New pictures of the Linwood Apartments!

Exciting! The Linwood Apartments are for sale (again). I added a lot more photos to this post. Check them out!

501 Hill Avenue is on Craigslist Today

Well this is exciting! A unit in a building by Frederick Scheibler is available for rent, with photos posted online. 

Here's the description and photos:

"This is a wonderful 2-bedroom 1st-floor apartment, in an original Scheibler building. The building is on the National Register of Historic Places. It includes a spacious Living Room, Dining Room, small Office/Den, Bedrom and Kitchen with dishwasher and appliances. Original woodwork throughout, including decorative fireplaces, built-in bookcases and lots of big windows with wonderful light. Hardwood floors throughout, including wood parquet floor in kitchen. Please note there is only a shower and NO BATHTUB. Lots of storage space. Coin-op Laundry on the second floor. Outdoor Patio space in front and rear (kitchen tiled terrace) of building. Short walk to the East Busway. Easy by bus or car to Oakland, Downtown, and the Parkway. Rent is $635 per month. Tenant pays own gas ($75 montly budget), electric and annual garbage collection fee.

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.

L

Highland Towers, 340 South Highland Avenue, apartments

Are you ready for a treat? Tonight I'm going to show you Shadyside's amazing historic landmark, designed in 1913-14: Highland Towers. 

When it opened on Highland Avenue, Highland Towers Apartments was the height of modernity. The building, which originally contained four 10-room flats, featured such modern wonders as telephones, electrical connections in every room, clothes dryers, a central vacuum cleaning system, a Modulated Vapor System adjustable for each room and a room for servants in each unit.

While the Old Heidelberg promised cozy, fairy tale-like spaces, Highland Towers boasted a high-class home that was the product of modern art and science. The flats' living rooms, dining rooms and solariums were located towards the front of the building, with the bedrooms, libraries and servants' rooms towards the back.

Today, Highland Towers has been much-altered. The four flats are now 36 apartments. 

The front sides are covered with tile mosaics!

Like me, Porter remains ever-hopeful that someday, someone will invite us inside.

This building, unlike so many of Scheibler's others, sprawls right to the sidewalk. There is, however, a small garden court above the sidewalk (between the two staircases) for the eyes of the residents. 

This is just to show you the side and rear. Even the side has been artfully designed! The building's original brochure promises a garage with rooftop gardens, but unfortunately, I didn't go looking for it. I should have.

Now for an extra treat... Franklin West, the company that manages Highland Towers, has photos of the incredible interior on their website. I can not get over the art glass, arches, fireplaces, built-in dressers and other details.

You can visit their site over here, or check out my favorites below. Of course, I did not take these photos.

See how some rooms are divided by 3/4 walls.