Greensburg's Lynch mansion, with 38 rooms and carriage house, on market for $900K
A historic three-story brick Greensburg mansion built by an associate of industrialist Henry Clay Frick, replete with seven bedrooms, seven bathrooms, parlor room and a brick carriage house, is on the market for a mere $895,000.
The 38-room, 6,000-square-foot stately manor was built for Thomas Lynch between 1905 and 1907 on 2.5 acres along West Pittsburgh Street between Seminary and Oakland avenues. Keller Williams, a Unity real estate agency, is handling the sale for the estate’s current owner, Old Republic Insurance Co.
Old Republic expanded the property in the 1950s, adding 20,000 square feet, but matching the red brick facade perfectly, said Tony Ferry, an operating principal at Keller Williams.
“It’s one of the most grand houses I have seen, and I’ve seen a lot,” said David Kahley, executive director of The Progress Fund, a Greensburg-based community development financial institution that funds small businesses with a focus on the hospitality and tourist industry.
He said he was surprised at how the interior has remained intact from the days when it was built.
The house befits the status of Lynch. He rose through the ranks of Frick’s coal and coke empire in Southwestern Pennsylvanian to the presidency of the H.C. Frick Coal & Coke Co. in 1896, according to “A Bicentennial History of the City of Greensburg,” written by the late Greensburg historian Robert Van Atta.
Mahogany woodwork imported from Belgium was installed throughout the house. The walls of some rooms are covered with brown leather. The entryway ceiling has fretted plaster embedded with an intricate design. The parlors are massive and the fireplaces have elaborate metal coverings. A billiards room on the second floor was a place where men could retire and play a friendly game after a sumptuous meal.
Furnishings for the home “came from all over the world,” Ferry said.
Kahley compared the property to Frick’s mansion, Clayton, now a museum in Pittsburgh’s Point Breeze neighborhood. He called it “a one-of-a-kind property.”
What the buyer will not get is the 56-by-84-inch Tiffany window that originally adorned the landing of the grand staircase. The window, which depicted a scene of Lynch’s ancestral home in Ireland, was commissioned from Louis Comfort Tiffany, the famed creator of stained-glass windows.
The window was removed after Thomas Lynch II, a founding board member of The Westmoreland Museum of American Art, sold the property in 1945 to Greensburg businessman Col. W. John Stiteler Jr., who turned it into offices for the Coal Operators Casualty Co. of Greensburg, a predecessor of Old Republic. The Tiffany piece now hangs in The Westmoreland, which bought the window in 2001 at auction for around $400,000, according to a Tribune-Review file article.
With the need to find a buyer “with deep pockets,” Ferry said the property will be listed for sale with Sotheby’s International Realty, which specializes in luxury real estate, as well as other traditional outlets for selling real estate.
The property could be converted to an upscale restaurant or a boutique hotel, featuring a destination place for a wedding reception, Ferry said, adding that he hopes to find a buyer that will maintain the property’s elegance.
Joe Napsha is a TribLive reporter covering Irwin, North Huntingdon and the Norwin School District. He also writes about business issues. He grew up on Neville Island and has worked at the Trib since the early 1980s. He can be reached at jnapsha@triblive.com.
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