I had a marvelous weekend starting with a tour of homes in the Allegheny West area of Pittsburgh on Friday night! It's called Old Allegheny Victorian Christmas House Tour. It is a tour of one church and seven homes that are all decorated for the holidays. It was spectacular!
It helps that I went with these two lovely girls below!!!
This is the pastor at the Calvary United Methodist Church where you meet to head out on the tour. He gave us history of the church and we have a lot of amazing photos from inside!
Just look at these stained glass windows! This church has the largest Tiffany glass windows in the world! It is unfortunate that my pictures do not do it justice! If you are in the area, go to church here...it is worth it if even just once!
Then onto the tour! We saw Mansion homes that had ballrooms and dining rooms bigger than my whole house! This is an example of one of the homes that now houses a business. This is a view from the second floor balcony down onto the ballroom! It was spectacular!
And we also saw many simple and quaint row homes which were very popular in the era these homes were built. They were all magnificent and decorated so beautiful!
Some random trees on the tour in one of the mansions.
And at the end of the tour, we arrived at the home of John DeSantis. He is an avid train collector and has the largest private owned collection anywhere! The photo below is the first Lionel train demo that was used to sell the idea of making trains to investors, It is the one and only prototype and John DeSantis outbid the Smithsonian for ownership! Simply amazing to see!
The third and fourth floor of his mansion looks like the photo below. Every room and wall on both floors is filled with rows and rows of trains! Unbelievable!
This is the fifth floor of the mansion. He has tracks set up and some of the trains running.
If you are looking for a great holiday idea and you are in the Pittsburgh area - I HIGHLY recommend the tour! You will love it!
Saturday, my Mom came in from Ohio to shop for Steelers items for Christmas presents and run down to the Strip District for a little browsing and shopping. We had a great day together although we forgot to get a selfie!
Then it was off to the BF's house. He has a huge burn pile in the backyard and wanted to get it started burning Saturday since we have had such dry weather in Pittsburgh. Well, he burned it from 10AM until 3PM (which is the cutoff time for burning) and then it would not go out. We sprayed it with water and that caused massive smoking so the Police and Fire were called by concerned people that saw the smoke. We had it under control but it was better that they had called anyway. Then firemen did a much better job of putting most of it out although it was still smoking Sunday - LOL.
Here is our local firefighting team hard at work.
So my weekend included fun and excitement! LOL! I hope you all have a great week!
Are you ready for Christmas? Any of you ever had police or fire called for any reason? Can you say...embarrasing? HA
Happy Monday!
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beautiful tour, thanks for sharing.
ReplyDeleteIt really was amazing Denise. When you see the inside of these homes with ballrooms and massive ceilings, it is hard to imagine how life inside the house must have been.
DeleteI wonder if they will send a bill for putting the fire out? My daughter and her friend called the fire department once when they set off the smoke alarms at the friends house. It was a Pinterest project gone wrong lol.
ReplyDeleteLove the houses, that train one is awesome!
LOL! Great minds think alike - I asked him the same thing....my boyfriend that is and he said no. But I think you are right and he will get a bill. We shall see.... Your friend's experience was a true "Pinterest Fail"! HA
DeleteMerry Christmas to you and your family!!!