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Saturday, September 22, 2001

By Kevin Kirkland, Post-Gazette Homes Editor

Don't hate Anthony Lamb because his house is beautiful.

His neighbors don't, at least not that they'll admit. But you couldn't blame them. Lamb, a designer and buyer for Weisshouse, has been living in his new/old townhouse in Friendship for just two months. But it already has the finishing touches and cohesive look that some homes never achieve.

	Old porch columns lead from the TV room to the living room in the Anthony Lamb home, which will be one of the homes on Sunday's Friendship House Tour. (Andy Starnes, Post-Gazette)

"Within a week, everything was done. Some of my new neighbors came for a visit. One of them said 'We've been here for three years and we're not this together,' " Lamb, 42, said, laughing.

On Sunday, Lamb's townhouse and its eclectic mix of contemporary/antique decor will be open along with 10 other homes and two gardens for the Friendship House Tour.

Most of the tour stops are large, grand homes built in the late 1800s and early 1900s for bankers, lawyers and professionals, many of them the prosperous children of German immigrants. Lamb's row house is about the same age but doesn't have that pedigree.

Built in the late 1890s, possibly for members of a nearby church, the row houses on Clarendon Place were in bad shape when Friendship Development Associates bought them in 1998.

All were modernized with new windows, skylights, plaster, plumbing, electrical systems, heating, air-conditioning and security systems. But they still retain many of their original elements, including fireplaces and mantels, woodwork, arched brick window and door frames and transoms on the upstairs doors.

Architect Karen Loysen of Loysen & Associates in Point Breeze replaced the tiny stoops with wide, columned front porches separated by decorative steel mesh trellises. She also removed or cut into some of the interior walls to create a more spacious, contemporary feel.

"I didn't want to go into a choppy space," Lamb says. "I love the way that they opened it up, made it kind of lofty."

But it's not as lofty as his old Shadyside apartment, which had 13-foot ceilings. Lamb was a little worried that his large artwork, including mixed-media pieces by artist friend Robert Robertson, wouldn't fit here. He has made them work, spotlighting them with cable halogen lights from IKEA.

Lamb says part of the reason he was able to settle in so quickly was that he didn't need to buy lots of new furniture; most came from his Shadyside apartment. He just had to rearrange it in the 2,800-square-foot space, about 800 more feet than he had in Shadyside. He admits he had a professional's advantage.

"I knew what I wanted. This is my job."

When he first began looking in Friendship, the Tennessee native was thinking about buying one of the many huge Victorian mansions that have been broken into apartments. He's glad he didn't.

"For someone in my business, it would have been a money pit," he says. "When I talk to some of my neighbors, I feel like I cheated."

	'Urban Spaces and Dwelling Places,' the Friendship House Tour WHEN: 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday. TICKETS: $15 in advance, $18 on tour day. Participants can drive to each site or ride trolleys from Gray Line of Pittsburgh. INFORMATION: 412-441-6147.

Lamb paid $130,000 for this row house, one of four three-bedroom, two-bath units in the row. Five of the smaller, two-bedroom units are still available, for $95,000.

Becky Mingo, executive director of Friendship Development Association, said Clarendon Place owners range in age from 20s to 50s. Most are single.

"We were a little bit surprised that some people moved from the suburbs. We wanted that to happen, but we were surprised that they would downsize," she said.

Working with open but not huge spaces, Lamb makes an impact in his home with just a few well-chosen pieces in each room.

The living room, warmed by the original fireplace with gas logs, uses as its central grouping an antique camelback sofa covered in linen, a soapstone pedestal from a Fifth Avenue mansion and a modern classic, a Le Corbusier chaise longue covered with pony hide. Standing on the floor nearby and reaching nearly to the ceiling is a huge multimedia piece by Robertson.

Lamb deftly mixes contemporary furniture, much of it from Weiss-house, with items he buys at auctions and antique shops.

"I think most people live this way. Everyone has something from their grandmother or aunt. Few people are contemporary purists," he said.

The dining room is the house's most dramatic room. Walls painted in a chocolate-brown semi-gloss frame the unmatched dining set -- an Empire-style mahogany game table surrounded by French caneback chairs. One chair has a gaping hole in the back.

"I left the hole. It's kind of shabby chic," Lamb said, smiling.

Beneath the table is an old zebra skin and hanging above it is a goatskin chandelier decorated with a henna design, from Weisshouse. A set of simple birch shelves on the wall complement the birch plywood floor, which runs throughout the first floor.

Architectural antiques pop up around the house, such as the pair of old porch columns with peeling paint that lead from the TV room to the living room. Lamb bought them years ago from Mark Evers Antiques in Shadyside.

Even the thoroughly modern kitchen has antique elements. Lamb's china is displayed in a Weiss-house cabinet made from two roughly carved teak temple doors. On the kitchen walls are antique Italian dessert plates and vintage signs from an old butcher shop.

Upstairs, the mix of new and old continues. In the master bedroom, Weisshouse delivery men are just setting down a full-length Parallel Lines mirror with black-painted ash frame next to an antique Chinese grain container used as a side table. A funky 1950s console from Weiss-house crouches in one corner.

Lamb uses another bedroom as an office. An old walnut farm table is the desk and notes are scribbled on two pieces of chalkboard saved from a school on the South Side. The top of one piece is jagged, a casualty of a leaning party guest during Lamb's 17 years in Shadyside.

Parties and casual entertaining appear to be the idea behind the patio garden Lamb has created behind his row house. Forgoing grass and a fence around the tiny space, he used tan-colored pea gravel, a raised planting bed and a variety of low-maintenance plants to re-create the feel of courtyards he saw on a recent vacation in Provence, France.

Black-eyed Susans and daylilies grow right through the gravel in clumps, while coleus, hydrangeas, cigar plants and some evergreens define the edges. An old wooden table, chairs, candles and a cast-iron lion's head fountain on the wall complete the effect.

Lamb said he has been surprised at how quiet it is in Friendship. He sleeps undisturbed with his windows open, he said, and walks his dog, Charlie, late at night without incident. And neighbors have come not only from next door but also blocks away to welcome him with cakes, bottles of wine and offers of help.

"I bought it for the house," he said. "But the neighborhood has taken over."