Events
Historical Walking Tour: Schenley Farms: A “Residential Utopia” in Oakland
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In 1903, a Cleveland-born businessman named Franklin Felix Nicola, who had moved to Pittsburgh in the mid-1890s, bought the last parcels of land in Oakland left after the death of heiress Mary Schenley that year. Nicola had already built a glamorous hotel on a nearby site that he’d purchased from Schenley in 1897, and part of what he planned for the additional land was a residential enclave of the highest quality. By 1906, he had commissioned several well-regarded local architects to design model houses in various architectural styles common at the time. Over the following 15 years, Nicola constructed 96 houses on the flat portion of his site (another 39 were built on a terrace of land above this), subject to design guidelines and incorporating innovative features like underground electrical and telephone lines. This tour will visit the flat, gridded part of Schenley Farms, which, to this day, rewards pedestrians with multiple charms.
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