Pittsburgh: Frick Art and Historical Center (November 2016)

My spouse and I visited the Frick Art and Historical Center Pittsburgh on a Friday afternoon in late November 2016. The Frick Pittsburgh is a 5.5-acre estate originally owned by industrialist Henry Clay Frick. The property includes the nineteenth-century residential mansion Clayton, the Frick Art Museum, the Car and Carriage Museum, the Greenhouse, and the Café. The estate is located in the Point Breeze neighborhood of Pittsburgh. You can park in a small parking lot on the grounds, or on surrounding streets. The estate is open on Tuesdays through Sundays from 10:00 am to 5:00 pm and until 9:00 pm on Fridays (closed on Mondays).

You must only pay to access the residence Clayton; the other points of interest on the estate offer complimentary access. The cost for the house tour is $12 per adult; however, enjoying the carriage house, art museum, greenhouse, café, museum store, and grounds is free. In this way, you can visit the estate during different times of the year in order to enjoy a special exhibit, the seasonal foliage, a tasty meal, to shop, or to stroll. Guided tours of the house occur at regularly scheduled intervals; however, because we visited on a holiday weekend when the estate was giving special evening tours, daytime tours of the house were self-guided. To compensate, the estate positioned a docent in each room who offered verbal information and answered questions. 

Clayton is an 11-room Italianate-style house built in the 1860s and purchased by the Fricks in 1881. The Fricks occupied Clayton as their primary residence until 1905, when they moved to New York City, establishing the Frick Collection in Manhattan. (We enjoyed a visit to the Frick Collection in NYC in July 2010.) In 1981, daughter Helen Clay Frick returned to Clayton, where she had previously spent part of each year, and remained there permanently until her death in 1984. Clayton opened to the public in 1990. In 1997, the owners enlarged the 1950s carriage house to create the Car and Carriage Museum. The number of cars displayed is impressive, ranging from carriages to motor vehicles from the 1880s to the 1940s. (Not all vehicles belonged to the Fricks; friends and neighbors donated some of the vehicles on display.) The Frick Art Museum's collection includes Renaissance and Baroque bronzes, nineteenth-century European paintings, and late Medieval and Renaissance religious and secular paintings. Highlights include one painting by Rubens and one by Monet.

Although we visit Pittsburgh often, we generally spend time in the downtown area, so we are pleased that we finally set aside time to visit this special complex.