You may not have the money or space for a mausoleum, but you can still demonstrate exquisite taste, as in this monument, whose details are Romanesque but whose form and inscription are severely classical.
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Jenkins Monument, Homewood Cemetery
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Brown Pyramid, Homewood Cemetery
Like the Huhn pyramid in the Allegheny Cemetery (but on a much larger scale), this is a classical interpretation of the Egyptian pyramid, with proportions more like those of the Pyramid of Cestius along the Appian Way than like those of a true Egyptian pyramid. It is striking enough that it appears in much of the Homewood Cemetery’s publicity. It was designed by Alden & Harlow and built for William Harry Brown, banker and heir to a shipping empire, in 1898. Mr. Brown’s firm was the largest shipper of coal on the rivers, which obviously made him quite a pile of money.
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George Mesta Mausoleum, Homewood Cemetery
KONICA MINOLTA DIGITAL CAMERA A fine example of the Egyptian style that was very popular among Masons in the early twentieth century. George Mesta owned a machine shop in Homestead. It was (and this is not an exaggeration) a mile long. His wife Perle (also buried here) ultimately made more of a mark on the world after George died in 1925: she moved to Washington and became the city’s top hostess. President Truman made her ambassador to Luxembourg, where she navigated the minefield of American-Luxembourgeois relations with aplomb.
The picture above was from 2014. Below, three pictures from 2022.
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Albert C. Opperman Mausoleum, Homewood Cemetery
KONICA MINOLTA DIGITAL CAMERA The mausoleum itself is tasteful, but not particularly distinguished. The stained glass inside, however, is signed by F. X. (Franz Xavier) Zettler of the Royal Bavarian Stained-Glass Manufactory, Munich, and it is an extraordinary piece of art.
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Stained Glass in the Shields Mausoleum, Homewood Cemetery
Mr. Shields decided to take his favorite pinup girl with him to the grave. A stout wooden beam apparently holding up the ceiling of the mausoleum stands in the way of the view of this window; Father Pitt has therefore stitched this picture together from two separate pictures, and the seam is obvious. But the window is unusual enough that we can tolerate a substandard photograph. —UPDATE: Old Pa Pitt has accidentally found out quite a bit more about this window. It is called “The Spirit of the Water Lily,” and it was designed by the famous stained-glass artist William Willet for the home of one of Pittsburgh’s rich industrialists, George I. Whitney. How it came to be in this mausoleum Father Pitt does not know. The design for the window was printed in the February, 1904, issue of the Booklovers Magazine, and we note that, if this drawing is accurate, the window is currently installed backwards:
