Frederick C. Sauer (1860,''Landmark Architecture of Allegheny County'' by James D. Van Trump and Arthur P. Ziegler, Jr., page 161 (1967,

Pittsburgh History and Landmarks Foundation The Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation (PHLF) is a nonprofit organization founded in 1964 to support the preservation of historic buildings and neighborhoods in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA. In 1966, PHLF established the Revolving Fund for ...

, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, )

Heidelberg Heidelberg (; Palatine German language, Palatine German: ''Heidlberg'') is a city in the States of Germany, German state of Baden-Württemberg, situated on the river Neckar in south-west Germany. As of the 2016 census, its population was 159,914 ...

Grand Duchy of Baden The Grand Duchy of Baden (german: Großherzogtum Baden) was a state in the southwest German Empire on the east bank of the Rhine. It existed between 1806 and 1918. It came into existence in the 12th century as the Margraviate of Baden and subs ...

– 1942

Aspinwall, Pennsylvania Aspinwall is a borough on the Allegheny River in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, United States, and is part of the Pittsburgh Metro Area. In 1900, 1,231 people lived in Aspinwall, and that number rose to 2,592 in 1910, and 3,170 by 1920. The popu ...

, United States) was a

German-American German Americans (german: Deutschamerikaner, ) are Americans who have full or partial German ancestry. With an estimated size of approximately 43 million in 2019, German Americans are the largest of the self-reported ancestry groups by the Unite ...

architect An architect is a person who plans, designs and oversees the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to provide services in connection with the design of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the buildings that h ...

, particularly in the

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, Allegheny County. It is the most populous city in both Allegheny County and Wester ...

, region of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Sauer, a

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) **Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ger ...

-born

immigrant Immigration is the international movement of people to a destination country of which they are not natives or where they do not possess citizenship in order to settle as permanent residents or naturalized citizens. Commuters, tourists, and ...

to the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

, was a

stonemason Stonemasonry or stonecraft is the creation of buildings, structures, and sculpture using stone as the primary material. It is one of the oldest activities and professions in human history. Many of the long-lasting, ancient shelters, temples, mo ...

bricklayer A bricklayer, which is related to but different from a mason, is a craftsman and tradesman who lays bricks to construct brickwork. The terms also refer to personnel who use blocks to construct blockwork walls and other forms of masonry. ...

and

carpenter Carpentry is a skilled trade and a craft in which the primary work performed is the cutting, shaping and installation of building materials during the construction of buildings, Shipbuilding, ships, timber bridges, concrete formwork, etc. ...

while studying at

Technical school In the United States, a technical school is a type of two-year college that covers specialized fields such as business, finance, hospitality, tourism, construction, engineering, visual arts, information technology and community work. Associa ...

Wittenberg Wittenberg ( , ; Low Saxon language, Low Saxon: ''Wittenbarg''; meaning ''White Mountain''; officially Lutherstadt Wittenberg (''Luther City Wittenberg'')), is the fourth largest town in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. Wittenberg is situated on the Ri ...

, before studying at

Stuttgart Stuttgart (; Swabian: ; ) is the capital and largest city of the German state of Baden-Württemberg. It is located on the Neckar river in a fertile valley known as the ''Stuttgarter Kessel'' (Stuttgart Cauldron) and lies an hour from the ...

. He moved to Pittsburgh from Germany in 1880, established a Pittsburgh office in 1884, established the Aspinwall-Delafield Land Company in 1904, and built about a dozen

Catholic The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

churches in the area. Perhaps his most notable works are St. Stanislaus Kostka Church (1891) in the Strip District of Pittsburgh, St. Mary of the Mount Church (1896) on

Mount Washington Mount Washington is the highest peak in the Northeastern United States at and the most topographically prominent mountain east of the Mississippi River. The mountain is notorious for its erratic weather. On the afternoon of April 12, 1934, ...

in Pittsburgh, Saint Mary Magdalene Church in

Homestead Homestead may refer to: *Homestead (buildings), a farmhouse and its adjacent outbuildings; by extension, it can mean any small cluster of houses *Homestead (unit), a unit of measurement equal to 160 acres *Homestead principle, a legal concept th ...

(1895),

Latimer School The Latimer School (also known as "The School House Apartments") is located in the East Allegheny neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The school building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1986. History and archite ...

(1898) in East Allegheny on the North Side of Pittsburgh, the old St. Nicholas Croatian Catholic Church (1900) in Troy Hill, and the St. Nicholas Croatian Church in Millvale (1922). In 1898, Sauer built a home for himself in

. After remodeling his

chicken coop Poultry farming is the form of animal husbandry which raises domesticated birds such as chickens, ducks, turkeys and geese to produce meat or eggs for food. Poultry – mostly chickens – are farmed in great numbers. More than 60 billion chicke ...

in an eccentric mode in 1928 and 1930, he gradually transformed a wooded hillside into an architectural fantasy, and a complex of castlesque buildings and landscape features in Fantastic architectural style gradually took shape and was progressively added to by Sauer until his death in 1942. The site is listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

as an

historic district A historic district or heritage district is a section of a city which contains older buildings considered valuable for historical or architectural reasons. In some countries or jurisdictions, historic districts receive legal protection from c ...

entitled the

Sauer Buildings Historic District Sauer Buildings Historic District, located between 607 and 717 Center Avenue in Aspinwall, Pennsylvania, consists of a group of buildings designed and built by Frederick C. Sauer from 1898 until his death in 1942. This historic district was ad ...

. "It is the most bizarre collection of buildings in

Western Pennsylvania Western Pennsylvania is a region in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania, covering the western third of the state. Pittsburgh is the region's principal city, with a metropolitan area population of about 2.4 million people, and serves as its economic ...

," says

Franklin Toker Franklin K. Toker (29 April 1944 – 19 April 2021) was a Canadian-American professor of the history of art and architecture at the University of Pittsburgh and the author of nine books on the history of art and architecture, ranging from the exc ...

, professor of

art Art is a diverse range of human activity, and resulting product, that involves creative or imaginative talent expressive of technical proficiency, beauty, emotional power, or conceptual ideas. There is no generally agreed definition of wha ...

and

architecture Architecture is the art and technique of designing and building, as distinguished from the skills associated with construction. It is both the process and the product of sketching, conceiving, planning, designing, and constructing building ...

at the

University of Pittsburgh The University of Pittsburgh (Pitt) is a public state-related research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The university is composed of 17 undergraduate and graduate schools and colleges at its urban Pittsburgh campus, home to the universit ...

List of known buildings designed by Sauer in chronological order

''Italics denote a building listed on the

:'' * The '' Rectory of St. Michael's Roman Catholic Church'' (1890) at 21 Pius Street in the

South Side Slopes South Side Slopes is a neighborhood in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania's South Side area. The neighborhood comprises the hills from the South Side Flats neighborhood along the Monongahela River from the Liberty Bridge (west) to beyond Josephine Street ...

neighborhood of

* '' St. Stanislaus Kostka Church'' (1891) at 21st and Smallman Streets in the Strip District of Pittsburgh, PA * Hitzrot House (1892) at 626 Market Street in

McKeesport, Pennsylvania McKeesport is a city in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, United States. It is situated at the confluence of the Monongahela and Youghiogheny rivers and within the Pittsburgh metropolitan area. The population was 17,727 as of the 2020 census. It ...

(Former house of Dr. Henry W. Hitzrot, who died in 1906, then the

Fraternal Order of Eagles Fraternal Order of Eagles (F.O.E.) is a fraternal organization that was founded on February 6, 1898, in Seattle, Washington, by a group of six theater owners including John Cort (the first president), brothers John W. and Tim J. Considine, Harry ...

bought the building in 1911). Hitzrot House was demolished in 2014 by the City of McKeesport * St. Mary Magdalene Church (1895) at 1008 Amity Street in

Homestead, Pennsylvania Homestead is a borough in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, USA, in the Monongahela River valley southeast of downtown Pittsburgh and directly across the river from the city limit line. The borough is known for the Homestead Strike of 1892, an imp ...

* Church of the Immaculate Conception (1896) at 148 E. Crawford Avenue in

Connellsville, Pennsylvania Connellsville is a city in Fayette County, Pennsylvania, United States, southeast of Pittsburgh and away via the Youghiogheny River, a tributary of the Monongahela River. It is part of the Pittsburgh Metro Area. The population was 7,637 at th ...

* St. Mary of the Mount Church (1896) at 403 Grandview Avenue in the

neighborhood of Pittsburgh, PA * ''

'' (1898) at Tripoli and James Streets in East Allegheny on the North Side of Pittsburgh, PA * ''Sauer House'' (1898) at 625 Center Avenue in

(Sauer's home and the first dwelling built on what would later become the ''

'', a collection of buildings he designed, built, and worked on for the rest of his life) * St. Nicholas Croatian Church (1900) at 1326 East Ohio Street in the Troy Hill neighborhood of Pittsburgh, PA * St. Colman's Roman Catholic Church (1901 to 1903) at 128 Shaw Avenue in

Turtle Creek, Pennsylvania Turtle Creek is a borough in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, southeast of Pittsburgh. The population was 5,349 at the 2010 census. George Westinghouse constructed a manufacturing plant nearby. Turtle Creek takes its name from a small stream th ...

(Torn down, now a parking lot. New church called St. Colman's at Hunter and Thompson Streets.) * '' St. Nicholas Croatian Church'' (1922) at 24 Maryland Avenue in

Millvale, Pennsylvania Millvale is a borough in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, United States, along the Allegheny River, opposite Pittsburgh. The borough is located off Pennsylvania Route 28. The population was 3,744 at the 2010 census. Geography Millvale is locate ...

* ''Heidelberg'' (1928–1930) three-story apartment house in fantastic architectural style. Considered by some critics to be the main structure of the ''

'' in

, and perhaps the catalyst for Sauer's experiments in architectural fantasy. Sauer continued to work on the buildings in this district until his death in 1942.

Gallery

File:FormerSaintMichaelsCatholicChurchRectory.jpg, Former Saint Michael's Roman Catholic Church Rectory, built 1890, at 21 Pius Street in the

neighborhood of

. File:HitzrotHouse.jpg, Hitzrot House, built 1892, at 626 Market Street in

. File:St.MaryMagdaleneChurch.jpg, St. Mary Magdalene Church, built 1895, at 1008 Amity Street in

. File:Immaculate Conception 2020 (Front).jpg, Church of the Immaculate Conception, built 1896, in

File:St. Mary of the Mount Church, Mount Washington, Pittsburgh.jpg, St. Mary of the Mount Church, built in 1896, at 403 Grandview Avenue in the

neighborhood of Pittsburgh, PA. File:LatimerSchool.jpg,

, built 1898, located at Tripoli and James Streets in the East Allegheny neighborhood of Pittsburgh, PA. File:SauerHouse.jpg, Sauer House, built in 1898, at 625 Center Avenue in

. File:FirstSt.NicholasCroationCatholic.jpg, The old Saint Nicholas Croatian Catholic Church, built from 1900 to 1904, at 1326 East Ohio Street in the Troy Hill neighborhood of Pittsburgh, PA. File:St.NicholasCroatianChurch.jpg, St. Nicholas Croatian Church, built in 1922, at 24 Maryland Avenue in

. File:SauerHeidelbergAspinwall.jpg, Sauer's "Heidelberg" apartment house, built 1928–1930, part of the

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sauer, Frederick C. 1860 births 1942 deaths People from Heidelberg People from the Grand Duchy of Baden German emigrants to the United States 19th-century American architects Architects of Roman Catholic churches Architects from Pittsburgh 20th-century American architects