Funeral home’s hall to welcome families, events

Slater’s building will seat up to 125

When William Slater transported the deceased to the cemetery in an earlier era, the bodies were in homemade caskets on a flatbedwagon pulled by horses.

Funeralpractices have undergone quite a few changes since then and they continue to change, said funeral director John F. Slater, William Slater’s great-great-grandson and owner of John F. Slater FuneralHome in Brentwood.

“It is evolution,” he said. Continuing that evolution, he plans to expand his business in keeping with a modern trend nationwide for funeral homes to offer more services to the community, hesaid.

A new chapel is being built in the funeral home at 4201 Brownsville Road, and a two-story building is being built adjacent to it.

The building will be called The Whitehall House and will have seating for 125, a warming kitchen and audio-visual capabilities and it will be fully handicapped-accessible. It will be used for funeral luncheons and as a place for mourners to go for a break during visitation. It also will be rented out for birthdays, anniversaries, reunions, showers and other functions.

The nondenominational chapel will be created by renovating the existing attached garage. It will hold up to 120 people, replacing a service room that holds up to 65.

“The new one will look more like a chapel,” Mr. Slater said. “I think it will be a very versatile room — for families who want traditional services and those who want something a bit contemporary.”

The work also includes adding 30 more parking spaces by extending the current parking lot and building a new parking lot adjacent to The Whitehall House.

The entire project is scheduled for completion in winter 2018.

“It’s been a long time planning,” Mr. Slater said.

To make space for The Whitehall House, the funeral home bought three houses that were for sale behind the funeral home property. The three homes were demolishedin January.

The Whitehall House is named after the White Hall Tavern, which occupied the sitemore than a century ago.

The tavern offered food and lodging and served as a stagecoach stop between Pittsburgh and Brownsville, Fayette County. That’s how Brownsville Road acquired its name, Mr. Slater said.

After the White Hall Tavern burned down, a large house was built around 1900 on the site. The house eventually became the John H. Slater Sons Funeral Home. In 1972, the business was incorporated as the John F. Slater Funeral Home Inc.