My intent with this blog is to follow the renovation of our property on Mintwood St. in Pittsburgh’s trendy Lawrenceville neighborhood. In a perfect world, I would have started this back in July 2020 when I bought the property. I’ll try to fill in some of the preliminary work that has already been completed, but really, we’re just getting started on the guts of the project.
In the late 1800’s and early 1900’s, Pittsburgh was the center of the steel-making universe. Andrew Carnegie and his contemporaries were building mills as fast as they could. That meant there was also a huge need for housing, so there’s a TON of housing stock that dates back to that era. The Pittsburgh area has the 6th oldest housing stock of any major city in the US, making it a great place to be if you like renovating old houses.
The Mintwood house was built in in 1910. It’s half of a duplex (I only own one half. The other half is owned by a landlord, and he’s split that unit into 3 apartments). You’ll see from the photos that it is an interesting building. A typical “worker’s house” in this neighborhood is 1200-1400 sq ft, and the rooms are typically 14×14 with 8′ ceilings and a very cramped attic. This building is literally twice as big. It’s 2800 sq ft, 3 stories high – and those stories are TALL. The first two floors have 11′ ceilings, and the third floor has a 10′ ceiling. It was clearly built for someone of significant means. (It even features a “maid’s stairs” in the back!)
I was drawn to the building because many of the original details remain- the wood details on the staircases, the enormous baseboards and window casings, and even 3 of the original marble fireplace mantles. We’re going to preserve as much of that detail as we can while updating the building to meet the needs of modern living.
One of three surviving marble fireplace mantles 
Main facade 
Original woodwork on the main staircase
So what’s happened so far?
I’ll write a couple of new posts to cover the different things we’ve done in the first 6 months. It’s a lot of mechanical/ non-fancy stuff, but that’s the early work that is essential to keeping the building standing. Watch for:
- Finding a designer
- New Roof
- Masonry repairs
- Reconfiguring the exterior
- House hacking
Entropy Properties LLC 