Another hulking black Pittsburgh Romanesque mausoleum, this one is distinguished by a very unusual apse. In many cemeteries, unfortunately, vandalism has persuaded the keepers to block the entrances to mausoleums with ugly concrete. It now becomes a task for archaeologists from future centuries to discover what is inside that apse.
The Romanesque style and the sooty blackness of the stone make this mausoleum look particularly Pittsburghy. The Theodore F. Straub mausoleum in the Homewood Cemetery is identical (but without the cross), so this was probably a dealer’s standard model.
The statue on top seems to be a version of that very popular flower-strewing mourner who appears in many of our cemeteries, usually handless if she is at ground level; compare the Aul, Potts, Alexander H. King, Baxmyer, and Nickel monuments.
Another fine Egyptian temple, with all the requisite signifiers—lotus columns, sloping sides, winged scarab over the entrance.
The exquisite polished granite sets this mausoleum apart even from all the tasteful and expensive mausoleums that surround it.
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.
