Home set for demolition nominated as landmark
Pittsburgh’s oldest preservation group on Monday nominated a Squirrel Hill home for designation as a city landmark, a move aimed at preventing demolition of a house designed by Robert Venturi.
The city Historic Review Commission received the nomination for the home at 118 A Woodland Road from Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation and will process it Tuesday.
The homeowners, William I. and Patricia S. Snyder, have, for the second time in 27 years, bought what preservationists call a significant architectural landmark with plans to demolish it.
In 1991, the Snyders paid $891,000 for a mansion built in 1929 by B.F. Jones III, a grandson of a founder of the Jones & Laughlin Steel Co. The rambling Colonial Revival stood at 203 Creek Drive in Edgeworth. The architect was Brandon
Smith, designer of the Edgeworth Club and several additional homes in that affluent community.
After tearing down the Jones house, which sat on 3½ acres, the Snyders built a new home. Mr. Snyder is in the scrap metal business and was an investor in the Pittsburgh Pirates before Kevin McClatchy bought the team in 1996. In 2007, the Snyders gave $1.5 million to Sewickley Valley Hospital, and its emergency department is named for Mrs. Snyder.
The Snyders applied for a demolition permit July 23 for the Woodland Road home in Squirrel Hill. The city’s review of that application includes ensuring that the couple have secured proper financing, the contractor is licensed, and that all rights of way, safety and environmental issues have been addressed.
The Snyders own two homes on Woodland, which bisects the Chatham University campus. They also maintain their Edgeworth home on Creek Drive, a New York apartment for which they paid $1.7 million, a house in Boca Raton, Fla., a home in Moon, and another residence in Blacksburg, Va.
In May 2017, the Snyders paid $600,000 for a white International Style home at 118 Woodland that was designed by Richard Meier, who created the Getty Center in Los Angeles. Mr. Meier, 83, and Mr. Venturi, 93, are both recipients of the Pritzker Architecture Prize, which comes with a medallion and $100,000.
Mr. Venturi and his wife, Denise Scott Brown, designed a home for Betty and Irving Abrams with the address of 118 A Woodland Road. Finished in 1982, it stands next to the Meier house at the end of a private drive. Mrs. Abrams died in February, leaving the home to her two daughters.
Joe Zemba, past president and current vice president of the Sewickley Valley Historical Society, said Woodland Road in Squirrel Hill “has everything from the Mellon houses to the Gropius house.” He referred to a large home completed in 1940 for Robert and Cecilia Frank at 96 East Woodland Road. Walter Gropius designed it, and Marcel Breuer created all of the furniture.
Mrs. Abrams was a teenager when she visited the Frank house — a formative experience that fueled her interest in modern architecture and prompted her to buy land on Woodland Road and build there.
“It’s really sad that so many people ignore history because they choose to make their own rather than embracing the past. … We see this time and time again in the Sewickley Valley and throughout the world where wonderful works of architecture are destroyed by the erection of new structures that are the choosing of the current owners,” Mr. Zemba said.
The Snyders maintain that demolition is the only option for the Venturi house because of what they call irreparable damage to it, according to their adviser and art dealer, Samuel Berkovitz, owner of Concept Gallery in Regent Square. The Snyders have declined to speak on the record about their plans.
Mrs. Abrams’ will dictated that her home be given to the Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation under certain conditions. Under that scenario, the foundation could have attached a conservation easement to the property deed, protecting it from demolition. Then the foundation could have sold the property.
Mrs. Abrams also gave her heirs the option of selling to others.
Arthur Ziegler, president of Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation, said Mrs. Abrams’ daughters, Cathryn Jane Abrams and Carol Jo Hozid, decided to sell the house to the Snyders.
‘We were to inherit the house … and sell it and create two annuities for the daughters,” Mr. Ziegler said, adding that the foundation did not have enough time to do a full construction analysis and, as a result, does not have a firm number for restoration costs.
“But we were prepared to put the house in very good condition for sale. I think I told you that preliminarily it looked like at least $200,000 or more. Under certain conditions, the daughters had the right to sell the house and take a lump sum proceed instead of the annuities and that is what they did,” Mr. Ziegler said.
Mr. Berkovitz contended that criticizing the Snyders would be unfair because the foundation had a chance to buy the property and passed on it.
“The attorney for the estate negotiated and tried to make an arrangement with PHLF,” Mr. Berkovitz said. “It’s unfair to criticize the Snyders for not being willing to do it when the PHLF wouldn’t do it.”
The house is in need of repairs, Mr. Berkovitz said, estimating costs would total $1 million.
Don Kortlandt, general counsel for PHLF, said he did not know when the city’s Historic Review Commision would rule on the organization’s nomination.