Abbott, 1914. A kind of Noah’s Ark with Renaissance trimmings.
FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH, Bellefield and Bayard. Architect: Bertram G. Goodhue, 1909-11. Probably the best Gothic Revival building in Pittsburgh. Suave and knowledgeable, but highly creative manipulation of the late French and English Gothic.
CATHEDRAL OF LEARNING-University of Pittsburgh, Fifth and Bigelow. Architect: Charles Z. Klauder, 1926-37. Pittsburgh’s tallest building, it remains one of the last, as well as the most grandiloquent examples of the skyscraper as tower. Very handsome and striking use of the Gothic style, but the structure is functionally deficient. Adjacent are Klauder’s STEPHEN FOSTER MEMORIAL (1935-37) and the HEINZ MEMORIAL CHAPEL (1934-38).
THE MEN’S DORMITORIES, University of Pittsburgh, Fifth and Bouquet. Architects: Deeter and Ritchey, 1962-63. Representative of the present vogue for geometric architectural forms, this triad of cylindrical concrete towers adds a new element to the Oakland skyline.
CARNEGIE INSTITUTE, 4400 Forbes Avenue, Architects: Longfellow, Alden & Harlow, 1891-95, and Alden & Harlow, 1904-07. A huge structure covering almost five acres, and comprising a library, music hall, art gallery and museum, it was built in two sections. The completed whole forms a large domed Beaux-Arts composition with Italianate details.
CARNEGIE INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY, Schenley Park. Architects: Palmer & Hornbostel; Henry Hornbostel, 1904-16. An interesting complex of Beaux-Arts buildings in brick and terra cotta, dominated by the fantastic tower of Machinery Hall, the masterpiece of Henry Hornbostel.
MELLON INSTITUTE OF INDUSTRIAL RESEARCH, 4400 Fifth Avenue. Architects: Janssen & Cocken, 1933-36. Stripped, modernized version of the Classical theme, applied to a laboratory for industrial research. Impressive monolithic Ionic columns.
ST. PAUL’S R. C. CATHEDRAL, Fifth and Craig. Architects: Egan and Prindeville, 1904-06. Except for two handsome towers, a dull Edwardian ecclesiastical barrack—Gothic by the yard.
NEVILLE HOUSE, 552 N. Neville Street. Architect: Tasso Katselas, 1958-59. Glass, brick and concrete cage raised into space on arched stilts in the manner of Le Corbusier and at the time it was built the most “advanced” apartment house in Pittsburgh.
THE CRAIG STREET OFFICE OF THE PITTSBURGH NATIONAL BANK, 4600 Fifth. Architects: Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, 1961-62. Two great concrete beams cantilevered from slender piers support a concrete roof of great span. A bold and stark essay in pure construction.
THE UNIVERSITY OFFICE OF THE MELLON NATIONAL BANK, Fifth and Craig. Architects: Hoffman, Loefler & Wolfe, 1960-61. A concrete umbrella supports a glass curtain wall in this small pavilion devoted to banking.
## Lawrenceville
Another arm of the city reaches out from the Triangle along the flatlands of the Allegheny River bank, then curves backward into the East Liberty Valley. Penn Avenue is here the important connecting street. The Lawrenceville district, located where the arm begins to curve, was first laid out by the father of Stephen Collins Foster, the Pittsburgh composer, and it contains two features of some importance.
ALLEGHENY ARSENAL, on a plot bounded by Penn Avenue, 39th and 40th Streets and the Allegheny River. Architect: Benjamin Henry Latrobe, 1814. Designed by Latrobe, who was then resident in Pittsburgh, most of his buildings have been wantonly destroyed within the last few years. It is a wry comment on Pittsburgh’s attitude to the past that the Arsenal is now a dreary industrial waste land.
ALLEGHENY CEMETERY, located on a large plot, bounded by Penn Avenue, Butler Street, 46th Street and Stanton Heights. Laid out by Architect John Chislett, 1844-45. One of the first rural park cemeteries in this country, it is still quite well preserved.
The Butler Street entrance with its Gateway lodge, office and tower (Chislett and Barr & Moser, 1848 and 1870) is a pleasant piece of Picturesque Gothic Revival.
Across the river, just beyond Millvale, is EVERGREEN HAMLET, 1851, one of the first planned Romantic garden suburbs in this country. The wooden villas, either vernacular Gothic or Greek Revival in style, are well preserved and still retain a youthful freshness and charm.
## East Liberty
Returning to Oakland, we continue to follow Fifth Avenue out into the East Liberty valley where, in the 1850’s another great suburban area began to develop. Since this district was primarily residential, the architecture to be noticed, as we continue our tour, is primarily domestic and ecclesiastical.
CHURCH OF THE ASCENSION (Episcopal), Ellsworth and Neville. Architect: William Halsey Wood, 1896-98. Rather original if not quite successful late 19th century Gothic Revival. Impressive tower.
RODEF SHALOM CONGREGATION, 4905 Fifth Avenue. Architects: Palmer & Hornbostel, 1907. Large square-domed synagogue in the Beaux-Arts Neo-Baroque manner, with a green-tiled roof. Additions in 1938 and 1956, the latter by Harry Lefkowitz.
SHADYSIDE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, Westminster and Amberson. Architects: Shepley, Rutan and Coolidge, 1887-89. Handsome Romanesque “lantern” church designed by Richardson’s successors. A landmark in the development of the Protestant auditorium church.
MORELAND-HOFFSTOT HOUSE, 5057 Fifth Avenue. Ar- chitect: Paul Irwin, 1914. Late French Renaissance in white terra cotta—a kind of Edwardian Trianon.
ARTHUR E. BRAUN (formerly Phipps) HOUSE, Warwick Terrace. Architect: J. Edward Keirn, 1901-03. A large provincial Italian Renaissance villa a la McKim, Mead and White. The last of the East Liberty great houses of the Edwardian period still in its original state and as such should be preserved.
STEINBERG HOUSE, Morewood Heights. Architect: Peter Berndtson, 1952. The modern house as the evolution of an idea-an essay in the philosophy and practice of Frank Lloyd Wright. A distinguished local example of “organic” design by one of Wright’s pupils.
THIRD PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, Fifth and Negley. Architect: T. P. Chandler, 1896-1902. Elegant brownstone, turn-of-the-century adaptation of the English parish church theme popularized by Sir G. G. Scott.
FRANK-ANDERSON HOUSE, Woodland Road. Architects: Walter Gropius and Marcel Breuer, 1939. Designed by two of the foremost modern architects shortly after they began practicing in America, this large house presents an interesting amalgamation of the early rigid formulae of the International Style modified by less formal, more humane, design elements.
JEROME APT HOUSE, Woodland Road. Architect: A. James Speyer, 1951. Another, much later, variation on the International theme by a disciple of Mies van der Rohe. Here the Miesian rectangular pavilion is enlivened by a dramatic setting.
HIGHLAND TOWERS APARTMENTS, 340 South Highland Avenue. Architect: Frederick Scheibler, 1913. An interesting reflection of early modern trends in English and Continental architecture designed by the most talented and original architect that Pittsburgh ever produced. Should be preserved.
EAST LIBERTY PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, Penn and Highland Avenues. Architect: Ralph A. Cram, 1932-36. Cram’s last big commission, it displays his late manner to advantage. Strong Spanish Gothic influence.
HIGHLAND BUILDING, 115 S. Highland. Architects: D. H. Burnham & Company, 1910. Cage-type skyscraper with ornamental terra cotta curtain wall.
HIGHLAND HOUSE, 5700 Bunkerhill. Architect: Tasso Katselas, 1961-62. A dramatic use of the Miesian glass cage formula applied to a 22 story apartment house. Located on the edge of Highland Park it seems to float above a nearby reservoir.
SACRED HEART R. C. CHURCH, Shady and Walnut. Architects: Carlton Strong and Kaiser, Neal & Reid, 1925-1953. Freely treated late Gothic church of the 1920’s, finished recently in the original style.
CALVARY EPISCOPAL CHURCH, 315 Shady Avenue. Architect: Ralph A. Cram, 1907. A good example of Cram’s early manner. A chaste, handsome exercise in early English Gothic with a superb tower and spire.
HOLY ROSARY R. C. CHURCH, 7114 Kelly Street. Architect: Ralph A. Cram, 1928-29. Interesting late Cram design even more markedly Spanish than the slightly later East Liberty Church.
OLD HEIDELBERG APARTMENTS, South Braddock Avenue. Architect: Frederick Scheibler, 1905-08. Largest and most representative example of Scheibler’s early Romantic manner. Asymmetrical and rather contrived disposition of simply treated forms recalling Medieval precedent in many cases, but there is no stylistic detailing.
BUELAH PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, near Route 22 just beyond Wilkinsburg, 1837, Early 19th century variant in brick of the 18th century meeting house type. New church recently added nearby. Architects: Hoffman & Crumpton.
## Old Allegheny
Returning to the Triangle again we cross the Allegheny River to the North Side, formerly the City of Allegheny, which until 1908 was a separate municipality. Its residential districts, contiguous to a series of parklike commons, were once “the abode of wealth and refinement,” but now their glory has departed. Many of the great millionaire houses have disappeared but enough remains to give some idea of what they were once like. Liverpool and Beech Streets are particularly fine examples of anonymous middle-class Victorian houses and are worthy of note. Ridge Avenue was the special preserve of the wealthy and there we pick up the trail again.
THE HENRY W. OLIVER-REA HOUSE, 845 Ridge Avenue. Remodeled in 1894 by Shepley, Rutan and Coolidge. Very sophisticated use of the Italian Quattro- cento manner of the late 80’s and early '90s with Richardsonian reminiscences.
E. M. BYERS-LYONS HOUSES, 901 Ridge Avenue. Architects: Alden and Harlow, 1898. Early French and Flemish Renaissance rather broadly and soberly treated, with elegant wrought iron gates in the forecourt.
EMMANUEL EPISCOPAL CHURCH, Allegheny and North Avenue. Architect: Henry Hobson Richardson, 1885. Another Pittsburgh monument of national importance. A massively roofed simple building, with few stylistic tags, it is one of Richardson’s best late works and precursor of much modern church design.
HEINZ VINEGAR WORKS, Progress Street. Architects: Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, 1950-53. The cage as factory building, compares interestingly with the older castellated structures of the Heinz plant.
## South Side
Using the Triangle again as a base of operations, we cross the Monongahela River to the South Side, where, during the 19th century, extensive industrial and residential districts had grown up along the river banks. Crossing by the Smithfield Street Bridge (a Pauli truss span built in 1884), we arrive at the
PITTSBURGH AND LAKE ERIE RAILROAD TERMINAL, Smithfield and West Carson. Architect: William G. Burns, 1901. The best preserved of the monumental railroad stations still extant in this city. A large hollow cube enclosed in a quietly ornate, classical envelope, its waiting room is, after the Music Hall Foyer at Carnegie Institute, the most handsome Edwardian interior in Pittsburgh.
The old South Side district abounds in 19th century brick vernacular architecture—especially churches, the most interesting of which is
ST. MICHAEL’S R. C. CHURCH, Pius Street, 1861. One of the few surviving examples of the pre-Richardsonian Romanesque in Pittsburgh.
## South of the City
In the further reaches of the old village of Mt. Washington, which peers down shyly from the ridge overlooking the Triangle we find…
CHATHAM VILLAGE—Clarence Stein and Henry Wright, site planners, and Ingham and Boyd, architects, 1932-36. A modern garden suburb 45 acres in extent. Described by the former owners—the Buhl Foundation—as the first large scale planned residential community built in one operation to be retained in single ownership and managed as a long term investment. Evergreen Hamlet redivivus, on a larger, more democratic scale, it is a pleasantly leafy preserve for the professional middle classes.
Folded back into the hills beyond the Monongahela are miles of dormitory suburbs, but here and there a few vestiges of the past remain.
THE PRESLEY NEVILLE HOUSE, “Woodville,” at Woodville on Route 19, 1785. A large clapboard story-and-a-half house, showing the influence of the domestic architecture of Virginia.
ST. LUKE’S EPISCOPAL CHURCH, Church Street and Greentree Road, Bower Hill, 1851. Stone meeting house with simple Gothic detailing.
## Sewickley and Beyond
Crossing back over the city, we move down the Ohio River Boulevard to Sewickley, possibly the most elegant of Pittsburgh’s old residental suburbs.
NICHOLAS WAY HOUSE, Beaver Road, Edgeworth, 1838. This brick story and a half house on a high basement, with its slender portico reflects the building practice of the late 18th century with some Greek Revival touches added.
Similar to this house in form is the
ISAAC LIGHTNER HOUSE, Mount Royal Boulevard, Glenshaw, 1833, but much more Greek Revival in feeling.
LEET TAVERN, Leetsdale, c. 1800. Now a private house, this simple two story building is a good example of Western Pennsylvania stone vernacular architecture of the late 18th and early 19th century.
HARMONY SOCIETY BUILDINGS, Economy (now part of Ambridge), 1824-30. This town, erected by one of the most notable and long-enduring American communal religious societies of the 19th century, was a pleasant and interesting example of town-planning of the period but its character has been much changed by industrial invasion. The remaining large buildings which constituted the core of the settlement—the Great House, the Feast Hall and the Church—reflect the late 18th Century Classical practice of eastern America as seen through German eyes. These buildings (excluding the Church) together with the community garden plot belong to the State Historical Commission, but the whole complex of structures should be restored as a significant social and architectural monument of the period.
This concludes our architectural pilgrimage for the moment. It is hoped at some future day to publish a guide to the buildings of Western Pennsylvania beyond the Pittsburgh area.