859 Blackburn Road, Sewickley, Pa 15143

The Paddock was commissioned by Adelaide Burguinn and designed by Alden & Harlow, the firm behind the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh and the Duquesne Club. It is the last of their work still standing in Sewickley Heights.

You feel that before anyone tells you about it. The ceilings run high, the millwork is the kind no budget reproduces today, and the rooms answer one another across the plan the way that firm always drew them. The grand hall once held a twenty-eight-foot Christmas tree with room to spare, which tells you more about the scale than a measurement would. Off it sit the formal dining room, the Morning Room that holds sun most of the day, and the Billiard Room, all of it built when a house was expected to carry a crowd for an evening. More than six bedrooms upstairs.

The grounds are where the name comes from: long lawns, a paddock, a kennel, and old trees that do the work of a fence. You are genuinely private out here and still minutes from Sewickley village, inside Quaker Valley schools, and a clean run into downtown Pittsburgh or the airport.

The sellers have handled the expensive, unglamorous part already. New roof with new gutters and downspouts, a new septic system, and a newly paved asphalt drive. The structure is sound and the envelope is buttoned up. What remains is finish work, and that is the part any buyer would want a hand in anyway.

This is a restoration, and it deserves to be described that way. A house of this age and authorship wants an owner who sees the work as the reason to buy it rather than the obstacle. If that is you, come walk it with me.