5810 Kentucky Ave

Built in 1900 this Shadyside residence pairs the composed proportions of Italian Renaissance design with rooms made for receiving company. Conceived as three full-floor residences beneath one roof, it has a long history of owner occupancy, a circumstance which a building does not easily forget. The façade relies on proportion rather than display. The blonde brick lies in an even, pale field, its joints so fine that the wall reads as a single surface, and three broad front porches, walled in brick and finished in handsome woodwork, rise one above another. Each gives its residence an outdoor room from which to enjoy the life of the street without any obligation to join it. Inside, the welcome is immediate. The entry is tiled, and the original brass mailboxes stand in a row. A stair laid with a wool runner rises beneath high ceilings, with a chandelier on every floor, as though no landing wished to be outdone by the one below. The woodwork and baseboards belong to a more generous era. At each residence, glazed French doors stand within a broad surround of small panes and original woodwork, so that hall and home exchange their light with perfect civility. The first-floor and second-floor residences, of 2,000 square feet each, still allow for the art of receiving guests, beginning with a parlor generous enough to greet the whole party at once. The living room gathers around a gas-log fireplace and its mantel, then opens through multipane French doors to the porch, so a conversation can drift outdoors whenever the evening is too fine to spend inside. The primary bedrooms retain the original built-in wardrobes, generous enough for a present-day collection of clothes. The long central hall offers an extended gallery wall for art, its narrower proportions giving way to the dining room with a pleasing sense of arrival. The dining rooms retain built-in china cabinets with leaded glass and bays of windows with window seats, the kind of setting that lets dinner run well past its intended hour. Behind the dining room is the kitchen, and beyond it a covered landing on the rear fire escape, with room to carry the meal outside. Hardwood floors run through most of the building. The 2,300-square-foot owner’s residence on the uppermost floor has a character of its own. Skylights bring daylight deep into its rooms and even onto its porch, which looks north over neighboring roofs and treetops. From the kitchen, a spiral stair rises to a rooftop room with a full bath, ready to serve as a family room, a study or a bedroom. From the roof itself, the view opens wider, toward the Highland Park neighborhood, a rare outlook from a Shadyside residence. The practical advantages are equally persuasive, if less poetic. The two residences below provide rental income, allowing an owner to enjoy a private residence while the building attends to its own keep. A later two-car tandem garage, set into the lower level, takes the cars off the street, and space is available for a potential future elevator, subject to design and approvals. Restoration architect Sheldon Goettel guided the building’s renovation, documented by the Pittsburgh Press in 1988, and led the addition of the skylights and the rooftop room. Walnut Street and Ellsworth Avenue, with their boutiques, cafés and restaurants, are an easy walk, and Mellon Park, with its Walled Garden, lies three blocks away. One need not choose between the pleasures of a distinctive home and the sensibility of an income-producing property; here, the two have long kept good company.