Currier and Ives Meet the Kings and the Browns

It'll nearly be like a picture print

By Currier and Ives . . .

OK, the holiday season is rapidly receding in the rear view mirror, and hearing Nat King Cole croon “Sleigh Ride” for the umpteenth time may not be your cup of tea this late into January.

But it finally snowed in Pittsburgh for real on Friday, thus Saturday morning dawned on what, to my mind, is the closest thing to “a picture print by Currier and Ives” you’re likely to see anywhere – sled riding at the King Estate.

The King Estate (technically “Baywood”) is an elegant Second Empire mansion built by glass magnate Alexander King on several acres of land in the Highland Park neighborhood in 1880.   After wisely marrying into the Mellon family, King’s heirs donated Baywood and its grounds to the City of Pittsburgh in 1954 under the proviso that the mansion be torn down if the city was unable to properly maintain it. 

For the next forty years, as the city under-utilized Baywood to house arts and crafts programs for children and pre-teens, the once glorious building steadily deteriorated as a white elephant on the parks and recreation budget.  Sooner or later, the King family’s edict would surely have been enforced . . . until a local doctor and his pharmacist wife (Frank and Maura Brown) overcame fierce opposition from various neighborhood and civic groups to buy the joint in 1994 for the princely sum of $150,000.

While the Browns set about restoring Baywood itself to its former glory, the surrounding grounds remained in the city’s hands as a small but delightfully engaging park.  The principle geographical feature of The King estate is a “bowl” of land between Baywood and nearby Negley Avenue.  A semi-circular depression dipping down perhaps 50’ below street level (Nature’s perfect ¾ pipe?), it’s almost ideal for sled riding when the snow flies.  “Almost” is the operative word as, with sledders of all ages and sizes careening down its short but steep slopes from (nearly) all directions, it can resemble a near-circular firing squad on busy winter days.

And make no mistake, Saturday was a very busy winter day, with hundreds of kids (and the occasional Mom or Dad) sliding down the Bowl on sleds, inner-tubes and “saucers” as well as makeshift devices ranging from cardboard boxes to the odd cafeteria tray.  The sides of the Bowl were soon packed hard and, after a night of sub-freezing temperatures, Sunday with its slopes hardened to glacial consistency – making for even more thrilling descents.

Those who dared turn their back on the sledders, could follow the bottom of the Bowl where it funnels into a little glen of maples, ashes and hemlocks.  A trail leading into the trees showed evidence that several parents had, in all likelihood, towed their sled-sitting kids to a tantalizingly brief winter woodland experience beneath the gaze of Baywood and its outlying crenelated towers.  Make that crenelated tower (singular), as the battlements that once stood atop one of the towers now lie on their side near the bottom of the glen – sparking this visitor to muse upon the lives of Alexander King’s grandchildren who must have grown-up with, quite literally, a play castle in their backyard.

Deeper into the woods stands a trestle on the miniature railroad line running through the Pittsburgh Children’s Zoo and, buried under the snow somewhere is one of those urban mysteries: the rusting frame and parts of a drive-train from a mid-century Buick that someone, somehow contrived to drive into these woods.  How did it get there?  Who knows?  How do I know it’s a mid-century Buick?  Well, for openers the stout trees growing in the engine bay couldn’t be less than 40 years old . . . or so it seemed to me that last time I actually saw the old heap.  That would have been last summer, long before the snow flew and long before I couldn’t begin to find the car on my trip through the King Estate’s acre or so woods last weekend.

No matter, the old Buick will surely still be there the next time I tramp through the woods near Baywood.  Come to think of it, so will Baywood itself . . . thanks to the Kings of course, but mainly to the Browns and a city that recognized it was better to sell a magnificent white elephant to caring folks who could restore it to its former glory than simply expunging it from the books via the wrecking ball.