The house sits on a corner in Mount Vernon, brick from the foundation to the eaves, with a slate roof laid down in 1938 and still good for another generation. A Japanese maple keeps watch out front. River stones edge the beds. The walk runs under an arched doorway and into rooms where the hardwood has just been refinished, every board on every floor, so new the light catches differently in the morning than it will by fall.
The living room turns toward the fireplace. It's gas now, but the carved mantel is the one the house was built with, and the arched openings to either side are too. They lead into the dining room, where the chandelier hangs low over the table and crown molding traces the ceiling all the way around. A pass-through cut into the wall opens onto the kitchen: white cabinets, stainless appliances, French-door refrigerator, Maytag range, dishwasher, microwave, all of them staying with the house.
Two bedrooms upstairs, tucked under the dormers, both proper rooms with proper closets, original hardwoods, ceiling fans, and the kind of built-in nooks with drawers that seamlessly tuck into the walls. The bath between them is white-tiled, bright, and ready to use the day you move in.
The deck is the part that earns its keep in summer. It comes off the dining room and wraps the side and back of the house in a long L, covered the whole way, with a canvas awning and string lights running the length of it. Past the railing the land falls away into the river valley. The yard below is flat and private, deep enough to be unusual on this street, hedged in evergreens, with room for a garden, a dog, a long table on the Fourth of July.
Downstairs, the basement is the kind you actually want. Painted floor and walls, glass block windows letting in real daylight, a utility sink, a laundry area, dry underfoot. A clean canvas for a workshop or a gym or a finished room someday. Above the garage there's a separate walk-up bonus room that does the same trick for storage or a hobby.
The bones are sound and the systems are recent. High-efficiency Goodman gas furnace, central air, Filtrete Ultra Allergen filtration, updated electrical panel. The garage floor was poured new in concrete. The paint throughout is fresh and neutral. The attached 1-car garage has an opener.
Mount Vernon is quiet, tree-lined, the kind of street where people wave from porches. Downtown New Kensington is five minutes away and worth the trip: Voodoo Brewing, Tortured Souls, Common Oven Pizza, Knead Community Cafe, Preserving Record Shop, Las Hachas, and Fridays on Fifth all summer. The historic district is on the National Register. Route 28 puts you in Pittsburgh fast. The Allegheny River trail is close. Schools are New Kensington-Arnold.
This one was kept by people who loved it. Come see it before someone else does.
