[wppa type=”slide” album=”40″][/wppa]

By Douglas McGlynn

Having lived my entire life in Pittsburgh I thought I’d seen all it had to offer. I’ve seen enough, at least, to decide that all of its neighborhoods are pretty much the same, with a few exceptions of course.

I realized how wrong I was when I took the 2014 Historic Deutschtown House Tour Sunday, Oct. 5.

Northside’s Historic Deutschtown became a historical district in 1997 and has been revitalized in recent years by a plethora of building renovations. All of the houses featured on the tour had beautiful interiors that blurred the line between traditional and modern.

Within the past few decades Historic Deutschtown has undergone a renaissance of sorts to revitalize the neighborhood. A full list of house restorations can be accessed on the neighborhood’s official website.

This seems like just the beginning for Historic Deutschtown. Many homes along the tour path bore real estate signs in front of the buildings and it is clear that interest will continue to grow.

The tour itself featured six houses, the Priory Hotel, and a shared garden courtyard. Also included was a house that was currently undergoing renovations and showed promise to be yet another beautiful home in the neighborhood.

Many of the homes feature Victorian architecture as their exteriors, but due to the interior renovations these same homes are modern on the inside. All of the homes on the tour had an aesthetic of warmth and comfort about them that brought even more charm to the neighborhood.

One thing this tour made immediately clear was the friendliness of neighborhood’s inhabitants. Oftentimes the owner was present to answer questions about the building, renovations or the neighborhood in general.