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Saturday, August 10, 2002

By Marylynne Pitz, Post-Gazette Staff Writer

A dispute over historic preservation in Edgeworth culminated yesterday with the demolition of a pre-Civil War house that was built by one of the Sewickley Valley's founding families.

	The remains of the Thomas Leet Shields house. (Matt Freed, Post-Gazette)

The Thomas Leet Shields house, which sat on a hill above Beaver Road, was reduced to a pile of sticks and rubble, to the dismay of some preservationists but to the relief of at least one neighbor.

A land trust acting on behalf of Glen Meakem, co-founder and chief executive officer of Internet auction company FreeMarkets, paid $1.4 million for the Shields house, which was begun in 1849 and finished in 1854.

Meakem, head of one of the region's fastest-growing firms, paid $735,000 for an adjoining brick house, which is also soon to be torn down.

Once both are demolished, Meakem plans to build a house on what will become a 10-acre estate.

A permit for the demolition work was issued by Edgeworth officials Thursday.

In the weeks leading up to yesterday's demolition, the prospect of losing a well-preserved home from the 1800s saddened some people in the area.

But Edgeworth residents had no legal options because several years ago, the borough's planning commission rejected adopting a historic zoning ordinance or establishing a historic district, either of which might have offered some protection for the house.

One person who thinks tearing down the Shields mansion was a mistake is Joseph Zemba, property manager for a 20-room Italianate mansion being restored in Leetsdale.

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"I am very disappointed," Zemba, an ardent preservationist, said yesterday. "I would have liked to see the house preserved, or possibly moved, or at least partially salvaged. It had irreplaceable woodwork, windows, doors and other architectural items that could have been salvaged. I can't believe they would take the house down."

He added, "What really makes Western Pennsylvania and the Sewickley Valley such an attractive area to live is its sense of place. By losing our landmarks and our landscape, we are losing that sense of place. The very thing that has attracted people to our area is being taken away by people who have come to our area."

But one of Meakem's new neighbors disagreed. Emily S. Willets, who looked yesterday at the pile of rubble from her yard next door, had no sentimental attachments to the Shields house.

"They could sink millions in that house and come up with not very much. It's not a great architectural wonder," Willets said.

Meakem's plans suit Willets. "He's taking down all the trashy trees and saving all the beautiful trees. The man has excellent taste and he's going to build a very nice house," she said.

Neither Meakem nor Raymond Parker, a lawyer who handled the property purchase as trustee for the Jankowski Revocable Trust, returned numerous phone calls seeking comment.

Besides razing the old Greek Revival-style home, Meakem is also tearing down a white, one-story gardener's cottage, a green barn and a shed on the Shields estate, as well as the brown brick house on the adjacent parcel for which the Jankowski Revocable Trust paid $735,000 in June.

The Shields house, Zemba said, "is probably the most intact [historical] house in the area as far as architectural integrity," adding that it was not spoiled by major additions or extensive remodeling and had a Southern feeling with a grand, 60-foot-long entry hall and a sweeping staircase.

Featured in a 1996 book "Historic Houses of the Sewickley Valley," the Shields mansion was the first house built in that area to be designed by a trained architect.

That architect, Joseph W. Kerr, also designed The Presbyterian Church, Sewickley. The house's first owner, Thomas Leet Shields, was a lawyer, charter member of Western Pennsylvania's Republican Party and a horticulturist who operated an extensive nursery.

Meakem did not need approval from the Edgeworth planning commission because he is not subdividing land or annexing property, said Martin McDaniel, Edgeworth's borough manager.

Edgeworth residents have watched other historic houses disappear.

The B.F. Jones mansion, once occupied by the son of the founder of Jones & Laughlin Steel Co., was demolished in 1991. Afterward, a group called Edgeworth Preservation was formed. Its goal was to create a historic district in Edgeworth, but after three years of meetings with local officials, the effort failed.

Edgeworth's planning commission rejected historic zoning because property owners would have had to seek approval when they replaced a roof or made other substantive changes. All property owners also would have had to bear the administrative costs of historic zoning.

Preservation of historic buildings is common in some other Sewickley Valley communities. Sewickley has three historic districts governed by a historic review commission, one commercial and two residential.

Sewickley Heights has a historic review board that requires reviews of all alterations, demolition and construction of houses in that community.

One person who recently toured the Shields house is Beth Bailey of Clinton, Ohio, who is restoring another house from the same era. Bailey believes in preservation, but she went through the Shields mansion because she also salvages architectural remnants of old houses if they are headed to the landfill.

Bailey assessed the value of what could be salvaged from the Shields house at $10,000. Zemba disagreed, estimating the value of the woodwork alone at $225,000.

Despite her lower estimate of the value of the furnishings, Bailey was horrified at the idea of demolition.

"I can't believe this is coming down. I knew people would be upset about this," said Bailey, after surveying the mansion's tall doors, original windows with wavy glass, fireplace mantels, woodwork and 29 pairs of shutters.

Patrick Foltz, director of Preservation Pennsylvania, said demolition of the house shows that, "We've reached the point where land is more important than the buildings that are built on it. It's kind of a sad state."

Before yesterday's action, Edgeworth residents had quietly appealed to Meakem to reconsider the demolition. The Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation, which saved many historic houses on Pittsburgh's North Side, had hoped to document the Shields house before it was leveled.

Margie Shields Gilfillan, a descendant of Thomas Leet Shields, lived in the now-demolished house until she was 9. She called it "an oasis of rural charm nestled in suburbia."

After its efforts to pass a historic ordinance failed, Edgeworth Preservation decided to raise money by publishing a beautifully illustrated book in 1996 titled "Historic Houses of the Sewickley Valley."

A four-color photo of the Shields house in that book is among the few remaining records of the estate.

Marylynne Pitz can be reached at mpitz@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1648. Post-Gazette staff writer Tom Barnes contributed to this article.