Lifestyles

For the 15th year, the South Side is opening its doors -- or at least eight of them -- to the public for the Historic South Side Home Tour.

Visitors are invited to tour seven South Side residences, located everywhere from a repurposed school to a former Duquesne Brewing building, and

WYEP-FM's new Community Broadcast Center. Also on the agenda are a Chinese auction and the Community Council's Ethnic Lunch (reservations needed).

One of the nontraditional homes featured this year is a condominium in what was, from the mid-1800s to the early 1990s, St. Michael the Archangel Church.

Darla Lewandowski bought the condominium in 2004, a move she says her parents "weren't real keen on."

"It was a mess when we saw it, but I saw potential somehow," she says.

The potential Lewandowski saw is now reality.

The living room's oversized black-and-gray furniture fills the large space. Cornflower-blue and rose arched windows, some with their original glass, punctuate the pale gray walls and light the way into the kitchen and dining room.

Stainless-steel appliances and plenty of glass keep the condo's eating area modern, but bright artwork and a blue-and-orange ceiling warm the room.

Around the corner in the bathroom, a slash of light blue paint on a bare white wall leads the eye to the window. Lewandowski says painter Tim Pisano talked her out of painting the entire bathroom blue, and chose to add only the brief bit of color instead.

Lewandowski explains that living in the South Side during her senior year at Duquesne University enticed her to look for a home in the area. The 27-year-old physical therapist says friends enjoy fireworks from the church's roof on the Fourth of July, and the proximity to the South Side's nightlife.

The South Side has changed a lot since Micky Irey, of Marianna, Washington County, has been there last.

Irey, who used to drive through the South Side every day on her way to work, is looking forward to the tour, partly because she has not been there since 1985. Irey has heard how much the South Side has changed and is now leaving her own unusual residence -- a log home she and husband Roy built in 1993 -- to see how the old neighborhood has shaped up.

She may stray from the tour to visit her old 1956 Dodge truck, which now serves as an advertising vehicle for the Pittsburgh Jeans Company.

Rick Belloli, executive director of the South Side Local Development Company, which produces the tour, says he wants people to appreciate the South Side's variety.

"The easiest way to do that is to bring people into the neighborhood and show them what we have to offer."

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