7510 Trevanion Avenue: The Hellmund House -- Treasure Trove of Photos!

I have a real treat for you today! Paul, the present owner of the Hellmund House at 7510 Trevanion Avenue, generously gave me a tour of his home. It is unbelievable. It is also for sale. You can check out the listing here.

Paul and his wife have done an amazing job restoring and updating the house, paying great respect to Frederick Scheibler's work. I could post a hundred photos from my visit, but I narrowed it down to my 30-some favorites. 

I first wrote about this house in 2013. Here's what I wrote:

"I love the surprising shape of this house. 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.

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."

According to Aurand, the Hellmunds chose Scheibler as their architect because they lived in the  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."

From Martin Aurand's "The Progressive Architecture of Frederick G. Scheibler, Jr."

Amazing outdoor space to the side and rear of the home

So many original light fixtures remain!

Let's go inside! There's a treat immediately inside the front door -- a treasure trove of stained glass!

As you can see in the next picture, these panels of irises sit immediately inside the front entry.

Right around the corner from the front door comes the "ladies' parlor."

Look at the poppies in this amazing stained glass piece!

The stairway pops you into a spread of 5 rooms. Check out the closet on the left!

This is the room Mr. Hellmund used as his office.

The bedroom has a surprise powder room! Paul slid back what looked like a closet door to reveal this little space. It used to be a single-stall shower, which they converted into a powder room.

Paul told me that the original blueprint shows a fireplace instead of this set of built-in shelves.

Paul and his wife updated this amazing kitchen.

Here you can see one of the built-in china cabinets.

Paul and his wife created this amazing basement space.

I'm so grateful to Paul for showing me around his home ... and I'm jealous of the lucky person or family that gets to live here. I hope they love all the amazing details! I hope you enjoyed it too!

P.S. Here's a link to a Post-Gazette article with more photos and info.

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

225 - 233 Hay Street, townhouses - Scheibler-like?

We met some friendly cats on today's treasure hunt.

Without planning it, a side effect of this project has been that Porter has peed on every Scheibler home in Pittsburgh! 

I originally posted these townhouses as Scheibler buildings, but now, I'm not convinced. They are not listed in Martin Aurand's catalogue in The Progressive Architecture of Frederick G. Scheibler. On closer inspection, I'm not sure that they are Scheiblers, even though Regent Square Rentals claims that they are.

Here's what I captured, anyway:

Approaching Hay Street from Biddle...

These properties have basements that exit into the back lawn.

Hey kitties!

Regent Square Rentals posted these photos of the interior. I did not take these photos.