Tony Tye, Post-Gazette In Brenda Etschmaier's 1869 home, which is on the Lawrenceville Hospitality House Tour, a turn-of-the-century light fixture illuminates the dining room table.. Click photo for larger image. Lawrenceville Hospitality House Tour When:: Noon to 5 p.m. tomorrow. Where: Begins at Coca Cafe, 39th and Butler streets. Free parking at Rite Aid/UPMC St. Margaret's lot, 40th and Butler streets. Transportation by Molly's Trolleys. Tickets: $8 in advance at local shops; $10 on tour day at Coca Cafe and UPMC lot. Information: 412-681-8191 or www.lawrencevillehousetour.org.

Brenda Etschmaier has lived in many different cities and countries, including Germany, Austria, Cleveland and Ann Arbor, Mich. But the locale that gets her loudest raves is Lawrenceville, where she is rehabbing a late 19th-century home.

"It's just marvelous," says the British-born Realtor, noting -- with a mixture of pleasure and pride -- that the community holds its own Halloween and Fourth of July parades, as well as a fabulously attended Christmas light-up night with the mayor.

"Everyone is involved," she says, as her partner Richard Zavada nods his head in agreement. "You meet people and remain friends forever."

Etschmaier's not afraid to mention another big attraction of the neighborhood: Houses there are still affordable.

Take the two-story Italianate house at the corner of 44th and Foster streets that she bought six years ago. One of 13 open tomorrow for the Lawrenceville Hospitality House Tour, the narrow, two-story, red brick home built in the late 1860s cost Etschmaier $50,000.

Of course, it needed a good bit of work -- all new gutters, plumbing and electrical, two new furnaces and landscaping in the front and back. But it also boasted architectural details, like original tin ceilings and century-old yellow pine floors, that more than made up for its deficits.

"I just liked the feel of it," she says.

Tomorrow's tour will offer visitors a feel for Lawrenceville, which is bounded by the Allegheny River and Penn Avenue, picking up where The Strip District leaves off around 28th Street and stretching all the way to the 62nd Street Bridge. The self-guided walking tour is sponsored by the Lawrenceville Historical Society and Lawrenceville Stakeholders, a community organization that promotes the revitalization and development of Lawrenceville's residential sector.

In addition to showing off the variety of architectural styles, the tour plays up the neighborhood's growing arts community by featuring the work of local artists in each of the houses on tour.

Tony Tye, Post-Gazette The rear courtyard of Brenda Etschymaier's 1869 home includes a herb garden and an arbor. Click photo for larger image.

Etschmaier's house, for example, contains 40 pieces by her 33-year-old daughter Alexandra Etschmaier, a mixed-media artist who has been exhibited at the Slaughterhouse Gallery & Studios on Butler Street and is renovating her own 140-year-old fixer-upper on 39th Street. One of her more interesting pieces is in her mother's foyer: an Art Nouveau-style hall tree made from two sign posts and plate steel.

Etschmaier, who moved to Pittsburgh from Germany in 1970, first discovered the neighborhood in 1994, when she bought a rental property on 46th Street for her children. She moved in herself four years later.

Her home, a comfortable and eye-catching study in contrasts, is filled with an eclectic mix of antiques and more modern pieces. The kitchen is a prime example. One corner holds a Hoosier cabinet she stripped, sanded and painted white. The original brick chimney rising above a gas fireplace is decorated with an old oxen harness from Austria, an antique bellow and English horse brasses. An English miner's lamp dating from the 1880s sits atop the white Shaker-style cabinetry.

The room's modern components are metal bar stools Etschmaier found on eBay and the sleek, stainless steel hood that hangs above the stainless-steel Kenmore Elite stove.

The dining room, painted a bold, rusty red, is more traditional. A glass china closet in front of an old hearth holds Etschmaier's beloved collection of antique perfume bottles, tea cups and match strikers. A turn-of-the-century light fixture she found at Royal York Auction Gallery illuminates the rosewood table.

Soft green walls, honey-colored pine floors and 12-foot ceilings lend an air of elegance to the formal living room, which is decorated with a vintage carousel horse from England and old-time family photos. More family photos hang in a small alcove leading to the dining room, dubbed "the Salon."

Etschmaier's understated touch continues on the outside. A nasty tangle of weeds and tree roots just six years ago, the front yard today is an eye-catching cocoon of color and texture. Here, red and white roses, bee balm and hydrangeas intermingle with verbena, astragalus and lots of hosta and daisies.

"There's something flowering every time of the year," she says.

The landscaped courtyard at the rear of the house, off the clematis-draped back porch, is even more impressive. A large herb garden dotted with showy, fragrant lavender lies to the right of the steps, and an arbor facing Foster Street hangs heavy with trumpet vine.

The focal point is a large pond surrounded by containers full of geraniums and dairies and adorned with a contemporary steel sculpture by Alexandra.

"When we first moved in, we couldn't get anything to come up," says Etschmaier, shaking her head at the memory. "Then we cut down two maples and whoosh! Everything grows."

That also describes her love for the neighborhood, which she maintains gets better every year.

"Every crummy building is being taken over and restored," she says.

Etschmaier's experience is hardly an isolated one, says Sandy DeTemple, a tour committee member who has lived in Lawrenceville for more than 30 years.

"People come and just fall in love, and after that have 80 or 90 new best friends."