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!

7304 Whipple Street - born in 1905

7308 Whipple Street - born in 1905

7308 again

Zillow offers this shot of the inside of 7308. 

7309 Whipple Street -  1904

7309 again - hello!

7312 Whipple Street -  1905

7312 again

We get to peek inside 7312!

7312 Whipple

7312

7312

7313 Whipple Street -  1904

Gorgeous foyer of 7313

Inside of 7313 

Kitchen in 7313

7316 Whipple Street -  1905

7316 again

7317 Whipple Street - 1904

7320 Whipple Street -  1905

7321 Whipple Street -  1904

7324 Whipple Street -  1905

7325 Whipple Street, which I thought was the most interesting of the group.

7325 again, with a view of the side.  1904.

7328 Whipple Street -  1905

7506, 7508 and 7510 Trevanion Avenue houses

Get ready for a motherlode! We're about to look at three of the beautiful homes that made me fall in love with Frederick Scheibler in the first place.

But this morning, my Beagle seemed extra tired. Porter came to me with a lot of health problems, so when he drags himself along, I take it seriously. I decided to turn today's dogwalk into a joyride.

I love my little Beag.

Beauty overload! I knew this gorgeous trio was made of Scheibler homes the first time I visited the annual Regent Square Yard Sales.



These homes were built during a time when the middle class was growing and Pittsburgh's East End was quickly filling with houses that were designed for economy over aesthetics. Many of the same basic designs were being used over and over again. Scheibler's houses, though, stood out.

Working chronologically, here is the Miller House: 7506 Trevanion Avenue, built in 1905. I love how it juts off unexpectedly, with stained glass and a corner of windowed walls. (I wish I was a famous Scheibler scholar so owners would invite me inside.) The Miller House is on the Historic Landmark registry.

7506, taken from in front of 7508

Right next door, you'll find 7508 Trevanion Avenue, built a little later: 1922-1923.

7508 and 7506.

Check out the stained glass in 7508, below. It is almost the same as the piece in 425 South Braddock Avenue. See? Click here!

But now for my personal favorite: The very romantic Hellmund House, 7510 Trevanion, built in 1915. This might be my second favorite Scheibler building of all time, falling short only to the Old Heidelberg. I would desperately love to see inside it.

I love the surprising shape. The front door isn't stuck on the front of the house; it's tucked into a little cutaway. There are arches, geometric shapes, stone mosaics, leaded and art glass, stone walkways, French doors leading onto a balcony, surprising angles, a chimney and a patio. The driveway dips into a lower level garage (also by Scheibler).

In The Progressive Architecture of Frederick G. Scheibler, Martin Aurand says that the house has an "obsession with corners," since the main entry opens at a corner of the house and every room is entered at a corner.

He also writes that "The rooms abound with built-in cabinets, fireplaces with inset tiles, and an array of custom-designed lamps ranging from a bejeweled urn to a futuristic recessed ceiling fixture. This abundance of inventive detail turns the house into a jewel box."

Speaking of jewel box, look how the upper and lower roof are connected by a triangular spandrel, accented with dots of colored tiles. And, Scheibler returns to the stucco.

I can't imagine calling this beautiful place home. 

According to Aurand, the Hellmunds chose Scheibler as their architect because they lived in the (now-shabby) Meado'cots. Rudolph E. Hellmund was a prestigious engineer and inventor who spent his leisure time gardening. He and his wife had a love affair with their house, calling it by the affectionate German diminutive, their Hausen. 

Here is the floor plan, courtesy of Martin Aurand. Click to enlarge it.

One last thing. Looks like I missed my chance to tour these houses during a Regent Square house tour in 1997!

Old Heidelberg Apartments, 405 - 21 South Braddock Avenue

It makes sense to start our treasure hunt with the Old Heidelberg Apartments, a historic landmark in Park Place and one of Frederick G. Scheibler's best-known buildings.

Scheibler's task was to design a building to attract aristocrats. According to one published report, the Old Heidelberg was finished in 1905 to be "something unique, and of worthy appearance to occupy [the site] of one of the most aristocratic neighborhoods of the city." One of the ways he did this was to disguise the apartment building into what looked like a sprawling country house.

This beautiful, playful Old World building looks like something out of a fairy tale. I remember riding past it when I was little and my mom drove us to the East End Food Co-Op. I imagined that very lucky, very interesting people must live inside--like playwrights and poets and professors.

The Old Heidelberg is whimsically bedecked in mosaics and mushrooms (reportedly dedicated to his daughter), and is delightfully symmetrical and random at the same time. While the building is balanced with an equal number of balconies, doors, and windows, every one is slightly different. The second-floor apartments have French doors with art glass that open their living rooms onto their balconies.

One of the men who commissioned it, Fred Bruckman, named it the Old Heidelberg after the town Heidelberg, Germany, where his family emigrated from.

Entryway, under the famous plaster mushrooms!

I took this photo in August 2007. I like how there are no air conditioners in the windows...but if you click to enlarge and look closely, you can see a cat!

Taken in April 2013. Nice shot of the high red tile roof

The Old Heidelberg represents Scheibler's first use of white stucco, a hallmark of the European cottage tradition. Aurand writes that Scheibler used white stucco exclusively in his designs for the next five years, and that Pittsburgh's stucco buildings from that period are almost automatically attributed to Scheibler.

The Old Heidelberg holds four L-shaped apartments on each of its three floors. The L-shape allows every single room in every apartment to have a window. Each room radiates out of a central foyer, or, as Scheibler labeled them "reception room," with the kitchen tucked in the back. A back door exits from the kitchen down to an alley -- Flotilla Way.

Each of the apartment doors features a different art glass flower.

Here is the floorplan, from Martin Aurand's The Progressive Architecture of Frederick G. Scheibler. You'll see that what Mozart Management now calls the "pantries" were then the servants' rooms. I like that the living rooms were called "parlors!"

The photos you see in this entry show the Old Heidelberg as it looks in 2013, with the later additions of 5 cottages and a connected house. This photo from 1906 shows how it looked before those additions.

Some more historical photos from the Library of Congress:

Old Heidelberg dining room

I can't figure this photo out. Today, the building is much closer to the road than it shows in this photo. When did Braddock Avenue look like when this photo was taken?

Old Heidelberg living room

Here are some interior shots that I took. You can find more on Mozart Management's web page, here.

This is the art glass light fixture in the shared front entryway.

Interior, one of the dining rooms, with built-in china cabinet and plate rail

Interior, one of the dining rooms, with fireplace with copper hood and a window seat

Interior, one of the living rooms

Living room with marble/tile fireplace

"Servant's quarters," looking into the kitchen. I'm amazed that an apartment of this modest size could have a servant.

Rear