Home & Lifestyle Archives - Page 12 of 13

As Kermit the Frog says, “It isn’t easy being green.” Obviously, he’s never been to Equita, a Lawrenceville boutique specializing in “green, sweatshop-free and Fair Trade” items. If this conjures thoughts of brown rice, scratchy, unbleached cotton and a sea of beige, rest assured: Equita is everything but. After traveling (and working) around the world, …

Being green is easy at this boutique Read More »

Homes

Into the Woods

by Marylynn Uricchio

One of the many paths through Frick Park wanders past the house, which sits on the crest of a hill overlooking acres of woodland. Each time he passed it, the current owner would tell his wife that if it ever came on the market, he would buy it. In fact, it was on the market …

Into the Woods Read More »

Travel

Moundsville, W. Va.

by Barbara Eichenlaub

As the holidays approach, frantic parents stand in endless lines or buy online, getting the hottest high-tech “made in China” toys. If that seems overwhelming, try visiting the Official Marx Toy Museum of Glen Dale, W.Va. Located in Moundsville, just south of Wheeling, the museum takes visitors down memory lane as they enjoy Louis Marx …

Moundsville, W. Va. Read More »

Food & Wine

Driven to Drink

by Chico Harlan

We’ve been conditioned to think of beer as decision-making’s devoted contaminant, so when I tell you that beer almost single-handedly explains Scott Smith’s current whereabouts, you might think this story won’t end well. Four years ago, Smith worked for a Fortune 500 company in a consumer products job. But the longer he did this, no …

Driven to Drink Read More »

Homes

Updating a Brandon Smith

by Marylynn Uricchio

Following in the footsteps of Brandon Smith would be a daunting task for most architects. He left his imprint throughout the region, designing in his lifetime (1889-1962) many Western Pennsylvania landmarks. While best known for institutions such as the Edgeworth Club, Fox Chapel Golf Club and Shady Side Academy, Smith was the architect of choice …

Updating a Brandon Smith Read More »

Food & Wine

The Pie Place

by Barbara Eichenlaub

It’s a gift to be able to do one thing really well, and The Pie Place in the Norman Centre 2 in Bethel Park has that gift. The little shop is tucked in a strip mall dominated by Borders and Louis Anthony Jewelers. It’s been there for over four years, but many locals have never …

The Pie Place Read More »

Food & Wine

Bet the Farm

by Virginia Phillips

Selected by owners Jack and Dale Duff from a small field of candidates, they have been operating the venerable Blackberry Meadows Farm all summer under a lease/purchase agreement. With heads full of “green” theory and their own, seemingly endless renewable energy, the four entrepreneurs have passed the halfway mark in the growing season and are …

Bet the Farm Read More »

Homes

A Cottage Charmer

by Marylynn Uricchio

The before pictures of the house in Fox Chapel would send a chill through the heart of even the most accomplished renovator. An 1870s cottage married to a 1950s ranch created a charmless union, to say the least. “I walked in, saw the living room and said, ‘We’ll take it,’” Betsy Deiseroth recalls with a …

A Cottage Charmer Read More »

Travel

Putnam Place

by Barbara Eichenlaub

Few things satisfy more on a warm summer day than strolling through a beautiful garden and then selecting and cutting flowers for a perfect arrangement. If you don’t have the time, space or talent to cultivate and tend a cutting garden, The Putnam Place, about a mile from Bakersfield (in the Laurel Highlands), is a …

Putnam Place Read More »

Homes

A Country Idyll

by Marylynn Uricchio

Rough-hewn stone, wood and copper are traditional materials for a country house, though the only thing country about the residence designed by Roger Ferri some 20 years ago is its location. It sits by a stream tucked away from interruption in a quiet part of Western Pennsylvania, and little about it has changed since the …

A Country Idyll Read More »

Shopping

Crate: Gifts and Commercial Cookware

by Barbara Eichenlaub

When Linda Wernikoff moved to Pittsburgh from Chicago in 1977, she was disappointed by the housewares departments at Horne’s, Kaufmann’s, and Gimbel’s. She felt they lacked inspiration and were predictable. So the next year, she opened Crate in Mt. Lebanon, a tiny, second-story store on Beverly Road that specialized in gifts and commercial cookware that …

Crate: Gifts and Commercial Cookware Read More »

Food & Wine

Home is Where the Hearth Is

by Virginia Phillips

The walk was maybe a half-mile switchback up the side of a mountain in semi-freezing drizzle, past a slate-colored pond, through a covered bridge, beyond a clearing with a few austere frame buildings, and up and up. I can tell you I’ve never been so happy in my life to see smoke from a chimney. …

Home is Where the Hearth Is Read More »

Homes

For sale

by Sanford Neiman

For almost everyone, buying or selling a house is a vital personal and financial transaction. Yet most people do not recognize that planning and implementing the right strategy can change the outcome by thousands if not hundreds of thousands of dollars. For buyers, the right strategy can make the difference in getting the house that …

For sale Read More »

Food & Wine

Wine tips from the Heinz-Kerry cellar

by Virginia Phillips

With her easy tact and predisposition to agree, she might be a diplomat or a counselor—if it weren’t for the one-liners that slip out, almost as if they’re sneaking up on her, and the highly contagious laughs that follow. She should be laughing. Diane Martz, 43, in black jeans, tennis shoes and zero makeup, is …

Wine tips from the Heinz-Kerry cellar Read More »

Travel

Fire & Ice Festival, Laurel Highlands Model Railroad Club

by Barbara Eichenlaub

For those who enjoy the kinship, shopping and food at community celebrations, summer brings the mother lode with its county fairs, pie eating contests, town carnivals, cotton candy and dunk tanks. Fall brings harvest celebrations with apple cider, pumpkin picking, hayrides and candy apples. Even March and April have their Friday fish fries at churches …

Fire & Ice Festival, Laurel Highlands Model Railroad Club Read More »

Homes

Lofty Ideas

by Marylynn Uricchio

Their Shadyside home was one of the city’s finest, sequestered at the end of a leafy cul-de-sac. The grounds included a stone courtyard, large pool and formal rose garden that Tim and Audrey Hillman Fisher often used for the many benefits and parties they hosted. So invariably, the first question they are asked is how …

Lofty Ideas Read More »

Shopping

Izzazu International Salon

by Barbara Eichenlaub

Most men have no problem using a bar of Irish Spring to shower, shampoo and shave, all in about five minutes. A trend is growing, though. Izzazu International Salon has a service for men who want the same pampering traditionally reserved for women — a facial and (for men only!) a shave. In a private …

Izzazu International Salon Read More »

Food & Wine

Salt, Air, Time and a Pig’s Hind Leg

by Virginia Phillips

In a food world where cured pork products have been catapulted to sexy heights of connoisseurship by chefs like Mario Batali, Pittsburghers blithely accept, take for granted and plain underappreciate the elegant—and bargain-priced—sausage and prosciutto made here in a fourth-generation family business in the Strip. “Parma is the best kept secret in town,” says Chef …

Salt, Air, Time and a Pig’s Hind Leg Read More »

Travel

Haiti: In Search of Hope

by Douglas Heuck

Deschapelles, Haiti – From the window of a small, private plane, the island of Hispaniola came into view in the middle of the vast, blue Caribbean. Haiti and its neighbor on the island, the Dominican Republic, looked like two countries on a globe in a library, set apart by two different colors. The Dominican Republic was …

Haiti: In Search of Hope Read More »

Homes

Modern English

by Marylynn Uricchio

From the outside, the stone and shingle cottage could easily be perched along a bucolic lane in the Cotswolds instead of a quiet road in Fox Chapel. That’s what makes the inside all the more remarkable. Eschewing the more traditional approach suggested by such architecture, designer Kathleen Clements devised a sophisticated interior that purifies modern …

Modern English Read More »

Food & Wine

Creative Dinners and More

by Barbara Eichenlaub

With careers, carpooling and volunteer work, making dinner can be a challenge for busy families! If Stouffer’s is “home cooking” and at tax time you can claim the pizza deliveryman as a dependant, it might be time for a change. Enter a new concept in cooking — meal preparation centers. Creative Dinners and More provides …

Creative Dinners and More Read More »

Homes

Secretary’s Treasure

by Marylynn Uricchio

When Paul O’Neill was appointed Secretary of the Treasury in 2001, he planned to secure a pied-á-terre in Washington, retain his main residence in Pittsburgh and, with his wife, Nancy, vacation at their Maryland beach house. But finding an acceptable home in the capital proved to be somewhat difficult. A quick trip to the famed …

Secretary’s Treasure Read More »