Boggs Mansion on North Side comes with a lot of house and a lot of history
It’s made of stone and has its original slate roof. It’s 9,000 square feet with eight guest rooms and nine bathrooms, a third floor ballroom, a European fireplace made of blood marble — a sturdy substance normally used to build royal tombs — finely crafted American chestnut woodwork and a dramatic spiral staircase.
If that weren’t enough, rumor has it there’s a hidden painting underneath the painted over beams in the ceiling, a secret basement and a ghost that witnesses claim to have seen gliding up the stairs.
It’s the Boggs Mansion and it can be yours for $2.5 million.
“It’s like ‘Gone with the Wind’ inside,” said Jeff Stasko, 65, who owns the house with his husband Karl Kargle, 75. “It’s got a grand staircase, beautiful marble fireplaces. It’s just a grand house, beautiful inside. It has nice, big spacious rooms. It’s right across (West North Avenue) from (West) Park and Lake Elizabeth with a skyline view of the City of Pittsburgh.”
It was owned by one of the wealthiest families in the City of Pittsburgh, headed by Russell H. Boggs, who made his fortune owning the Boggs and Buhl department store on the North Side with his business partner Henry Buhl. Boggs had the house built in 1888 and curious employees would come by to check out the place for themselves.
“It’s a miniature ‘Downton Abbey’ in Pittsburgh,” Stasko said.
Built by H.H. Richardson, who designed the Allegheny County Courthouse, it became a party place for Pittsburgh’s elite, including Andrew Carnegie and Henry Frick.
“When you came to this home, you were dressed to the T — top coats and top hats and women in their finest gowns and jewelry,” Stasko said.
Realtor/advisor Jason Carr of Compass Real Estate said that when it comes to this property, there’s a lot to be impressed by.
“I’m fascinated with the imprint that the Boggs mansion has left on the old Allegheny City corridor. Vibrant tales of dinner parties and affluent Pittsburgh aristocrats and debutants, bloodstone marble reserved for royalty, rare American chestnut paneling — there’s just so much to marvel at,” Carr said.
For all of its history, the house eventually fell into disrepair. Boggs died in 1922 from injuries suffered playing polo and the place eventually deteriorated badly. It likely would have been demolished had it not been for Stasko and Kargle, both retired teachers who committed themselves to the monumental task of restoring the Boggs mansion.
“We wanted to bring it back to the way it was when the Boggs owned the home,” Stasko said.
“It was a lot of work,” Stasko said, adding that they put $1.5 million into the restoration.
Allegheny County property records show that Stasko purchased the property in 1997.
Eventually they restored the mansion to its former glory and turned it into a bed and breakfast called the Inn on the Mexican War Streets. It’s zoned commercial as a boutique hotel. Stasko and Kargle took up residence in the carriage house behind the mansion and also ran a fine dining establishment called Acanthus out of the place for a couple of years that earned a nod for “Best Restaurant in Pittsburgh” from Pittsburgh Magazine.
But running a restaurant became too much work for Stasko and Kargle, who have decided that they are ready to retire from the bed and breakfast business as well.
Though they were not scared away from the place or anything of that sort, there have been rumors of spirit sightings on the property.
“There is a sub basement in the mansion and it had been sealed off some years ago,” Stasko said. “Rumor has it that there is a coffin buried in the basement of the mansion. We did have some psychics here because we had some strange phenomenal things happening and we couldn’t understand what was going on. This one psychic came in and went to the top of the basement steps. We never told him anything about a coffin or rumors about it, but the psychic got to the top of the steps and said he would not go down into the basement, that there is a coffin (buried there).”
Stasko said that according to the lore, there is a boy inside the coffin whose spirit roams the mansion. The stories indicate the boy was the child of the caretaker of Mr. Boggs’ carriages and his horses. The boy was friends with Boggs’ daughter Emma.
“Rumor has it that they were playing up in the ballroom of the mansion and the little boy had broken something of Mr. Boggs that was very valuable. His dad beat him and Mr. Boggs also beat the little boy, and the wounds were so severe that the little boy died from it.”
Stasko said Boggs’ made sure details of the incident were kept quiet otherwise his grand department store business would have been ruined.
“Rumor has it that the boy liked the house so they buried him in the sub basement and it’s been sealed off ever since,” Stasko said. “We’ve had a few people leave in the middle of the night because they’ve said they’ve seen auras going up the grand staircase at night that looked like a ghost floating.”
Creepy stories aside, Stasko said there are plenty of things he and Kargle will miss about the Boggs mansion once it’s sold and they have to leave.
“We’ll miss the nice big spacious rooms and being across the street from a park and a lake and the skyline view of the city of Pittsburgh. It is beautiful,” he said.
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