Category Archive: Architecture & Architects
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Summit Inn Resort provides relaxing escape
By Jennifer Reeger
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Sunday, July 1, 2007The psychics sat at the resort’s bar a few years back, regaling patrons with tales of the spirits around them.
But Karen Harris figured the psychics were phony. The women made no mention of the one soul who should have been lingering at The Summit Inn Resort: her father, Donald Shoemaker.“If there was somebody here, it would be my dad, because he loved this place,” Harris says.
Shoemaker and his wife, Eunice, loved the Summit so much that they borrowed from the bank and sold what they could to buy the resort in 1964, seven years after moving there to manage the inn near Farmington, Fayette County.
And while the Shoemaker family has spent 50 years tending to the resort atop Summit Mountain in the Chestnut Ridge along Route 40, those 50 years are only half the story.
This year, the Summit Inn, a grand old resort hotel on 1,000 acres, celebrates its 100th anniversary.It was opened in 1907 by a group of Uniontown businessmen, who thought a hotel overlooking their town along the National Road would make a good investment.
Tourists weren’t flocking to Fallingwater and Kentuck Knob back then — they didn’t exist — so the Summit and the beauty of the Laurel Highlands were the attraction.
From the inn’s wraparound porch, visitors can gaze out over five counties. And Harris says that on a clear day, the U.S. Steel building in downtown Pittsburgh is visible.
Ten years after its opening, the inn played host to the “American Science Wizards,” including Henry Ford and Thomas Edison, who raced down the mountain in automobiles. A copy of the guest register from their visit hangs in the hotel lobby, complete with signatures and room assignments.
In 1918, Leo Heyn took over as manager of the inn. Twelve years later, he bought the resort. Eunice Shoemaker, 81, says Heyn “really got this hotel on the map.”
Heyn was a “real colorful character” who kept two dachshunds at the resort to greet guests. A Bichon Frise, named Tootsie, serves as the resort’s mascot.
Under Heyn’s watch, the Olympic-sized outdoor pool was built, complete with high and low dives. He used to have contests for people to walk on logs in the pool, Shoemaker says. And Heyn added skiing to the resort’s offerings, although today, the Summit closes for the winter.
Summit Inn advertisements from the 1930s still hang on the walls. Harris, 52, chuckles recalling some of the claims, such as the inn being free of asthma, fireproof and having no mosquitoes.
At the time, guests could pay $50 to become “King for a Day,” which offered an unlimited expense account and the opportunity to eat everything from caviar to Maine lobster.
“I was thinking about today how much it would cost to have somebody be ‘King for a Day,’ ” Harris says.
The inn hit harder times during the Depression and war years, as fewer people were taking driving trips. The Heyn family sold the hotel in 1946 to Maxwell Abell.
In 1957, Donald Shoemaker moved his family from Bedford so he could take over as manager of the Summit. Eunice Shoemaker recalls that the Mission and Craftsman-influenced building had fallen into disrepair.
The owner was in Chicago and didn’t care to spend money on the inn, Shoemaker says. Her husband was ready to take a job in Puerto Rico when he was offered the chance to buy the inn.
“We sold everything we could and got money from the bank,” Shoemaker says.
They bought the inn in May 1964 and started renovations. They did a few rooms at first, enough so that Shoemaker could invite her bridge club over and not be embarrassed.
“For years, my father was a conservationist. If he could save anything, it was saved and it was used,” Harris says.
The whole family joined the effort to make it work. They lived across the road from the inn but spent most of their waking time at the resort. Harris was 5 when she and her parents moved there.
“The lobby really was my living room,” she says.
“She grew up with the hotel, and that’s why she’s able to run the hotel so well today,” Shoemaker says.
When Harris was little, she was paid a penny for every fly she killed. She folded napkins, too.
“The day (guests) came in, I’d sit on the porch and wait for someone my age,” she says. “When they’d leave, I’d hide because I didn’t want them to leave.”
As she got older, Harris became popular among friends.
“I used to have slumber parties, and my friends could not wait until it was my turn,” she says.
With its multiple staircases and lots of nooks, it’s easy to get lost in the massive building. But it also has a sense of intimacy.
“I think that’s the attention that our guests of today totally enjoy,” Harris says. “It’s more comfortable. Even though we have 94 rooms, it has the feel of a bed and breakfast.”
Harris says many guests think of mountain resorts from two movies — “The Shining” and “Dirty Dancing” — when they see the Summit.
But the inn made history in its own right, having been added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2005.
Things have changed over the years. Shoemaker remembers that the inn used to be run like a cruise ship.
“You had something planned every day and night,” she says.
Today, guests enjoy relaxing by the outdoor pool or swimming in the heated indoor pool. They might golf a round at the nine-hole course or play video games in the game room. But many guests choose to stay at the Summit and venture out to other attractions in the Laurel Highlands.
And while there used to be a formal dress code for the dining room, today’s guests arrive in jeans and shorts. Guest rooms have private baths, televisions and air conditioning. No two rooms are decorated the same.
“A building like this is just a constant renovation and upkeep. We just do what our eyes tell us needs to be taken care of,” Harris says. “We take probably 15 rooms or more a year and redo them totally, and the others we’ll just paint.”
But many things have remained the same. Guests still walk to the lobby down a grand staircase, the sun shining on them from two large stained-glass windows.
In the lobby, they sit on the same Gustav Stickley furniture that Ford and Edison found there. And they can look at — but not touch — an 1868 Steinway square grand piano.
Carol Rubaker, 68, of Baldwin, Allegheny County, first stayed at the Summit in the early 1960s. She was looking for a place she and her then-husband could drive to for a getaway.
“It was only a 45- to 50-minute ride from Pittsburgh, and when we got there, it was like a million miles away from home,” she says.
“I love the old-fashioned charm of it,” she says. “No matter what room you get, you’re not beside an ice machine that’s clunking all night long.”
Rubaker says she’s stayed at the Summit every year since 1971.
“Everybody that knows me knows that I go to Uniontown for my vacation,” she says. “I’ve been to Hawaii. I’ve been on a cruise, but everyone remembers I go to Uniontown.”
Mary Boord, of Newark, Del., used to go to the Summit Inn as a child in Canonsburg, Washington County, about 65 years ago. She remembers the two dachshunds and the pool.
“The swimming pool had a slide going down into it,” she says. “I thought that was a lot of fun.”
She grew up and married her husband, Robert, a Masontown, Fayette County, native, and they moved away. About 12 years ago, on a trip back to Western Pennsylvania, the Boords, now in their late 70s, decided to take Route 40. They came across the Summit Inn and decided to stop for lunch and met some golfers, who had played the resort’s course. The Boords — golfers themselves — vowed to go back and try it out.
“In the past 12 years, we’ve been back 16 times,” she says. “That says we like it.”
“As a retired designer I look at the environment, and the lobby is sensational,” she says. “The rooms are all different, which is nice, because you have a lot of these cookie cutter places.”
The Boords note how friendly the inn’s owners and employees are.
“They must spend a lot of hours there tending their guests,” Robert Boord says. “It’s just nice to go somewhere where you’re recognized and you get to know them.”
The Summit should be in the family’s hands for a long time. When her father became ill in 1993, Harris started learning more of the business from him. By the time he died four years later, she was running the show.
Now the youngest of her three children, Amanda Leskinen, who just graduated from Washington & Jefferson College, will be helping more.
“She’s going to come back this year and start working, and maybe I’ll get to play a little golf,” Harris says.
Jennifer Reeger can be reached at jreeger@tribweb.com or 724-836-6155.
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Kentuck Knob Promotional Video
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Region employs the ‘Wright’ formula
By Emily Leone
DAILY COURIER
Tuesday, June 27, 2006Frank Lloyd Wright’s oft-quoted thought, “I believe in God, only I spell it N-A-T-U-R-E,” was the proper introduction to a groundbreaking ceremony Monday for a home designed by the world-famous architect in a Mt. Pleasant Township park.
Plans were revealed for the Usonian-style Duncan House that will be reconstructed as a guest house and tourist facility at Polymath Park Resort, a new safe haven for the historic home. It is only the fourth Wright home in the country in which tourists can stay.Built in 1957, the 2,200-square-foot house was to be demolished in 2002, but Chicago-based Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy wanted it saved. The house was dismantled and moved from Lisle, Ill., to Johnstown, where plans to turn it into an education center fell through.
At yesterday’s groundbreaking, Polymath public relations director Laura Newsmith said once the core frame has been reconstructed, the Duncan House will be rebuilt, redecorated and furnished according to original blueprints and styles of the 1950s.
“We are fortunate to have the land to build and expand the resort for several uses,” she said. “All of our activities will be culturally focused, with an emphasis on nature and improving the mind, body and spirit.”
The house will join two other Wright homes already at the park — the Blum and Balter homes — available for year-round leasing. Construction will begin in July to put the Duncan House back together, and the floor plan includes three bedrooms, two baths and Wright’s trademark open living/dining area with a natural stone fireplace at the center.The park, off Clay Pike Road on the southern slope of Chestnut Ridge, was developed in the 1960s by Peter Berndtson, one of Wright’s apprentices. The area then was called Treetops and Mountain Circles and was meant to be a residential area. Owner Tom Papinchak bought the land two years ago and said there were several others bidding for the house, but Polymath received it because it was a “natural fit.”
In 2005, Papinchak began working with the Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy, state agencies and The Progress Fund, an organization that helps to provide for rural businesses in Southwestern Pennsylvania. In a short amount of time, Polymath had not only secured the house but found several sponsors who would contribute reconstruction necessities, such as laying the foundation and roofing the home.
Newsmith hopes that with Fallingwater and Kentuck Knob so close, the addition of the Duncan House will complete a touring circuit, allowing tourists visiting other locations the opportunity to stay at the home, an “attractive location” within the Laurel Highlands.
Known nationally and internationally, Fallingwater and Kentuck Knob are considered two of the area’s most valuable attractions, said Julie Duncan of the Laurel Highlands Tourism Bureau.
“One of the biggest questions we get is where do you stay if you are visiting the Frank Lloyd Wright house or Kentuck Knob,” she said. “To have the opportunity to spend the night in a Frank Lloyd Wright house and then go to Fallingwater the next day just adds to the Frank Lloyd Wright experience.”
That experience includes the perfect unity of nature and architecture, a harmony that Papinchak believes can be found at Polymath and is further defined by the addition of the Duncan House.
More importantly, Papinchak said, the area will retain its charm and private setting and will not become commercial.
Construction on the Duncan House will be completed in the fall, and reservations and tour information will be announced in August.
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Landmark Downtown cathedral gets its first cleaning– Episcopal house of worship was being damaged by acid runoff whenever it rained
Monday, June 25, 2007
By Sara McCune,
Pittsburgh Post-GazetteOne of Pittsburgh’s oldest cathedrals is getting a complete makeover.
Cleaning crews will wash away 120 years worth of grime from Trinity Cathedral in Downtown, interns from the University of Pennsylvania will clean headstones and landscapers will green up the property.
While the cathedral is being cleaned in preparation for the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh’s 250th anniversary, there’s another reason the cleanup’s time has come: The grime on the building from Pittsburgh’s steel mill days has been turning acidic when it rains, and is slowly deteriorating the sandstone cathedral.
The yearlong celebration of the founding of Pittsburgh’s Episcopal church runs from this Thanksgiving to Thanksgiving 2008.
“There had been some debate within the diocese about whether or not to clean it,” Bishop Robert Duncan said. Some members of the diocese thought the blackened exterior would serve as a reminder of Pittsburgh’s industrious past. But the bishop said he could look out of his Oliver Building office and see the deterioration. In 2000, he and some colleagues hired an engineering firm to take a sample of the grime and test it.
“Every time the building gets moist it’s like it’s getting an acid bath,” he said.
Fred Thieman, co-chairman of the anniversary celebration campaign, said the cost of the restoration work won’t be known until after the cleaning. Young Restoration Co., of Carnegie, which has been contracted for the cleaning, uses a wash which is essentially baking soda and water, and environmentally friendly. The cleaning, which began last week, is expected to take three to four months.
While the cathedral was built in 1872, the cemetery’s origin was as a Native American burial ground. It also holds the remains of French and British soldiers and early Americans. University of Pennsylvania postgraduate student Teresa Duff, the site supervisor, said she and two graduate students are cleaning and preserving headstones as the third and final part of a stone-conservation campaign involving the cathedral.
There are eight different methods of preserving and treating the headstones, which are used on a case-by-case basis. For example, some of the stones need to have grout injected into cracks, and some need metal pins inserted to keep them from crumbling .
About 140 headstones will be pulled, treated and returned to their original places.
Ms. Duff said members of the university worked on other stone conservation efforts involving the graveyard in 1990 and 2001. The University of Pennsylvania has one of the state’s best architectural preservation programs.
The alley between the church and the Oliver Building will have landscaping done and be turned into an informal “heroes way” with a memorial to Pittsburgh’s modern heroes, such as the passengers of United Airlines Flight 93 and the firefighters who died while fighting the Ebenezer Church fire in 2004.
Trinity Cathedral is in the area of Fort Pitt, where Pittsburgh’s first Anglican prayer service was held.
The Episcopal Church was formed as an American successor to the British Anglican Church.
The cathedral hasn’t been cleaned before for financial reasons, said Canon Cathy Brall. The church has already raised two-thirds of the money needed through bequests, donations and sponsors.
The yearlong celebration also will include lights to provide up-lighting of the cathedral at night.
“Christians consider Jesus as the light of the world,” Bishop Duncan said. “We want the church to be a light for Pittsburgh.”
(Sara McCune can be reached at smccune@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1122 )
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Pittsburgh History and Landmarks Foundation works to identify local historic structures
By Robin Acton
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Sunday, June 24, 2007Architectural historian Albert M. Tannler rattles off names and dates and addresses in a rapid-fire manner when he talks about significant properties in Allegheny County.
Drawing from memory, he speaks of architects and builders and landscapers as though they are his friends, delving into their family histories, career passions and design trademarks. He peppers conversations with detailed information about the building materials, design styles and engineering innovations incorporated in their projects.Tannler, the historical-collections director for the Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation, has much to talk about. Allegheny County, he says, is rich with some of the nation’s finest examples of architectural design, engineering and planning.
In May, more than three dozen of those significant properties were recognized by the foundation’s Historic Landmarks Plaque Committee, which awarded historic designation to 21 sites that include 38 buildings, three districts and the landscapes at two golf courses.
“We’re saying you’ve got a lot of neat stuff in this town, and these are the examples,” Tannler says. “We’re saying that these properties are worth saving.”
The newly designated sites join some 500 others throughout Allegheny County that have been awarded historic plaques since the program began in 1968. They range from churches to private homes to public buildings to golf courses — each with a story to tell about the architect, builder or era in which it was constructed.Residential architecture in this round of designations includes a log house built in 1832 in Gibsonia, Victorian homes in Leetsdale and Oakdale, and Colonial revival homes in Shadyside and Munhall. An enclave of Arts & Crafts houses in Fox Chapel and two modern homes built in 1936 in Ross also made the list.
The former St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, one of three churches recognized last month, is the only surviving documented building in Pittsburgh designed by the region’s first female architect, Elise Mercur, according to information provided by the foundation. Designations also were awarded to several public buildings and Mellon Square, an urban oasis described in foundation materials as “an outstanding example of mid-20th century design, urban planning and local philanthropy.”
In some cases, property owners applied for the designation, while foundation staff members nominated others for the committee to review. But all are important to the area’s heritage, Tannler says.
Save and protect
The Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation, a nonprofit formed in 1964 by Arthur P. Ziegler Jr. and James D. Van Trump, was the nation’s first historic group to launch a countywide survey of architectural landmarks when it embarked on the project in 1965. Through that survey, and another completed in the mid-1980s, more than 6,000 sites have been documented.
Historic designation has been awarded to only a fraction of those properties, according to the foundation’s executive director, Louise Sturgess. She says that working with more than 20 or 30 properties at a time would be an unmanageable undertaking for everyone involved.
Tribune-Review owner Richard M. Scaife, who has chaired the plaques committee for the past two decades, describes its members as individuals who are “dedicated to architecture.” The committee meets at least once a year to review properties that are up for consideration, relying largely on pictures, application materials and information from the foundation’s staff.
Sometimes sites are considered after the property owner submits pictures. In other instances, staff members find a building or a church that they think is worthy of being saved and nominate it for the committee to review.
“We have no shortage of buildings to judge,” Scaife says.
Although the plaques identify properties as historic landmarks, the distinction does not protect them from demolition or alteration. The foundation staff works to correct the misconception that plaques restrict owners in what they can do with their properties.
“The most important thing that people need to know about the plaques is that they don’t protect the buildings, people do,” Sturgess says. “The plaque program gets to the heart of the mission to show people that there’s some pretty amazing stuff out there that we don’t want demolished.”
Scaife, who is passionate about history and architecture, says he’s concerned that some worthy properties might be lost. He says he worries most about the Union Trust Building, a Downtown landmark that has been up for sale for some time.
The Flemish Gothic-style building designed by Frederick Oesterling, one of Pittsburgh’s premier architects, was completed in 1917 for owner Henry Frick. It was used as a shopping arcade with 240 shops on four levels. A rotunda was capped with a majestic stained-glass dome.
“You want to save those that are important,” Scaife says. “I’m not sure what will become of it. When it comes to historic, architecturally significant structures, remodeling is worse than tearing down.”
Ziegler, the foundation’s president, concedes that he also worries about “a lot of properties every day.” However, he notes that the historic-plaque designation appears to benefit preservation efforts.
“The plaques bring honor and public notice to properties. Those things in themselves help provide staying power to buildings,” Ziegler says.
Making the grade
Properties that are considered worthy of historic plaques need not be majestic, impressive structures, records show. Modest, wood-framed homes, gardens, parks, golf courses, churches, mansions, public buildings and bridges all have found a place on the list, either individually or as part of historic districts.
Some are examples of ingenious engineering, architecture or planning, while other sites are important because of the architects responsible for their design. Program administrator Frank Stroker III, who has been with the foundation since 1984, says that the common denominator is historical significance.
Stroker says that placement of a plaque is done at a cost to the property owner of about $150 for a standard aluminum marker. Larger markers and those made of bronze are more expensive.
Most property owners are pleased with the designation, Tannler says, adding that it often starts them on a path to historical research. He says the program’s credibility also appears to help properties attain recognition on the National Register of Historic Places as National Historic Landmarks.
Property owners can choose not to accept a plaque from the foundation. When that happens, the site holds the designation and is listed in foundation materials, but remains unmarked. In some cases, plaques are refused by people who are reluctant to participate because they don’t want to draw attention to themselves, Tannler says.
Attention getters
Homeowners William Wakeley and Matthew Galla love the distinction that comes with living in the dream home they bought when they relocated from Palm Springs, Calif., to Munhall two years ago.
They paid $195,000 for the 107-year-old home at 518 E. 11th St., thinking it was a steal compared with the cost of real estate on the West Coast and in major cities across the country. They soon realized the house was rich in history because it is one of only two surviving structures from a group of six original Carnegie Steel Co. managers’ homes.
When neighbors told them of the home’s past, they turned to the foundation for help with research.
“It was mentioned in several books. All this history came out, and we were just floored,” Wakeley says.
They applied to the foundation’s plaque program, and their home was included in the most recent round of historic-designation awards. They’ll have a party for the official unveiling of their plaque when it is installed on the house, which also is being featured at 11 tonight in an episode of “If These Walls Could Talk” on the Home and Garden Television Network.
Wakeley, a graphic designer, took a year’s sabbatical to paint, decorate and complete some deferred maintenance on the house. He and his partner, who works at Federal Home Loan Bank, put a personal touch on the 6,000-square-foot home, which has been featured twice on the Munhall Holiday House Tour.
“We love this house,” Wakeley says. “The bones were here and the structure is wonderful, but we just wanted to make it our own. We absolutely love Pittsburgh.”
Local treasures
Fulfilling the foundation’s educational mission, its volunteer guides tell people that Pittsburgh’s historic landmarks can be found on almost every corner of the city.
“Always look up. You’ll see things up there that you won’t see below,” retired high school teacher Gabe Funaro says while leading a group of third-graders on a recent sunny morning.
Funaro leads the group from the foundation’s Station Square headquarters across the Smithfield Street Bridge and into the heart of Downtown. Along the way, he explains the meaning of historic designations, identifies types of stone and teaches the students to spot decorative gargoyles and grotesques jutting from buildings.
At the Union Trust Building, Funaro points out the historic plaque awarded in 1968 and tells the students the story of the building’s architect and its origin as one of the nation’s first indoor shopping malls. Hot, tired and preoccupied with their approaching lunch time, the students begin to fidget until Funaro takes them inside and asks them to look up.
They stop in their tracks and gasp aloud, awed at the sight of the towering spiral ceiling of the central rotunda.
“The main thing is, at this age, we just try to get them to look,” Funaro says.
And that’s the object of the plaques, Sturgess says, noting that the markers make people stop and think and look at properties that have been identified as important. Then, they might want to go inside and explore further, or they might become passionate about preservation to save these places for future generations.
“They do not build buildings the way they used to,” Sturgess says. “When a place is gone, it’s hard to revive the memories.”
Historic sites
The Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation’s Historic Landmarks Plaque Committee recently designated as historic landmarks these sites listed in order of their construction dates:
Chalfant Log House: 2716 West Hardies Road, Gibsonia, Hampton, 1832
Elm Ridge, James Gardiner Coffin/John Walker house: 1 Breck Drive, Leetsdale, 1869
W.J. Stewart/Howard Stewart house: 124 Hastings Ave., Oakdale, 1873
St. Paul’s Episcopal Church (now Christian Tabernacle Kodesh Church of Immanuel): 2601 Centre Ave., Hill District, Pittsburgh, 1896
Colonial Place Historic District: Nine houses, Shadyside, 1898
Carnegie Steel manager’s house: 518 E. 11th Ave., Munhall, 1900
Armstrong Cork Co. Buildings (now the Cork Factory Lofts): 2349 Railroad St., Strip District, Pittsburgh, 1901, 1902, 1913
Elmhurst Road Historic District: Six houses, Fox Chapel, 1904-20
St. James Episcopal Church (now The Church of the Holy Cross): 7507 Kelly St., Homewood, 1905-06
Mt. Lebanon Golf Course (formerly Castle Shannon Golf Club): 1000 Pine Ave., Mt. Lebanon, 1907-08
First National Bank of Pitcairn (now commercial/rental): 500 Second St., Pitcairn, circa 1910
Central Turnverein (now Gardner Steel Conference Center, University of Pittsburgh): 130 Thackeray St., Oakland, 1911-12
H.J. Heinz Co. Buildings (five buildings, now Heinz Lofts): Progress Street, Troy Hill, Pittsburgh, 1913-27
Fox Chapel Golf Club: 426 Fox Chapel Road, Fox Chapel, 1924-25, 1931
Pythian Temple (now New Granada Theatre): 2007 Centre Ave., Hill District, Pittsburgh, 1927-28
Keystone Athletic Club (now Lawrence Hall, Point Park University): 200 Wood St., Downtown, Pittsburgh, 1928
Mt. Lebanon Municipal Building: 710 Washington Road, Mt. Lebanon, 1928-30
Southminster Presbyterian Church: 799 Washington Road, Mt. Lebanon, 1929
Edgeworth Club: 511 East Drive, Edgeworth, 1930-31
Swan Acres Historic District: Two houses, Ross, 1936
Mellon Square: Downtown, Pittsburgh, 1954-55
For more information about other properties identified by the Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation as historic landmarks, go to www.phlf.org.
guidelines
The Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation created its Historic Landmarks Plaque Program in 1968 to identify Allegheny County’s architecturally significant structures and designed landscapes. The program’s guidelines indicate that buildings, districts and landscapes may be approved for a plaque if these conditions are met:
Properties must be at least 50 years old.
They must be remarkable pieces of architecture, engineering, construction, planning or landscape design, or impart a rich sense of history. Alterations, additions or deterioration cannot have substantially decreased their value in those areas.
They are not in historic districts already bearing a plaque (unless they are of exceptional individual significance).
Robin Acton can be reached at racton@tribweb.com or 724-830-6295.
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Bedford Springs is bubbling – Mountain resort to reopen July 1 after luxurious restoration
Sunday, June 17, 2007
By Marylynne Pitz,
Pittsburgh Post-GazetteBEDFORD — Here at the lush Bedford Springs Resort, the Allegheny Mountains echo with the sounds of hammers, drills and buzzing saws. This cacophony of power tools is punctuated by regular grunts from an army of carpenters, electricians, landscapers and men laying elegant carpet in the Eisenhower Room or shimmering blue tile in the Eternal Springs Spa.
As the opening day of July 1 looms, this mountain retreat nestled in a narrow valley on 185 acres looks like a convention of contractors with workers laboring feverishly to finish a $120 million restoration and public spaces, such as an outdoor swimming pool. On a hill that affords a sweeping view of the resort, carpenters are building an open-air wedding chapel that resembles a Greek temple.
Inside the five guest houses that make up this national historic landmark, long scraps of colorful carpet snake across floors. Blueprints are spread out on stainless-steel kitchen counters. Many ornate lighting fixtures are still swathed in plastic.
“It’s a race to the end. It always is. This has been a marathon but we can see the end in sight,” said Keith P. Evans of Dallas, one of 10 investors from Bedford Resort Partners Ltd.
The 203-year-old Bedford Springs, which closed in 1990, is being restored to its 1905 splendor, including a robin’s egg shade called Bedford Blue that symbolizes the resort’s reputation as a font of seven mineral springs. In its recreational glory days, the hotel hosted Daniel Webster, Henry Clay, Samuel Wanamaker, Nathaniel Hawthorne and seven U.S. presidents, including its most ardent fan, James Buchanan, who used it as his summer White House from 1857 to 1861.
Today, the frenzy of preparations so resembles an extreme makeover that a casual observer might wonder if a sitting president or a reigning queen was due to arrive. Or, at the very least, Helen Mirren in an ermine robe.
“Most of what’s being done right now is finalizing furniture, fixtures and equipment,” said Mr. Evans in a telephone interview from Texas. He plans to spend eight days on the site later this month.
Guests are already booked for July; weddings are scheduled in July and August. Utility lawyers and pharmaceutical industry representatives are booked for the fall.
Long before the resort started accepting reservations, the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation directed its workers to blow up a mountain and reroute Route 220 so it would pass behind the resort instead of in front of it. That cost $11 million, just part of the total $40 million the state of Pennsylvania spent to revive this leisure attraction.
“An average of 750 trucks would pass in front of the hotel daily. By rerouting the road, we were able to create a more relaxing environment,” said Todd Gillespie, the resort’s marketing director.
Not to mention the elimination of all those noxious exhaust fumes, which might interfere with taking the waters, inhaling spruce-scented breezes or relaxing on the front porch — attractions that drew Aaron Burr and his ailing grandson here in 1806.
Even after two centuries, this place is all about its seven gushing natural springs. American Indians drank from the springs long before they were discovered in the late 1700s by Nicholas Shouffler, a gold prospector.
The magnesia spring is reportedly good for your stomach; the iron spring, a tonic for your blood. Locals regularly fill jugs with crystal spring water. The limestone spring lies just beyond a gold medal trout stream called Shober’s Run while the sulphur and sweet springs are closer to the hotel on Sweet Root Road.
A black spring that produces 400,000 to 500,000 gallons daily feeds Red Oak Lake, a scenic spot built in 1941 by the Navy, which converted the hotel into a radio communication training facility. After the military left, the lake became a popular spot for locals. Now, it’s being cleared of vegetation, fallen logs and a collapsed dock. By next year, a large gazebo and new dock will rise along its shore.
After restoration began in the fall of 2005, crews found an eighth spring that produces 20 gallons per minute. That water is diverted into two large holding tanks installed near the indoor pool and feeds a 30,000-square-foot spa with 14 treatment rooms.
Guests can soak in the Bedford Bath, where water is heated to 105 degrees, shock themselves with a plunge in 55-degree water, then return to warmer water. This primes you for a steam shower, massage and other treatments.
Once you dry off and dress, there’s a choice of five restaurants, including the fancy 1796 or the cozy Frontier Tavern. In addition to a couple that offer informal fare, the sentimental favorite is the formal Crystal Dining room, which has new crystal chandeliers imported from England.
Hanging chandeliers is no sweat compared to restoration engineering feats. Any time you update a 203-year-old hotel, there are structural surprises, and the Colonnade Ballroom in the former Colonial Building snarled the schedule. Cables suspended in the hotel’s attic held up the corners of the large wooden floor, but wooden trusses that supported the second-floor ballroom had weakened and new wooden trusses had to be installed.
“We pulled the roof off and reworked the structural supports … and basically abandoned the cable system,” Mr. Evans said, adding that the National Parks Service and the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission had to approve the work, which also took time.
Once the roof was removed, heavy-duty air conditioning and sound technology were installed in the building’s ceiling. Now, the ballroom, which seats 350, is covered in a carpet of blue, green, gold, brown and pink.
David Rau, a design architect from 3 North in Virginia, said the transformation is remarkable.
When he saw the hotel near summer’s end in 2004, it was “an uncontrolled mess,” he said. “Parts of the building had no roof. The lobby had no floor because a flood had washed it away. You couldn’t walk into the lobby because it was a mud pit. There was water dripping down and plaster falling from the ceilings. Paint everywhere was peeled. It was like a movie set for a horror movie.”
Bonnie Wilkinson Mark, a historical architect from the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, remembered the air in the Colonial Building, one of five guest houses that stand side by side.
“It had a smell to it that was not pleasant — the smell of mold. This building backs up to the hill behind it. There is so much water coming out of the hill, it was literally coming right into the building,” she said.
Besides controlling and channeling the water, the major challenge was maintaining the buildings’ historic authenticity while restoring them and installing 21st-century modernity — air conditioning, telephones, flat-screen TVs, Internet connections and elevators. Between 1826 and 1842, the hotel was continually upgraded, but the “last major historic upgrade occurred in 1905,” Ms. Mark said.
Known to locals as “the springs,” the hotel has employed generations of Bedford County residents, and a job fair at the end of last month attracted 1,100 potential applicants for 100 positions.
You can walk or ride on the golf course, designed in 1895 by Spencer Oldham and the home of blue herons. In 1911, another prominent course designer, A.W. Tillinghast, for unknown reasons, altered the course to nine holes. He created a storied hole called Tiny Tim, now hole No. 14.
“He backed up Shober’s Run to create a pond in front of the hole, and he placed six sand bunkers in the back of the green. In between each of the bunkers, he placed these series of mounds, which he called alps. He loved that hole so much that he devoted an entire chapter to it in a book he wrote about course design. He tried to replicate that hole on the additional 150 golf courses he went on to design,” Mr. Gillespie said.
In 1923, Donald Ross expanded the course to 18 holes; all the holes north of Shober’s Run were designed by him. Mr. Ross created a tough challenge, too — a par three Volcano Hole where players must shoot 233 yards uphill.
Whatever your golf score, you can recuperate from a hard day of swinging clubs in one of the 216 rooms. On the beds, linens are made of first run Egyptian cotton. Liquid crystal display TVs are tucked in armoires. There are full-length mirrors, sterling silver lamps, bathrooms with Italian marble laid in a herringbone pattern and a vanity.
A 19th-century visitor called the resort “a palace in the wilderness.”
Now, after a glorious restoration that description still fits.
Bedford Springs: Through the years
The rise, decline and rebirth of Bedford Springs Resort parallels the political, social and architectural changes in America for more than two centuries. Here are some significant dates in the retreat’s rich history.
1796
Dr. John Anderson buys 2,200 acres in Bedford County. A medical doctor and entrepreneur, he transformed the property into a mineral springs resort by creating a restaurant, hotel, laundry, servants’ quarters and entertainment.1806
Builder Solomon Filler completes the Stone Inn using teams of oxen to carry the stone and broad axes to cut the wood. Four other guest houses, the Colonial, Evitt, Swiss Cottage and Anderson House, were built between 1806 and 1905.1857-1861
The hotel serves as the summer White House for U.S. President James Buchanan, the only native of Pennsylvania to occupy the Oval Office. In 1858, he receives the first trans-Atlantic cable ever sent in the hotel’s lobby; it was from England’s Queen Victoria.1920s
Dr. William E. Fitch, an authority on mineral waters and the hotel’s medical director, prescribes the doctor-supervised, three-week Bedford Cure for guests.1942-1944
The U.S. Navy takes over the hotel and uses it to train more than 6,000 sailors as radio operators.1945
Between August and November, the U.S. government interns 180 high-level Japanese diplomats and embassy staff captured in Germany near the end of World War II.1983
Flooding inflicts $1 million worth of damage, and water courses through the hotel’s lobby.1984
The U.S. Department of the Interior designates the resort as a National Historic Landmark, hailing it as one of the best examples of “springs resort architecture.”1988
The hotel goes into bankruptcy.1990
The hotel closes.1998
Bedford Resort Partners Ltd., made up of 10 investors, buys the 2,200-acre property for $8 million.2004-07
The hotel and golf course are restored; a new spa wing is built. The resort will reopen July 1.If you go: Bedford Springs Resort
Overview: Bedford Springs Resort, at 2138 Business Route 220 in Bedford, offers 216 guest rooms and suites. There are 90 king-sized rooms, 44 queen guest rooms and 81 double rooms.
Rooms: Many rooms feature open-air porches with rocking chairs and a commanding view of the grounds. All rooms offer flat-screen televisions, wireless high-speed Internet access, dual line phones and voice-mail message systems.
Amenities: Amenities include indoor and outdoor pools, an 18-hole golf course, a fitness center, spa with 14 treatment rooms, and 10 meeting rooms for conferences. Among the activities are rafting on the Juniata River, a gold medal trout stream for fly fishing, 25 miles of hiking and biking trails and horseback riding. Red Oak Lake will offer paddle boats, fishing and a beach with picnic areas.
Rates: From Sundays to Thursdays, mountain view rooms start at $249 per night. On Fridays and Saturdays, all room rates start at $299. The resort also offers special accommodation packages.
Information: Visit the hotel’s Web site, www.bedfordspringsresort.com, or call 1-814-623-8100.
— Marylynne Pitz
(Marylynne Pitz can be reached at mpitz@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1648. )
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Duncan House ‘Wright’ fit for Acme park
By Richard Robbins
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Friday, June 15, 2007A house designed by Frank Lloyd Wright was unveiled Wednesday in Mt. Pleasant Township, a transplant from Illinois that joins two nearby Wright designs, Fallingwater and Kentuck Knob.
Duncan House, a prefab from Wright’s Usonia period of the 1950s, is typical Wright: a low-slung, linear affair with a spacious interior open to nature.The house, which arrived unassembled in Westmoreland County in three tractor-trailers a year ago, is slated to become a guest house at $385 a night. Its owner and CEO, Thomas Papinchak, of Greensburg, and his sister, Laura Nesmith, of Unity, are opening the house to weekend tours as well.
It is especially hoped Fallingwater visitors, 72 percent of whom need overnight lodging, will rent Duncan House as a way of enhancing their Wright “experience.”
Fallingwater director Lynda Waggoner, who attended yesterday’s ribbon-cutting, said that was an excellent possibility. Waggoner gave Duncan House a thumbs-up, saying the setting, deep in country woods about four miles from Route 31, was perfect.
“I don’t think a better setting could be found,” Waggoner said. “It will be terrific for the 135,000 (annual) visitors to Fallingwater.”Duncan House was originally constructed in a Chicago suburb in 1957 for Donald and Elizabeth Duncan. Wright hoped to create housing for middle-income Americans. It didn’t work out that way, said Tom Schmidt, of the Frank Lloyd Wright Conservancy in Chicago.
Schmidt, who lives in Pittsburgh, said yesterday that Wright could not control costs and his dream of affordable, durable yet superior housing was never realized.
At the same time, the Duncans dwelled in their Wright-designed house for four decades. With the Duncans dead and the house in decline, it looked as though their home — one of only 11 remaining prefabricated Wright-designed structures in the nation — would fall to the wrecking ball.
It was then that the Conservancy came to the rescue along with Tim Baacke, of Johnstown. But Baacke’s plan to reassemble Duncan House in Johnstown never materialized. Papinchak stepped forward at that point, with financing help from the state and The Progress Fund, a nonprofit lender.
Papinchak said he sank a lot of his own money in Duncan House. A custom-design Greensburg contractor, Papinchak said putting Duncan House back together was no harder than working a jigsaw puzzle.
“It took us a year, I thought it would take six to eight months,” he said yesterday.
Duncan House is the centerpiece of Polymath Park Resort, a 125-acre spread near Acme that contains two Wright-inspired homes by Wright apprentice Peter Berndtson. Berndstson, Papinchak said, laid the groundwork for a 24-house development in the 1960s. Only the Balter and the Blum Houses were built.
More than a few Wright aficionados attended yesterday’s event. One was Karen Rich Douglas of Greensburg.
“I like the clean lines (of the house),” Douglas said. “I like its setting in nature. I like the way it nestles among the trees.”
A friend, Nina Lewis, of Greensburg, said she travels the nation to view Wright designs.
“I like the art deco stuff,” she said by way of explanation, “and the simplicity.”
Richard Robbins can be reached at rrobbins@tribweb.com or (724) 836-5660.
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Frank Lloyd Wright’s Duncan House ready for visitors
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
By Patricia Lowry,
Pittsburgh Post-GazetteA ribbon-cutting ceremony tomorrow will mark the end of one era and the beginning of another for Frank Lloyd Wright’s Duncan House, which began its life in a Chicago suburb and now is the star of Polymath Park, a new 125-acre resort in the Laurel Highlands.
Nearly a year after ground was broken in a Western Pennsylvania woodland, the prefab Usonian house will open to the public this weekend for tours and overnight accommodations.
Built in a Lisle, Ill., in 1957 for Donald and Elizabeth Duncan, the Duncan House was deconstructed in 2004 and reassembled over the past 12 months near Acme in Westmoreland County as part of Polymath Park Resort. The retreat also includes two homes by Wright apprentice Peter Berndtson — the Balter House and the Blum House, both built in the 1960s for Pittsburgh businessmen.
Thomas D. Papinchak, a Westmoreland County home builder, had been renting the Balter and Blum houses on an annual basis from their most recent previous owner, who named the grounds Polymath Park.
Now the resort’s owner and CEO, Mr. Papinchak, who declined comment before the opening, has established the Usonian Preservation Corp., with a five-member board, as the nonprofit entity that will direct the proceeds from rentals toward maintaining the houses and telling their stories through educational and civic programs. The for-profit arm of the business will draw its income from corporate and private events.
Located near Wright’s Fallingwater (15 miles away) and Kentuck Knob (30 miles), the Duncan House is one of only four Wright buildings in the country that accommodate overnight visitors.
Lodging is available in the Duncan House and Balter House, with the Blum House eventually serving as the visitor center, cafe, spa and gift shop. There’s a two-night minimum for sleepovers, priced at $325 per night for the Duncan House, which has three bedrooms and sleeps six; and $265 per night for the Balter House, which has four bedrooms and sleeps six. Those prices are for three guests; for four to six people, add $50 per person.
Hours for the Blum House Visitor Center, which is not expected to open until August, are noon to 8 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday through Aug. 31. Call ahead for spa and cafe reservations.
The Boulder Room, in the lower level of the Duncan House, features a stone fireplace, Cherokee red concrete floor, patio and wall of windows to the outdoors. It’s equipped for electronic presentations, music and seminars for corporate or private use, with a 120-seat capacity.
Mr. Berndtson’s 1962 master plan for the site, which he named Treetops and Mountain Circles, called for 24 houses, each set within a 300-foot circular clearing in the woods, which today are laced with about five miles of hiking trails. The land between the houses was to have held community facilities such as tennis courts, a baseball diamond, swimming ponds and orchards.
But only two houses were built: the Balter house in 1964 for James and Frances Balter and the Blum house in 1965. Harry Blum, along with brothers Max and Louis, helped build their father’s metalworking business into Blumcraft, an international company still based in Oakland. He died in 1998.
This weekend, Polymath Park will be open for tours, but as always, by reservation only. Hours are noon to 6 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. For tours of all three buildings, admission is $22. For the Duncan House only, admission is $16. Children under 12 are admitted free but must be closely supervised by an adult. Public tours also will be offered on some Sundays and weekdays; call for information and reservations: 1-877-833-STAY (7829) or visit www.polymathpark.com.
The other Wright-designed houses available for sleepovers are the Bernard Schwartz House in Two Rivers, Wis. (1939); the Louis Penfield House in Willoughby, Ohio (1955); and the Seth Peterson Cottage on Mirror Lake in Wisconsin (1958). The rental rates at all three are in line with the Duncan House rates.
The Duncan House’s first overnight guest, on June 18, hails from Louisiana. Other future guests live in Maryland, Illinois, England and Ireland; visitors from Pittsburgh, Detroit and Australia have stayed in the Balter House, open since November.
“A lot of the people are coming to see Fallingwater and staying with us, which we suspected would be the case,” said resort spokeswoman Laura Nesmith.
Polymath Park is five miles from the Donegal exit of the Pennsylvania Turnpike.
(Patricia Lowry can be reached at plowry@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1590. )