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Once again, the Tiffany stained-glass windows will glow, the intricate wood molding will gleam and flames will dance in the dozen fireplaces framed by hand-painted tile and ornate carvings at the McCook mansion on Fifth Avenue in Shadyside -- once known as Millionaire's Row.

Vacant and boarded-up since an electrical fire damaged its third floor last year, the 99-year-old mansion will be transformed into a bed-and-breakfast -- complete with a grand hall, game room, library and chapel.

The new owners said they hope the inn -- which also will include a neighboring mansion on Amberson Avenue -- will receive historic designation after the restoration is completed next year.

"These mansions are part of our heritage," said property co-owner Richard Pearson, 55. "They tell you something about the financiers and the industrialists that built Pittsburgh, but they're also a testament to the craftsmen and artisans that built the city. I can't imagine anyone tearing them down."

Pearson and his wife, Mary Del Brady, of Shadyside, and Tom Dixon and Barbara Valchess, of Highland Park, closed on the $1.4 million property July 29, said Peg Lampenfield, the Howard Hanna Real Estate Services agent who sold the mansions.

Marie and Emil Bonavita Jr. had put the property on the market before the fire and held out for two years, hoping for a buyer who would restore the McCook mansion.

"We waited for a long time because we did not want the house torn down," Marie Bonavita said. "When (the present owners) came along and wanted to make a bed-and-breakfast out of it, we thought it was wonderful."

The three-story, limestone McCook mansion was built by the Pittsburgh architectural firm of Carpenter and Crocker in 1906 for prominent city attorney Willis McCook, his wife and their eight children, Pearson said. In 1917, McCook had the firm build a red-brick mansion on part of the property facing Amberson Avenue for his eldest daughter, Bessie McCook Reed.

The family lost the property during the Great Depression. In 1949, Emil Bonavita Sr. and his wife, Margaret, purchased it at a sheriff's sale. The Bonavitas lived in a first-floor apartment and rented the rest of the house to college students. In the 1960s, they also bought the Reed mansion, where Emil Jr. and Marie lived.

On Saturday, the new owners will open the property to invited neighbors, said Jennifer Brady, a step-daughter of Pearson.

Brady, 28, is living in the Reed mansion. After the restoration, she will move into the McCook mansion as proprietress and events coordinator. Elizabeth Weber, who runs a bed-and-breakfast in Washington D.C., will manage the inn.

After the restoration is finished, the public will be invited to tour the 36,000-square-foot property and celebrate the McCook mansion's 100th anniversary, Brady said.

The McCook mansion will have 13 suites, some featuring fireplaces and jacuzzis. The two-story honeymoon suite probably will include a private spa, Pearson said. A chapel on the second floor will accommodate small weddings or recommitment ceremonies. And several first-floor rooms can be used for meetings, he said.

The Reed mansion, also three stories, will have another nine suites, Pearson said.

Both mansions will be furnished with antiques or reproductions from the early 1900s, Pearson said. Utilities will be updated, and wireless Internet will be accessible throughout, he said.

Michael Cook, who has lived around the block from the property for eight years, said he is happy the mansion will not be torn down or turned into student housing.

"I'm glad to know that someone is going to restore the building," he said. "I think architecturally it's significant as one of the few remaining examples of Pittsburgh's Gilded Age."

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