A Clayton Christmas
A winter view of Clayton
A close-up of the decorated dining table at Clayton, the historic home of the Henry Clay Frick family
The dining room at Clayton, the historic home of the Henry Clay Frick family, decorated for the holidays
The entrance to the Frick mansion
The enclosed porch at Clayton, decorated for the holidays
The hallway inside the entrance to Clayton, the historic home of the Henry Clay Frick family
PITTSBURGH – The wife of Pittsburgh coke baron Henry Clay Frick didn’t overly decorate her mansion for Christmas, keeping it simply adorned here and there with potted poinsettia, pine garlands, flowers, ivy and moss.
It would have been difficult for Christmas decorations of any kind to compete with the opulence of the couple’s mansion they named Clayton, which boasts hand-carved Honduran mahogany on the walls in the dining room and red velvet wallpaper adorned with silver thread and mother of pearl beads in the parlor.
“We do make an effort to not make it done up,” said Dawn Reid, associate director of decorative arts at the Frick Pittsburgh, where Clayton is open for tours.
“It was never over the top,” Reid said, adding that the museum at 7227 Reynolds St. has photographs of how the Fricks decorated at Christmas and uses them to recreate that look.
The dining room this holiday season is arranged to show the “elaborate culture of dining and entertainment” at the Fricks’ home in the late 19th century.
“It’s all about the visual presentation,” Reid said. “You need to be a bit of a magician to make it as beautiful as it can be.”
Anyone who received an invitation for a holiday dinner at Clayton might have been served quality beef, lamb, poultry and fruit on a table designed to seat 22 people if every leaf was on the table.
Adelaide Howard Childs Frick’s finest china and as many 500 pieces of silverware would have been spread out before her dinner guests if the table was set for a large gathering.
This was what high Victorian-style wealth expected in a section of Pittsburgh known as Millionaires’ Row, where the Fricks enjoyed exclusive and luxurious living with such families as the Mellon brothers, H.J. Heinz and George Westinghouse as their neighbors.
Frick was born Dec. 19, 1849, in West Overton near Connellsville, and he went on to make his fortune by baking coal in as many as 10,000 beehive ovens to supply nearly 80 percent of the coke sold to the Pittsburgh’s steel and iron manufacturers. His legacy would be marred by his ordering Pinkerton guards in July 1892 to break a steelworkers’ strike in Homestead. The clash ended in a battle in which 10 men were killed and dozens injured.
The Fricks had purchased an Italianate-style house in Pittsburgh’s East End a decade earlier and later remodeled it into the 22-room Clayton.
December was filled with family celebrations there as Mrs. Frick also marked her birthday and wedding anniversary that month.
The Gilded Age dining room was the most important room in Clayton, the only surviving intact mansion on Millionaires’ Row.
The table this year was set for six guests with a porcelain centerpiece adorned with cherubs and dolphins, and a dessert service, both created by Minton of England. The table settings are known as Parian ware, a type of porcelain made to resemble marble, Reid said. The table also features two ornate pairs of silver scissors designed to elegantly separate grapes from a bunch.
Had the table been “done up” for a larger gathering, there could have been as many as 17 pieces of flatware for each dinner guest, Reid said.
Evergreen swags and holly that would have needed routine replacing during the holiday season adorn the marble fireplace and elaborate silver-plated chandelier in the dining room.
A Christmas tree decorated with reproduction glass ornaments sits in the enclosed porch, true to tradition. Visitors this season will pause there at the end of the tour to hear Christmas music played on Henry Clay Frick’s orchestrion, a machine built to sound like a band or orchestra.
In 1905, the Fricks moved to New York. However, they returned to Clayton to celebrate every Christmas.
“That’s what makes Clayton so special. It remains in their hearts,” Reid said.
The couple’s daughter, Helen Clay Frick, returned to live in Clayton in 1981, and she left provisions in her will to have the home remain open to the public as a museum after her death, in 1984.
The holiday tours run through Jan. 10, and reservations are suggested. The museum is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday. Additional “winter Friday” hours are 5 to 9 p.m. Dec. 11 and 18 and Jan. 8.
For more information, call 412-371-0600, or visit www.thefrickpittsburgh.org/