Father Pitt in Sharon

Author: Father Pitt

St. Joseph Church

Local legend has it that this huge and glorious church was meant to be the cathedral of a new Catholic diocese. In old Pa Pitt’s experience, similar legends arise wherever a Catholic church seems unusually magnificent. These particular legends may have more basis than most, because a new diocese was under consideration in western Pennsylvania when this church was going up in 1963. However, the Sharon Historical Society asked the archivist at the Diocese of Erie, Fr. Justin Pino, who says that the idea was always referred to as “the proposed Butler diocese.” At any rate, it didn’t happen, and Sharon is still in the Diocese of Erie.

But a diocese would be proud to have a cathedral like this. It was designed by the Cleveland firm of Stickle & Associates, and it reminds us that there was a time when modernism could be exciting and inspiring.

Many more pictures…

February 25, 2026
W. G. Kranz Mansion

This house was built in about 1911, and the architects—Averill & Adams of Washington, D. C.—gave it a bracingly modern interpretation of the Dutch-colonial style. It was featured in the American Architect for September 27, 1911. The only copy we could find of that issue was a scan from microfilm, but we have done our best to clear up the images to make the details visible. They show us that, externally, the only major change has been the enclosing of the side porch to make a sun room, which was done properly, so that we would hardly know it had not been enclosed originally.

In the background we can see the Morris Bachman mansion still under construction.

Ground-floor plan.

Second-floor plan.

Living room.

Dining room.

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February 25, 2026
Morris Bachman Mansion

Charles F. Owsley, the son of the Charles H. Owsley who was responsible for many of Sharon’s most distinguished buildings of a generation earlier, designed this hybrid of English cottage and Tudor castle for Morris Bachman, who unexpectedly died in 1909 before the house was completed. (The word “unexpectedly” was probably unnecessary there.) For many decades now it has been an old-age home called Clepper Manor. From a photograph published in 1911, we can see that it was still under construction just after the Kranz house next door was completed.

February 25, 2026
St. John’s Episcopal Church

A church built in 1893–1895; the architects were Owsley & Boucherle (the Owsley being Charles H. Owsley) of Youngstown. Later additions were designed by Ralph Adams Cram of Cram & Ferguson. The church has a 35-bell carillon that, according to the church’s Web site, is still in working order.

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February 24, 2026
First United Methodist Church

It’s clear that the architect of this big auditorium church was given a particular requirement: “You must find places for the big stained-glass windows we love in our old church.” Given that requirement, the architect responded with a postmodern-Gothic pile that looks a little confused, but successfully integrates the old windows and more or less builds the rest of the design on them.

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February 24, 2026