Clarence and Mary Dravo Pettit commissioned construction of 1325 West North Avenue in 1891. It was designed by architect Thomas Scott in the Richardsonian Romanesque style that was widely used in design of public buildings and upper class and upper middle class homes built in the United States between the late 1880s and 1900. The style is expressed in the house’s asymmetrical facade, round corner tower with conical roof, rough-cut and smooth squared stone ornamentation, massive rounded stone arch leading to the recessed front porch and the use of classical Romanesque stone carving such as cushion capitals and interlacing.
The Pettit family lived at 1325 West North Avenue until 1912-1913 during which time Clarence Pettit was a commission and produce merchant in Downtown Pittsburgh. Before she married, Mary Dravo had graduated from the Pittsburgh Female College (now Chatham College). A brief entry in The Social Mirror (1888) reported “Mrs Clarence Pettit loves art for its own sake, and devotes all her spare time to cultivation of her talents in that direction.”
Clarence and Mary Pettit and all or most of their children appear to have left Pittsburgh in 1912-1913. It is possible that Clarence and Mary Pettit moved at that time to Edgeworth. By 1920, census records show that 1325 West North Avenue had been converted from a single-family home to three apartments. The current owner is only the third.