Chatham Village Historic District

Built in the Mt. Washington hills of Pittsburgh between 1932 and 1956, Chatham Village is a community of 197 attached brick dwellings arranged in courts on a steeply sloping, terraced site. The Buhl Foundation commissioned it as a philanthropic project to provide quality rental housing for moderate-income working families, including Pittsburgh clerical workers. Planners Clarence Stein and Henry Wright adapted the superblock, interior green and reverse-front house design they had tested at Sunnyside Gardens and Radburn, with houses facing private courtyards and service areas facing the streets. The Georgian Revival buildings use red brick, slate roofs and multi-light wood windows, and the grounds include walled terraces, stairways and a wooded greenbelt. The community is valued for its influence on federal housing programs of the 1930s, on garden apartment design, and on later planned suburbs.