Woodville - The John & Presley Neville House
A National Historic Landmark
The parlor has a modern Brussels carpet, woven in England to a design of the late eighteenth century, while the furniture is of the period butnot of the house. The wallpaper reproduces one actually used in the parlor; the replica was out of print, but the few last rolls were discovered by chance.
The bedrooms are papered in a replica of a pattern of c. 1815 that was actually discovered in the room under nine upper layers. Waterhouse Wall hangings, which reproduced the paper, is now selling it as the Woodville pattern. Only the wooden trim in the chamber/nursery is a modern restoration; the rest of the interior is original. Restoration of the kitchen, the original log structure of "Woodville," was completed in 1993. The fireplace wall is of bare log and the wainscoting elsewhere is dark red brown. Restoration of "Woodville" has taken years and is continuing, but the zeal and care of restorers and the leadership of devoted volunteers are being rewarded.
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It would be quite a feat of the imagination to remove the verandahs, the Victorian Gothic decorative touches, even the little bedrooms, and return the home in one’s mind’s eye to the steep-roofed home that John Neville knew, four rooms and a central passage with a detached log kitchen. it was not a "Southern mansion" in either size or form, not the home of a Virginia gentleman as popularly envisioned. Yet that is, in fact, what it was. This was the home of a general, a former commandant of Fort Pitt, a rnan of wealth and education. John and Winifred Oldham Neville’s home was deemed "a temple of hospitality." Its window panes still bear the signatures of guests and relatives, scratched into them with the point of a diamond. The parlor was the scene of at least two weddings, that ofMajor Abraham Kirkpatrick to Mary Arm Oldham Uohn Neville’s sister-in-law), and their daughter Eliza’s marriage to Christopher Cowan.
The interior reveal this way of life: the little plantation house is also a country sent from not long after the earliest settlement of Western Pennsylvania. The central passage, dining room, kitchen, parlor, and two bedrooms off the parlor have been restored, in part with complete accuracy, in part in a roomier consistent with the place and period. Both informed hard work and good luck have contributed to the restoration of the house and our knowledge of its history.
In the dining room the carpet and furnishings are once again not original but in keeping, while Lhe walls are painted in a bright verdigris green popular in the late eighteenth century.
A Family Home For Two Centuries
Chartiers Creek, and the house was in danger. In 1976, though, the Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation, a non-profit historic-preservation organization serving Allegheny County, bought the house from the Wrenshalls and sought a means of saving it. Landmarks and willing friends have since brought "Woodville," one of eight National Historic Landmarks in Allegheny County, to its present state.
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SESSION 1 – The Allegheny County Courthouse [9:10-10:40]
Whenever we publish a major book, we give our members the opportunity to contribute.We all benefit because each contributor’s name is listed in the publication and all the contributions help defray our photography, design, and printing costs–– and keep the book price affordable.
Reared and trained in Pittsburgh, Charles Connick (1875–1945) significantly contributed to the American Arts and Crafts Movement and played a leading role in the revitalization of stained glass in America. When Connick died in 1945, The New York Times wrote that he “was considered the world’s greatest contemporary craftsman in stained glass.” In 2004 British scholar Peter Cormack called Connick “the greatest of all American stained glass artists.” 
Over a decade ago, the Allegheny County Commissioners appointed a committee to provide advice to the County on the restoration of the County Courthouse and its maintenance. The committee has advised about roof repair and the pointing of some of the masonry. Several years ago the murals in the front hall were restored under the auspices of the committee, a new directory was installed in the lobby and County Records Bureau removed stacks of poorly stored records in the attic of the building and put them in good order in a building in the north side. The committee also has produced new signage specifications to eliminate needless and redundant signage, and paper, hand-written signs prevalent throughout the building.