So rarely do Dufda and I go to anything that is outside of Starbucks or dinner. We are pretty mundane when we plan our activities. That is why I was so excited to go to the Mansions on Fifth with my parents and aunt and uncle. The reason that they were going was their friends Dave and Maureen Budway were playing a Christmas concert at the Mansion. The Mansion also happens to be owned by my aunts good friend. This made us feel unusually welcomed from the moment that I walked in the door. A couple of day later I asked my dad, "Didn't it feel like everyone treated us like we were their best friends?" He definitely agreed.
One of the things that I love about living in Pittsburgh is the great history that everything brings. This mansion belonged to Willis F. McCook who was Henry Clay Frick's attorney. McCook's family lived here in the early 1900's and is situated on Millionaires Row. This is where all the steel industry big wigs lived back in the day. When this mansion was first erected, the cost was a towering $300,000 in 1906.
The mansion was then bought by the Bonavita family in 1946 for a measly $48,000. This family actually rented rooms on the second and third floor to Carnegie Mellon, University of Pittsburgh and Chatham students. Hopefully, those students weren't like the ones that I rent to in Oakland now. There is a second mansion that sits behind the McCook Mansion that the Bonavitas also purchased. Margaret, wife of Emil Bonavita lived in the main mansion until 2003 when she died. In 2004 a fire broke out on the third floor of the main mansion making it uninhabitable. The couple decided to sell off the mansions to someone who would restore them to their original beauty.
They were bought in 2005 by my aunt's really good friends who set out to bring these mansions back as well as upgrade them to make an unique boutique hotel experience. One of the things that I think is wonderful about the restoration of the mansions, they were completed in the most green fashion that could be done. Everything that could be reused was and products and furnishings were purchased as local as they could be.
Now enough of the history... We went for a concert and a great concert is what we got. Dave and Maureen Budway were names that I heard growing up because they just so happen to be customers of my dad. I remember getting out of school early and my mom taking me down to Matta Motors for my dad's Christmas party. Dave was playing this small little keyboard and putting on a show for like 7 or so employees. The weekend after the show we were just at, he went to play at the White House...you can say he has upgraded. Dave and Maureen our brother and sister which makes for a great connection while they sing. Two of my favorite songs where their rendition of Santa Baby and then they went through and were singing different "country themed" Christmas songs, ending with a Lebanese Jingle Bells that was pretty hilarious.
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