Frederick C. Sauer
Frederick C. Sauer was a German-American architect, particularly in the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, region of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Sauer, a German-born immigrant to the United States, was a stonemason, bricklayer and carpenter while studying at Technical school in Wittenberg, before studying at Stuttgart. 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 churches in the area. Perhaps his most notable works are St. [Stanislaus Kostka Church (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania)|St. Stanislaus Kostka Church] in the Strip District of Pittsburgh, St. Mary of the Mount Church on Mount Washington in Pittsburgh, Saint Mary Magdalene Church in Homestead, Latimer School in East Allegheny on the North Side of Pittsburgh, the old St. Nicholas Croatian Catholic Church in Troy Hill, and the St. Nicholas Croatian Church in Millvale. In 1898, Sauer built a home for himself in Aspinwall, Pennsylvania. After remodeling his chicken coop 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 as an historic district entitled the Sauer Buildings Historic District. "It is the most bizarre collection of buildings in Western Pennsylvania," says Franklin Toker, professor of art and architecture at the University of Pittsburgh.
List of known buildings designed by Sauer in chronological order
Italics denote a building listed on the National Register of Historic Places:- The Rectory of St. Michael's Roman Catholic Church at Saint Michael's [Roman Catholic Church & Rectory|21 Pius Street] in the South Side Slopes neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
- St. Stanislaus Kostka Church at 21st and Smallman Streets in the Strip District of Pittsburgh, PA
- Hitzrot House at 626 Market Street in McKeesport, Pennsylvania. Hitzrot House was demolished in 2014 by the City of McKeesport
- St. Mary Magdalene Church at 1008 Amity Street in Homestead, Pennsylvania
- Church of the [Immaculate Conception (Connellsville, Pennsylvania)|Church of the Immaculate Conception] at 148 E. Crawford Avenue in Connellsville, Pennsylvania
- St. Mary of the Mount Church at 403 Grandview Avenue in the Mount Washington neighborhood of Pittsburgh, PA
- Latimer School at Tripoli and James Streets in East Allegheny on the North Side of Pittsburgh, PA
- Sauer House at 625 Center Avenue in Aspinwall, Pennsylvania
- St. Nicholas Croatian Church at 1326 East Ohio Street in the Troy Hill neighborhood of Pittsburgh, PA
- St. Colman's Roman Catholic Church at 128 Shaw Avenue in Turtle Creek, Pennsylvania
- Sauer House - at 311 Highland Terr. O'hara, Pennsylvania - Sauer's home for a few years before selling in 1920.
- St. Nicholas Croatian Church at 24 Maryland Avenue in Millvale, Pennsylvania
- Heidelberg three-story apartment house in fantastic architectural style. Considered by some critics to be the main structure of the Sauer Buildings Historic District in Aspinwall, Pennsylvania, 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.
- 804 Penn Ave