Victoria Hall (also known as Ursuline Academy, as well as the Lynch House) at 201 South Winebiddle Street in the
Bloomfield neighborhood of
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, United States, and its county seat. It is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, second-most populous city in Pennsylvania (after Philadelphia) and the List of Un ...
, was built for Henry J. Lynch in the late 1860s. It was acquired by the
Ursuline Sisters in 1894 and used as a
Catholic
The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...
girls' school, the Ursuline Academy for Young Women from 1895 to 1981. The school building was listed on the
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...
in 2012.
Architecture
The original architect of this
Second Empire style house was possibly
Isaac Hobbs
Isaac ( ; ; ; ; ; ) is one of the three patriarchs of the Israelites and an important figure in the Abrahamic religions, including Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and the Baháʼí Faith. Isaac first appears in the Torah, in which he is the son of ...
, the architect of the
Dollar Savings Bank on Fourth Avenue in Pittsburgh. Hobbs and Henry J. Lynch worked closely together when Lynch sat on the bank's board of directors from 1864 to 1906. The house was added to the
List of City of Pittsburgh historic designations
Historic designations in the City of Pittsburgh are awarded following nominations for districts and individual structures that are reviewed and recommended to Pittsburgh City Council, which makes the final decision, by the city's Historic Review ...
on August 20, 1982,
and the
in 1984.
The mansion has 21 rooms, stained-glass windows, 14-foot-high tin ceilings and carved corbels.
[
]
History
The Ursuline Sisters raised the money to buy the building for a school in the 1890s, and then defended the school's independence against the Diocese of Pittsburgh and it Bishop Phelan.[ They made a number of additions to the original structure, including an auditorium/dormitory, chapel, and a dining hall. They sold the building in the early 1990s.
From 1993 until 2002, it was known as "Victoria Hall", and was a venue for weddings and parties. Currently, the building is the Waldorf School of Pittsburgh, a part of the larger ]Waldorf education
Waldorf education, also known as Steiner education, is based on the educational philosophy of Rudolf Steiner, the founder of anthroposophy. Its educational style is holistic, intended to develop pupils' intellectual, artistic, and practical sk ...
movement.
Students in the architectural studies program at the University of Pittsburgh
The University of Pittsburgh (Pitt) is a Commonwealth System of Higher Education, state-related research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. The university is composed of seventeen undergraduate and graduate schools and colle ...
, led by their teacher Jeff Slack, researched and wrote the first draft of the National Register of Historic Places nomination form in 2008 and 2010.[
]
References
{{Pittsburgh
Houses in Pittsburgh
Second Empire architecture in Pennsylvania
Houses completed in 1870