Father Pitt in Sharon

Tag: Mansions

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
Stevenson Mansion

This is one of the most extravagant mobile homes in history. John Stevenson was an executive in the New Castle Nail and Wire Company, which obviously brought him a lot of money. He hired New Castle’s own Sydney Foulk to design this extravagant Romanesque house, which cost $100,000 to build in 1894.

Not long after, he came back from a trip to Europe to find that the company had been absorbed by United States Steel, and there was no place for him in the new organization. He was so angry he stomped out of New Castle—and took his house with him, in kit form, every stone labeled for reassembly, on 55 railcars. It cost another $100,000 to move the house, but he showed them.

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February 24, 2026
Rear of the Buhl Mansion

Some views of the rear of the house taken from the grounds on a snowy day.

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February 24, 2026
Whitla Mansion

A very shingly house designed by Charles H. Owsley, who would also design the Buhl mansion across the street; this one was built in about 1890. The restoration of the house was done on a budget that did not permit custom windows to fit in the arches, but much of the most characteristic detail has been preserved.

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February 24, 2026