This Second Empire house, now a funeral home, has suffered a bit from the usual culprits: artificial siding, new windows, fake shutters. But the outlines of the house, and especially its distinctive mansard roof, are still obvious. It was built in about 1886 for Alexander McDowell, a banker who would later become a member of Congress.
A splendid Italianate house built for the furniture maker James N. Willson in 1875. According to the Sharon Historical Society, the architect was A. Kanengeiser.
The grand staircase is always the central feature of a millionaire’s mansion, and the one in the Buhl mansion is not a disappointment.
The huge stained-glass window on the landing is not the original; it is a replacement added when the house was rescued and renovated in 1996.
A somewhat less grand staircase continues up to the third floor.
Now called Covenant Church, but still Presbyterian. As in most cities in western Pennsylvania, there were two First Presbyterians; the ones who built this church were the United Presbyterians, a Pittsburgh-based splinter group that reunited with the larger body of American Presbyterians in 1958, a century and two days after they had walked out. This church, built in 1908, was designed by Sharon’s own E. E. Clepper, who seems to have been the pull-out-all-the-stops type when it came to ornamenting a building.
Frank H. Buhl gave this club for the innocent recreation of the men of Sharon, so they would not have to spend their evenings in saloons drinking and getting into even worse trouble. As the Buhl Community Recreation Center, it is still going; it now admits women as well. The original building was put up in 1902; the architect was Buhl’s favorite, Charles H. Owsley of Owsley & Boucherle in Youngstown.1
