One Girl and One Beagle's Scheibler Treasure Hunt: 2013

Monday, July 8, 2013

1090 Devon Road, House

Hello! If you're a return visitor, be sure to wade back into some old entries. Since starting this blog, I've been adding interior shots to past blog entries. I recently added inside shots of the gorgeous 121 LaCrosse and also 420 East End Avenue.

Also, past and current owners have been lending some insight about the properties. I love all the great information in these comments from a former owner of one of the Starr Houses!

Moving along, yesterday, Porter and I drove to Oakland to find 1090 Devon Road. Devon Road sits right across Forbes Avenue from Carnegie Mellon University.

Well hi!

This very asymmetrical home was designed in 1909 for Charles W. Baird. In The Progressive Architecture of Frederick G. Scheibler, Martin Aurand counts it among Scheibler's "Artistic Houses."

I felt like there was an optical illusion that made the doorway look extra short from the street, like a gnome's door!

The four-legged resident was very interested in Porter!

I found these photos on Zillow. I love how the staircase is tucked into this room!

Scroll down to see a much older photograph taken from this same angle!

These photos are from The Progressive Architecture of Frederick G. Scheibler.

The exterior photos show how the home was built into Pittsburgh's hilly terrain, with the rear terrace cut out in an exposed foundation. I love the cone-shaped alcove in the back! Someone could enjoy breakfast there while gazing out over Oakland and the Cathedral of Learning.

Sunday, July 7, 2013

Porter Update

By the way, my little co-pilot, Porter the Beagle, has recovered from heart worm really well and is settling in to life in the city. Check him out!

Inglenook Row Houses and my last trip to Homewood

Today I drove to Homewood in search of the Inglenook Row Houses.

(Turns out, I'm not going back to Homewood. The rest of the Homewood buildings will be posted using photos that I can dig up online!)

Today I found the very short stretch that is Inglenook Place, which is almost entirely, if not exclusively, lined with Scheibler's row houses. I had checked out the properties online ahead of time and found that recent sale prices hover around $2,000, so I knew that they were not very desirable these days.

In 1907, Frederick G. Scheibler designed 7908-7930 and 7909-7923 Inglenook Place. 7900-7906 and 7901-7907 Inglenook Place were designed in 1909.

The yards and porches were full of people -- who did not appreciate a blogger with a camera. As a result, I only took these two photos.

Look - arches.

Here is a photo from Martin Aurand's The Progressive Architecture of Frederick G. Scheibler.

I wonder when this photo was taken. The yards look very different now.

Scheibler was a leader in the progressive movement to improve housing for the working and middle class. This movement took shape in England as the Garden City Movement, which Aurand writes, "was intended to be a vast improvement on the crowded conditions and architectural monotony of typical urban housing." I like how Aurand adds, "Special emphasis was laid on plantings and the provision of pleasant views and sunlight."

The Inglenook Row Houses, or Group Cottages, as Frederick Scheibler would have termed them, are an example of urban living that rescues us from monotony.

Aurand writes that Scheibler must have advocated for this kind of housing to his clients Robinson and Bruckman.

The Ingelnook Row Houses have planer brick walls, minimal detailing and flat roofs. Their front porches differentiate individual units. Aurand writes that the only exterior decoration is a checkerboard motif incised onto the butt ends of timbers at the eaves of porch roofs.

I am really glad that I visited the Meado'cots before I developed a healthy fear of Homewood.

Thursday, July 4, 2013

For the Love of a Good Treasure Hunt!

"Search activity simply feels good--a fact that helps explain why shopping for something is often more fun than buying it, hunting can be more enjoyable than actually bagging your prey..."
- Jeffrey Kluger, "The Happiness of Pursuit"

More to come soon! Happy July 4th!

Sunday, June 30, 2013

115 LaCrosse Street, House

Today I discovered interior photographs of the LaCrosse Street houses online. So, let's revisit them!

I did not take the interior shots myself. However, if anyone who lives inside a Scheibler building ever wants to invite me inside, I'll bring cookies! And an impossibly cute Beagle, if you like dogs.

Today I'll start with 115 LaCrosse, in Edgewood. I took these exterior photos back in April before springtime bloomed in Edgewood. You can visit its neighbors and siblings, 121 and 129 LaCrosse, by clicking here.

Gorgeous yard

Now, let's go inside! These photos are from the realtor's website.

This green tile fireplace looks very much like fireplaces inside the Old Heidelberg cottages.

Craft Avenue Apartments: 300 Craft Avenue

Let's visit some early work! Today's treasure hunt is taking us way back to 1901, the first year that Frederick Scheibler's architecture started showing up (with one exception - the cottage he designed for himself in 1897).

The Craft Avenue Apartments are nestled in between a gas station and Oakland's hospitals. It's hard to imagine artful architecture holding up in the land of undergraduate housing. Apparently, this building has been substantially altered over the years.

In The Progressive Architecture of Frederick G. Scheibler, Martin Aurand writes that 300 Craft Avenue is a colonial apartment building built for the United Real Estate and Construction Company.

He writes,

"This building is part of a complex of five apartment buildings built by company president William G. Price, Jr. in late 1901 and early 1902. Four of the buildings were of related design (one has been destroyed by fire). The fifth is presumably the Scheibler project."

I just realized that my Subaru is one of the characters in this blog.

Nothing too exciting in here.

Aha! A stained glass window! Looking good...I wonder how many of these used to be stained glass.

There were go ,,, some Scheiblery balconies.

Rear

I love the contrast of the 112-year-old building against the hospital landscape.

Saturday, June 22, 2013

Whipple Street Houses: 7304, 7308, 7309, 7312, 7313, 7316, 7317, 7320, 7321, 7324, 7325 and 7328

Hey! Today we're headed to Swissvale, and the years 1904 and 1905 to see 12 houses that popped up right before the Old Heidelberg.

Ready?

These homes looked, to me, like such quintessential "Pittsburgh Houses" that I would never have guessed that they are Frederick G. Scheibler's. They sit along the same block on Whipple Street, which used to be called Alice Avenue, and were commissioned by David B. Little and George H. Pfeil.

From the outside, I'm hard-pressed to point out any Scheibler signature details. However, Zillow.com provides some interior photos with the stained glass windows and built-in cabinets I expected!