Perfect pitch
Shadyside mansion features colorful art and great acoustics
When Michael Cook saw this house in Shadyside 22 years ago, he was entranced with its location, dimensions and income potential. The charming brick house had 4,000 square feet of living space on the first and third floors and a 3,500-square-foot apartment on the second floor.
His wife, Abigail, was much less enchanted.
“There was nothing that I liked. I was like Goldilocks. It was too big, too hot, too cold. We were used to 1,500 square feet in Jersey City [N.J.]”
Now they’re on the same page, and their house is one of eight on the Shadyside House Tour from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sept. 22. Tickets are $20 in advance at www.shadysideaction.org or $25 on tour day at Winchester Thurston School on Ellsworth Avenue near Morewood Avenue. Proceeds benefit the Shadyside Action Coalition.
Mr. Cook believes this was a farmhouse when it was built in 1880. But three additions later, their living space is much grander, with three fireplaces, three bedrooms, 2½ bathrooms, and living and dining rooms as impressive as any in Shadyside.
“The public rooms are the most graciously proportioned,” Mr. Cook said. “You don’t find crown molding like this very often.”
The adjacent study and sun room are lovely, too, and have great acoustics. The family has hosted a halfdozen concerts in the house over the past 21 years. Chatham Baroque and Mandolin Orange, a North Carolina folk duo, are among the groups that
have performed there.
A collection of McCoy pottery lines the top of cabinets in the study, but it is the Cooks’ art collection that steals the show. On the walls are large photos by Mark Panza and paintings by local artists Ron Donoughe, Kevin Kutz, Arthur Metzler, Patrick Lee and Patrick Ruane.
The house also features San Francisco artwork: steel candlesticks, cutlery and other items by metal artisan Jefferson Mack, Mrs. Cook’s brother, and colorful paintings by Veerakeat Tongpaiboon.
One of the Thai native’s works in a bright orange frame hangs in the kitchen on the central chimney. When the Cooks updated the kitchen five years ago, they opted to keep the glossy white laminate cabinets from the 1970s.
“Luckily the cabinets came back into style,” Mr. Cook said, laughing.
But their slab doors got new handles to match new quartz and stainless-steel counter tops, a gray industrial-grade laminate floor and white plantation shutters.
The couple also improved the third-floor space, creating another study and a guest bedroom with a kitchenette. Their daughter Julia stays there when visiting from Seattle.
“You feel like you’re in a bird’s nest,” her mother said.
Mrs. Cook, president of the Linden Garden Club, has also upgraded the landscaping, adding boxwood hedges, oakleaf and big-leaf hydrangea, hostas, ornamental grasses, volunteer cherry tomatoes, annuals and perennials. The back patio was a favorite place for summer dinners, and the front porch is a comfortable spot for a glass of wine.
The Cooks also added high-velocity air conditioning and replaced 75 windows, leaving the arched ones in front intact. They know a little about the house’s former owners thanks to Mr. Cook’s research involving Sanborn insurance maps. He was surprised to find the house was owned by a single woman in the late 1890s, which was unusual.
A little more digging showed that Kate Hale won a lawsuit filed by a contractor who claimed she hadn’t paid him for work on the house. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled in her favor, Mr. Cook said, and a judge admonished the contractor for entering into a contract with a woman.
Kevin Kirkland: kkirkland@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1978.