Pittsburgh Cemeteries

Tag: Mausoleums

  • Berryman Mausoleum, Homewood Cemetery

    This mausoleum seems to have received its first burial in 1927; if Father Pitt were to take a guess, he might say it had been waiting around empty for some time before that. There are none of the quirks of the advancing twentieth century: this is a timeless Doric temple, simple but correct. The stained glass inside is modestly attractive, though the cross is a bit out of place—it does not seem to be a thing that could naturally exist in the landscape. Old Pa Pitt is also not sure why there is a cheese hovering above it. The bronze palms on the doors are also notable.

  • Pargny Mausoleum, Homewood Cemetery

    All right angles and sharp edges (even the urns are square), this is what you do in an age when modern architecture is in fashion, but you don’t quite want to give up on classical style. It received its first burial in 1940, so it was probably built in the 1930s.

  • Selden Mausoleum, Homewood Cemetery

    This looks like a construction from the middle twentieth century, say 1930 or later; the imperfect on-line records for the cemetery have no dates for most of the burials in it.

    The polished granite is expensive, but resists the industrial grime that darkened other monuments in Pittsburgh’s hell-with-the-lid-off age.

  • Hays Mausoleum, Homewood Cemetery

    The Hays family mausoleum received its first residents in 1904. The stained glass is striking, and the combination of arch and “modern Ionic” columns is elegant.

  • Junker-Duvall Mausoleum, Homewood Cemetery

    A severely plain structure, almost like a quick sketch of a classical mausoleum; it is most notable for the stained-glass riot of symbols inside, including a floating eye that is disturbingly naturalistic. The mausoleum seems to have been built in 1921, when it received the remains of several Junkers and Duvalls.