Mt. Lebanon Usonian house has Taliesin features
Sometimes you’re lucky enough to turn up a gem while house hunting.
“We were looking and had lived in two other houses in Mt. Lebanon,” said Karen Platt. “My husband (David) saw an advertisement on Craigslist. A musician owned the house and wanted a quick sale. We did not know of the architect before that.”
The architect she is speaking of is Peter Berndtson, a student at Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taliesin school. Mr. Berndtson is famous in his own right, best known for Polymath Park in the Laurel Highlands, near Wright’s Fallingwater and Kentuck Knob. Though he designed more than 80 houses in his career, only 30 were built, including the one at 183 Gilkeson Road in Mt. Lebanon.
The three-bedroom, 2½-bath inverted ranch is on the market for $298,000 (MLS No. 1279916) with Deborah Dattalo of Howard Hanna Real Estate, (412-334-1077 or www.howardhanna.com). It is under agreement.
The original owners, Lisa and Stanley Marshall, lived in a Wright home in Wisconsin and wrote to the architect requesting he design their new home in the fall of 1957. A letter documents that they arranged a trip to Taliesin to meet the famous architect.
Back then, an architect’s average commission was 8 percent of a house’s cost. For 10 percent, they could get Frank Lloyd Wright, and Mrs. Marshall felt they should get the best, former Post-Gazette art and architecture critic Donald Miller and Aaron Sheon wrote in their 1980 book “Organic Vision: The Architecture of Peter Berndtson.”
But Wright said to them: “I’m 84 and working on a mile-high building for Chicago. I fear I would not live to see your house completed.” He referred the couple to Berndtson, speaking highly of his talents.
The master architect was right: He died on April 9, 1959. The
Marshalls broke ground in the summer of 1960 and the house was completed a year later.
The house sits on 1.2 acres overlooking busy Gilkeson Road and is accessed by a private driveway. It features many design hallmarks of the Taliesin school, including long, low roof lines, seamless corner windows, polished concrete floors and built-in furniture.
The Platts bought the house in 2009 and quickly fell in love with it, becoming students of architecture in the process. “We certainly spend a lot of time polishing and maintaining the wood in the home,” she said.
The exterior and interior walls are cinder-block and the house is surrounded by patios on all sides. Long windows bring in lots of natural light to brighten the open floor plan.
The main entry is beneath a portico and leads to a 25by- 19-foot family room/dining space. Uplighting illuminates the beamed, angled ceiling and a fireplace wall.
The 14- by-9-foot kitchen has its original open design. The homeowners had the linoleum floor replaced in historically appropriate colors. One quirk is the an original wood-burning stove.
“Mrs. Marshall liked to cook on a wood fire. It was the only dispute she had with Mr. Berndtson on the house design. He relented and the stove went in,” Ms. Platt said.
The couple kept it as part of the house history and it still functions. There is an electric stove and oven nearby. All of the cabinets, beams and woodwork are original. The granite counter tops are not.
The 16-by- 13-foot master bedroom is on the first floor.
“There were three very small bedrooms. They were dorm room-style and across from there was a dressing table and space. Three bedrooms were taken down to two by the former owner,” Ms. Platt said.
The new bedroom sizes are 15 by 9 feet and 9 by 7 feet.
The lower level has a 25by-19-foot finished space with radiant-heated concrete floors and a fireplace.
Mrs. Platt says owning a historic house has many pluses. “We used to entertain the whole soccer team. Thirty people fit comfortably in the living room and everyone moved freely.”
The property’s assessed value is $259,100 (www2.county.allegheny. Search.aspx). In the last three years,no single family homes have sold on Gilkeson Road (www.realstats.net).
Berndtson’s drawings and notes are now preserved in the Hunt Library at Carnegie Mellon University. Ms. Platt has kept in touch with the Marshalls’ descendants and will give documents about the house to its new owner.
“This is not the kind of house to buy if you want to change and modernize it,” she said. “The craftsmanship made us want to honor the architect. We have enjoyed every minute of living in the house.”