‘Work of art’ home with incredibly unique feature that causes drivers to stop in the street goes on sale

A Pittsburgh home that appears to make a statement that is difficult to ignore has just hit the market and is unlike anything else in the city.

The four bedroom, three-and-a-half bathroom property set in leafy Squirrel Hill sees a fire-engine red exclamation point, essentially a two-story wall exploding from the front of what is an otherwise a normal-looking gray-brick home.

The iconic residence has stopped passing traffic for decades and is officially on sale for $725,000 and now drawing more stares than ever.

‘It happened almost daily,’ said longtime owner Channa Newman to the Pittsburgh Post Gazette. ‘I’d look out the window and see cars stopped in the middle of the street. People pointing. Sometimes they were brave enough to knock on the door and ask, “What is this?”‘

The private home made something of an architectural statement by the late visionary Arthur Lubetz, who once told Newman how he wanted his design to ‘sock it to the neighborhood’.

At first glance, the house seems to defy the laws of suburban design. 

The bright red wall protrudes like a dramatic punctuation mark as it slices through the center of the home and extends from the front all the way through to the back. 

Inside, the wall contains doorways, windows, even a closet, all seamlessly integrated.

‘Arthur encouraged people to think outside of the box and to question whether they may like to live a little differently,’ Newman said. 

The house was redesigned specifically for Newman after she inherited the original structure from her father in the early 1980s. 

Instead of gutting it herself, she gave Lubetz free rein so long as he honored her specific request to ‘make it original.’

Lubetz, known for his bold, often polarizing designs, worked closely with Newman to reimagine the home from the inside out. 

She told him she hated exposed wires so he hid them behind architectural features. 

The result was a home that was both practical and avant-garde – both grounded yet abstract. 

Even the paint used was quirky. Some walls were mixed with coffee grounds to create texture and durability and it appears to have worked. Newman claims to have never needed to repaint in 40 years.

‘It never looked faded,’ she said. ‘Not once.’ 

Inside, the home welcomes visitors with its large, open foyer with high ceilings, exposed original beams, and a glass half-wall that offers views into the kitchen and second floor. 

Newman described it as ‘a whole space that’s divided into open spaces.’ 

‘The whole house is a work of art,’ she said. ‘But it’s also comfortable. For 40 years, I lived in that house, and there was never a dull moment.’

The home even provided inspiration for Newman’s son, Elan Fessler, who was raised in the house and went on to become an architect himself, now teaching in Prague. 

The home, listed by The Cummings Brothers of RE/MAX Select Realty, includes a basement apartment complete with kitchen, bedroom, living space. A one-car garage and of course, the red wall.

The listing price of $725,000 and is well above the median for the area.

With the house hitting the market, it continues to turn heads with local residents still pausing to photograph the unique exterior.