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Saturday, April 19, 2003

By Gretchen McKay, Post-Gazette Staff Writer

Maureen Rottshaefer knew one thing for sure when she moved back to Pittsburgh after six years in New York City: She was going to own her home.

Maureen Rottshaefer's house on Shelley Street in the South Side Slopes will be on next Saturday's tour. (John Heller, Post-Gazette photos) IF YOU GO: 12th annual Historic South Side House Tour When: 6-11 p.m. Friday champagne-and-candelight tour 10 a.m.-4 p.m. next Saturday Tickets: $60 for Friday tour (reservations required) $12 in advance, $15 day of Saturday tour Presentation: 2-3 p.m. next Saturday at Lithuanian Hall, 1721 Jane St. Interior designer Nancy Barsotti give tips on decorating using existing furniture and accessories. Ethnic Lunch: 11:30 a.m.-1:30 p.m. next Saturday at Brashear Association, 2005 Sarah St., $10 Information, Reservations: 412-481-8105 or www.southsidepgh.com/unch -- 412 381-2094.

"I poured enough money into rent in New York," the 29-year-old Oakmont native says. "I wasn't going to do that again."

But where? Economical as it was, she couldn't stay at her parents' home in Plum forever. She looked to buy in some of the city's trendiest neighborhoods, but none seemed quite right. Then she went on the annual Historic South Side House Tour and got an up-close look at a house in the Slopes. The computer programmer realized she'd stumbled upon the ideal locale.

"It was very neighborly but still close to the excitement of Carson Street," she says. "And the view was great. It was exactly the right fit."

Rottshaefer plunked down $130,000 for one of eight town houses on Shelley Street built two years ago by South Side Local Development Co. Now her home will be one of 10 buildings on this year's house tour, scheduled from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. next Saturday.

Though she would have liked to purchase one of the South Side's many older houses, Rottshaefer is allergic to mold, dust and some plants. So she decided new construction would probably be her best bet. Less maintenance, she notes with a smile, was an unintended but much appreciated benefit of a new house.

The Shelley Street town houses -- the Slopes' first new housing plan in half a century -- replaced vacant land and abandoned houses on both sides of the street. With the aim of making the two-bedroom units blend in with existing homes, Integrated Architectural Services made them tall and skinny with peaked roofs, traditional shutters and wooden, windowed front doors.

Rottshaefer's first floor features a combination dining/living area that she has furnished simply with cast-iron and wood dining set from Lazarus and a colorful red, gold and green-striped sofa that she reupholstered with help from her grandmother, Eleanor Colfer.

"It was a real bear," she says with a laugh. "I was still stapling when the movers came the next morning."

Sliding French doors open onto a small deck with a custom-molded rail and a spectacular view of Pitt's Cathedral of Learning. Framed screening passes from Star Wars Episode I and II (souvenirs from when Rottshaefer worked for 20th Century Fox) dress up the staircase to the second floor.

With its classic Mission-style bedroom set and neutral color scheme, the master bedroom is a soothing place to relax after a hard day's work. Small framed prints of the French countryside that Rottshaefer's grandfather brought back from World War II add a touch of color along one wall. A second bedroom overlooking the backyard serves as an office.

Rottshaefer, who recently purchased the lot next to her house, plans on eventually adding a garage, raised flower beds and a bocce court. As for the cinderblock basement, that's more than half-finished as a family/TV room.

Despite its name, the South Side tour includes more than just houses. The event actually kicks off Friday night with a reservations-only, champagne-and-candlelight tour of five homes and St. John the Baptist Byzantine Catholic Church, where a chandelier transferred from the parish's first church on East Carson Street will be lighted. The $60 Friday tour is followed by a reception at Big House Studios on Breed Street, so named because part of the building was once used as a holding cell.

Maureen Rottshaefer, with help from her grandmother, reupholstered the sofa that sits in her first floor dining/living area.

Highlights of the self-guided Saturday walking tour include a Roman Catholic church on Pius Street that has been recently converted into a single-family home, and a sixth-floor loft in the Brew House, a turn-of-the-century brewery on Mary Street that was renovated in 1993 into 25 artists studio/living spaces, an art gallery and a performance area.

The tour also will feature an old firehouse built in 1900 for Hook and Ladder Company 10, given new life as office space. Shirley Hutton discovered it while office-hunting in the South Side nearly five years ago. She is president of Sports and Hospitality International and The Hutton Group, an international events and meeting management company.

"We're in the business of entertaining people and needed a space that would allow us more opportunities to be creative," she says.

The solution was the old brick firehouse on Fourteenth Street in the Flats. Purchased in 1997 by Cityscape Construction Co. and converted to living and office space, the three-story building offered everything Hutton wanted in a work environment -- modern amenities like 20-foot ceilings, track lighting and wood-and-glass partitions coupled with old-house touches like 100-year-old wide-plank hardwood floors, 5-foot-high wainscoting and a working fireplace,

"The architecture is incredible and it feels really comfortable," says Hutton, who rents only the first two floors (the third floor contains two one-bedroom apartments).

"It's almost like working out of someone's fine home," adds Megan Carney, project manager. "It's a place you never mind coming to."

South Side's mix of restored homes and funky commercial spaces is one of the big draws of the annual tour, now in its 12th year. The neighborhood continues to lure newcomers, according to Tom Hardy, South Side Local Development Co.'s manager of real estate development. Six of the Shelley Street project's eight units, for example, sold to people moving in from outside of the city.

"We're very pleased and excited about that," he says. "It's evidence that we're reversing the trend of people moving out of the city and into the suburbs."